Did you watch the Oscars last Sunday? What razzle and dazzle, the stage was radiant with sparkling light and the voices rang out in proclamation “And the award goes to”. Well wait till you hear the Gospel proclamation for Sunday the Second Week of Lent – here is a description of another amazing experience of dazzlingly light and a voice proclaiming “This is my Beloved; listen to him”. Just before this extraordinary experience, Jesus and three of his good friends had trekked up a high mountain peak: made a huge effort to arrive at this sacred space where no one knew what would occur, what the results would be. But then a flash of dazzlingly light and words of intimate conviction! An extraordinary revelation! A vision that clarified and claimed Jesus as the beloved of God.
The Oscars may honour the extreme effort and talent of cast and crew, writer and artistic designer, composer and special effects. But the Gospel passage invites us into contemplating what this transforming scene might mean for each of us faith filled pilgrims in our daily life, far from the hype of TV cameras.
Circumstances like this are rare for most of us. I am not quite sure how I would react. But we are told in other gospel renderings that the three on-lookers were so engaged that they wanted to stay – to sustain this mysterious joy? In spite of their response Jesus urged them to move on and not to say a word about what was revealed.
And yet our world needs to know that such amazing love is beckoning us. At a time when the earth and its people are in much need of healing, is not this tale important to tell?
The passage tells us that the four returned to the ordinary ways of life, eating and drinking at table with the sick, the fragile, the broken, the lost. Perhaps the invitation “Listen to him!” became a mantra for his friends, as Jesus welcomed the stranger, spoke words of comfort to those in sorrow, prayed for the release of disturbing illnesses of the mind.
Jay Cormier in reflecting on this passage suggests that: “The challenge of discipleship is to allow the love of God within us to “transfigure” despair into hope, sadness into joy, anguish into healing, estrangement into community.” Can we find that depth of amazing love, as gift within ourselves, and become the vessels for God to “transfigure” terror into beauty?
Loretta Manzara CSJ
Jay Cormier quotation from “Daily Reflections for Lent, Not by Bread Alone, 2010”, Liturgical Press, Collegeville, MN, page 29. Liturgical Press grants gratis permission for one-time use.