The Second Sunday of Lent (Year A)
Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother,
and led them up a high mountain by themselves.
And he was transfigured before them;
his face shone like the sun
and his clothes became white as light.
And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them,
conversing with him.
—Matthew 17:1-3
In her Revelations of Divine Love, the medieval mystic Blessed Julian of Norwich wrote:
I saw Him and still sought Him,
For we are now so blind and so unwise that we never seek God
until He of His goodness shows Himself to us;
and when we see anything of Him by grace, then are we moved by
the same grace to try with great desire to see Him more perfectly.
And thus I saw Him and I sought Him,
and I possessed Him and I lacked Him.
And this is, and should be, our ordinary behavior in life.
Unlike Dame Julian and other mystics who experience the reality of God’s presence in a unique way, we are often very quick to try to note the distinctions—the boundaries—between the human and the divine. Even our ways of talking about God can make the divine realities seem far-removed from our daily lives. The Church’s greatest minds and grace-filled mystics have understood that our limited human perspectives, especially our words, fail us when we are allowed even the slightest glimpse of the glory of God.
“The light that Jesus shows the disciples is an anticipation of Easter glory, and that must be the goal of our own journey, as we follow “him alone”. Lent leads to Easter: the “retreat” is not an end in itself, but a means of preparing us to experience the Lord’s passion and cross with faith, hope and love, and thus to arrive at the resurrection.”
-Pope Francis, Message for Lent 2023
The Transfiguration of Jesus—the wonderful way in which the divine glory of Jesus was revealed to Peter, James, and John—was truly a mountaintop experience for the Apostles and marked a pivotal moment in his life and mission, just as his baptism had been years before. But It’s also easy to imagine Saint Matthew struggling with the limits of language as he tried to tell the story of what happened on the mountain that day.
A cloud, a sign of God’s presence, overshadowed Jesus and Moses and Elijah (who represent the law of the Old Covenant and the preaching of the Prophets) and the Apostles were given an opportunity to see beyond and through the physical reality of Jesus to see the divinity that was also truly his. While they could never have imagined what the coming days and weeks would bring for their friend and teacher, this glimpse of Jesus’ divinity was a gift that they would later draw on to understand the meaning of his passion and death, as well as the truth of his resurrection.
“Jesus wants us to see his glory, so that we can cling to that experience… When we are attentive to the light within us and around us, we will gradually see more and more of that light and even become a light for others. We have to trust that the transfiguration experience is closer to us that we might think. Trusting that, we may also be able to live our Gethsemane experience without losing our faith.”—Henri Nouwen
As we enter the second week of Lent, the liturgy is offering us a glimpse of the light the purple darkness of these days. And, just as the Apostles were offered that transcendent experience of Christ’s divinity on Mount Tabor, the same diving light shines for us, showing us the way forward as we continue our Lenten journey.
Open yourself today—in the liturgy, the proclamation with the Word of God, the celebration of the Eucharist, and in our moments of communion with one another—to be the mountaintop experience that it is. Pray for the grace to let the words that so often crowd our minds fall away and ask for gift of sight and the grace to listen, ever more attentively, to the One who is “the Beloved Son.”
O God, who have commanded us
to listen to your beloved Son,
be pleased, we pray,
to nourish us inwardly by your word,
that, with spiritual sight made pure,
we may rejoice to behold your glory.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever. Amen.
-Collect for the Second Sunday of Lent
