Gospel Reflection for Second Sunday of Lent – 25th February 2018

2nd Sunday of Lent

 (Sunday 25th February 2018)

 

 

Our transfiguration into Jesus comes about little by little – (Mark 9:2-10)

If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (Jn. 14:22)

While Matthew presents the Transfiguration as a proclamation of Jesus as the new Moses, and Luke emphasises the approaching Passion, Mark – following the dominant theme of his Gospel – sees in it above all a glorious manifestation of the hidden Messiah.  During his earthly life, Jesus had the appearance of a man like all other men: “being found in human form”, as St. Paul says (see Phil. 2:7).   Jesus was subject to the ordinary conditions of human life: He was hungry, thirsty, tired, etc.  That was the humble existence to which the apostles were daily witnesses.  And now, on the mountain they see Him transfigured; His divinity shines out, in all its power, through the veil of His humanity.  “His clothes”, says St. Mark, “became dazzlingly white, whiter than any earthly bleacher could make them”.

The presence of Moses and Elijah is a proof to Peter, James and John that Jesus respects the Law and is in accord with the prophets.  To complete the evidence upon the divinity of Jesus, the Eternal Father makes His voice heard.  Moses and Elijah disappeared when the voice of the Father tells them to listen to His Son.  Jesus replaces the Old Law of servitude, with the New Law of love.  To be a child of the Eternal Father, we have only to listen to Jesus:  “My sheep hear my voice” (Jn 10:27).  But listening to Him properly needs silence; needs our retiring often, as Jesus did at the Transfiguration, to a solitary place “by ourselves”.  It is through prayer that he reveals Himself to us, so as to transfigure us in Him.

In the Transfiguration we see a revelation of our future greatness.  That glory which encircles Jesus is to become our portion: Jesus gives to us, as His members, the right to share in the inheritance He possesses as God’s own Son.  It is through the cross that Jesus conducts us to life, and because He knows we are weak in trial, He wished by His transfiguration to show us what glory we are called to share with Him if we remain faithful.  Our transfiguration into Jesus comes about little by little, interiorly, until the day when it will be revealed, radiant in that company of the saints.  Here below, by grace, we are children of God; but what, in consequence of this adoption, we one day shall be, we do not yet know: “Now we are children of God; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 Jn. 3:2).

Fr. Colm Mannion, O.P.