We must never forget that He is up here on this altar just as truly as He was on Mt. Tabor.

Homily for Second Sunday of Lent- Luke 9:28b-36

Even though we are still at the beginning of Lent, the Church gives us the true account of the Transfiguration of Jesus. It should seem odd to have this passage at the beginning of Lent because we have a Gospel that seems to point to the end of Lent. Instead of Jesus preaching a message of repentance, turning away from sin, the Church gives us the Transfiguration. Why is this?

Well, it is always easier to start a journey (esp. a difficult journey) when we know clearly where we are going. Before Jesus was to enter Jerusalem for His passion and death, He took Peter, James and John up a mountain. The Father desired to strengthen them and to show them the end of the journey that they were about to start. The end was the resurrection and ascension-Jesus risen from the dead and glorified at the Right Hand of the Father.

The Transfiguration was a pre-figuration of the power and glory of the resurrection. It was an epiphany, a manifestation of Jesus divinity, of His divine power shinning though his human body. Jesus humanity was, in a sense, a veil that covered His Divinity. Remember, when Jesus walked visibly on earth, He would have look like an ordinary person, only through the eyes of faith could you have seen that He not merely a man, but was Divine, was God. At the transfiguration, however, the disciples got a peek of the Divine Nature of Jesus shinning through the human body; the veil was move aside slightly and a sliver of his infinite power and Glory was revealed.

The disciples were about to enter into the Passion of the Christ. The disciples’ faith and trust in Jesus were going to be tested in the crucible of suffering. They would be struggling especially in their hearts, as they would see their master suffer and die. They struggled to believe and to hope. They struggled to love. They struggled to stay awake just one hour in prayer with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. They struggled with betrayal, especially Peter. The Father knew this struggle was going to take place in the hearts of Jesus’ apostles; He desired them to be strengthened prior to the horrible events of the Passion of the Christ with a vision of the victory that would take place. The Transfiguration was a glimpse of heaven, a sneak peak at heaven, in order to banish from the disciples’ souls the scandal of the cross.

Our Lord in His Divine Mercy allowed Peter, James, and John to enjoy for a very short time the contemplation of the happiness that lasts forever, so as to enable them to bear adversity with greater fortitude, so as to see adversity as a way to holiness, as a way to grow closer to Jesus, to become more like Him. You would think they would have written volumes about what they saw, but they didn’t because there are no words, because “eye has not seen, hear has not heard…” But, there is no doubt that the memory of those moments beside Our Lord on the mountain helped those apostles, not only during Jesus Passion and death, but later as well through many difficult moments in their lives. In the midst of struggles, pain and suffering, they remembered what they saw on that mountain and it helped them not to give up, but to keep going. They remembered what they saw on that mountain, the end that they would share in if they but remained faithful--they would share not only in the resurrection, but in the very glory and divinity of Jesus Christ.

Like the disciples we too struggle not only in lent but in our lives, like them we too struggle to faithfully follow our Lord during difficult and trying times. We battle with sin everyday; we struggle to convert, to conform our lives to Christ Jesus, especially when we are given a share in His passion and suffering. In our day, we may struggle more than ever to believe in Jesus and the Church’s teachings and to live them. We struggle like the apostles to spend just one hour in prayer with Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. We struggle with hope when the cross gets heavy or life doesn’t make sense. We struggle to forgive that person who has hurt us. We struggle to love as we should in a world that does not always love in return. And we struggle to Love God and grow closer to Him through our proper worship of Him. Our Lord uses Lent, just like He uses all of the crosses and difficulties in our life in order to remind us that we just can’t go it alone, we like the apostles need, absolutely need the help of the power of his divinity which comes to us through his humanity, truly present to us in the Holy Eucharist.

Jesus desires to be with us right in the midst of all our daily struggles, daily crosses; He knows how weak we really are. He has given to us His transfiguration to remind us He is God and as such He alone as the power to help us in this life. Just as he helped the disciples to face the trials of their lives, Jesus will come with all of his divinity, and His transforming power to help us and strengthen us. He will come with his divine love and be with us in our own struggles and crosses. He will help us not only to bear our crosses but give us the grace to use them to grow in holiness, to use them to grow closer to Him and even to use them to conform us to Him more fully.

Let us look up to him through the tears of everyday burdens and pains. Jesus showed the brightness, the joy, the hope, the power of His inner God-ness and goodness in the Transfiguration, so that every heart in the world could take courage and realize He is the Savior, the Healer, in every sense of the word. He showed himself bright and powerful to encourage you and me in the sufferings of our own lives and to give us the trust and hope that these sufferings can become the very means to transform us into saints. We too can look upon His transfigured and glorified body in the Holy Eucharist; this glimpse of His glory through the eyes of faith, will also help us, just as it help the disciples, to make it through life, remaining faithful to Jesus to the end.

When we look at the Holy Eucharist we look at our end, our Goal which is Jesus. And so, we have to look upon the Crucified Jesus truly present in the Holy Eucharist, lifted up for our salvation; if we do not we will not see the end of our journey, and so lose hope in the difficulties of the journey. We have to look upon the crucified Jesus truly present in the Eucharist so that we will not give up in our struggle to become holier this Lent and during our lives. In faith, if we become little, we too can see Jesus' power and glory, His divinity shining through the little white host.

It is the Holy Mass that makes the transfigured Jesus present to us, it is the holy Mass that makes the divinity of Jesus and His divine power present to us, because the Mass makes the Humanity of Jesus present, His body, blood, soul and divinity. Let us look up to Jesus in all the glory and power of his transfigured Body here in the Holy Mass. We must never forget that He is up here on this altar just as truly as He was on Mt. Tabor.

This lent let us open our hearts to be converted, that Jesus might transform us, so that we might grow in holiness. Lent is a time a dying to self, but only so that Jesus can live anew in us. This is the goal of lent, that we might be transformed, so that the transfigured Jesus might shine through our human nature for the world to see, so that other may see Him through our holiness of live and thus be led to Jesus, the source of hope.

It is the desire of the Father to do this- to really transform us- to begin the work here on earth that will fully manifest itself in heaven. Let us place our faith and confidence in Christ, who desires this for us. Let us also look to the Blessed Virgin Mary, for in her life we see this transformation. Her life was filled with the daily struggles of all of us and through her suffering, she became the source of hope for all of us. May she accompany us especially this Lent and help this time to be a time of deeper surrender to the transforming power of the sacraments.