Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for the Second Sunday of Lent, A, Vigil

March 4, 2023

 

To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/3.4.23_Landry_ConCon_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily:

* This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a joy to join you again and ponder with you the consequential conversation Jesus wants to have with us in the Gospel this Sunday, as we, with the apostles Peter, James and John, behold Jesus transfigured among us.

* Every year ten days into Lent the Church has us journey with Jesus to the top of an exceedingly high mountain. It does so for the same reason why God the Father conceded to Peter, James and John the experience of the Transfiguration in the first place: to give them a foretaste of Jesus Christ’s glory, to sustain them when they would see Jesus transfigured in blood, pain and suffering on Good Friday.

* We see the connection between Mt. Tabor and Mt. Calvary, between the glory of the Transfiguration and the glorification of Christ on the throne of the Cross, in what the subject matter of the conversation between Jesus and the two great heroes of the Old Testament, Moses and Elijah, was. Moses and Elijah are both precursors of Lent. Elijah had lived a Lent of 40 days crossing the desert to the mountain of God, Horeb, being hunted by King Ahab. Moses had spent 40 days in prayer at the top of Mt. Sinai. They came specifically to speak with Jesus not about the glory that was to come, not about Heaven, but about the culmination of the Lenten Season: Jesus’ suffering, Cross and death. St. Luke tells us they spoke about the “exodus” that Jesus was to accomplish in Jerusalem, when he would lead us, like Moses led the Israelites from slavery through water and the desert to the promised land, only this time the slavery is not Pharaoh but sin, the water is not the Red Sea but baptism, the desert is not in the Middle East but the experience of Lent, and the Promised Land is not flowing with milk and honey but the Living Water that wells up to eternal life.

* There are three lessons from the Transfiguration that are meant to influence the way we live Lent and life.

* The first is the exertion, the effort that a holy Lent entails. Jesus leads Peter, James and John on a tough climb. Christian tradition normally associates the mountain where Jesus was transfigured as Mount Tabor, which towers over Galilee and the Plains of Megiddo, and takes over ten minutes to climb in vans up narrow zig-zagging paths. It takes vigorous climbers at least a couple of hours to ascend on foot. The apostles needed to leave civilization and their comfort zones behind, and climb with Jesus, sweating, probably gasping a little for air, to pray with Jesus and see him revealed. The lesson for us is that the Lord is likewise asking of us to make an exertion this Lent. Lent is fundamentally dynamic. We’re called to be on the move. And the pilgrimage he seeks to have us make with him isn’t in some comfy vehicle. He’s asking us to climb, to sweat, to work. Prayer, fasting and almsgiving — if we’ve set proper resolutions — all require effort, sacrifice, and perseverance. Repenting and believing in the Gospel require grit.

* That leads us to the second lesson, which is the help God gives us to make this exertion. In the Transfiguration, Saints Peter, James and John saw something extraordinary at the end of their spiritual and physical climb. Jesus was transfigured. He and his clothes were radiant. He was speaking with Moses and Elijah, the greatest figures in Jewish history. The cloud — a sign of God’s presence — came down upon them.