Happy Sunday!
DOCTRINE AND FAITH
(Genesis 12,1-4a; 2 Tim 1,8b-l0; Matt 17,1-9; 2nd Sunday of Lent, Year A, 8th March 2020)
The first reading is the passage from Genesis that narrates Abraham's vocation and obedience. It is the beginning of the history of faith. God has the initiative. The Hebrew text calls him Yahweh, a name that will be revealed only later to Moses (Exodus 3), when he asks, insistently, to know the name of the God of the fathers, of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Abraham came out of a polytheistic environment, according to tradition, Ur or Carran. He is, totally, tied to a God (whom Genesis calls Jahweh). God's initiative is a word: The Lord said. God’s call involves a rupture and a departure to the unknown. The demands of the Lord are very clear (leaving the country, kinship, clan). No guarantee is given to Abraham outside of the Word of God. The country in which he goes is what God will show him and the announced posterity can only come to him from God, since he leaves with a sterile wife.
Psalm 32 expresses a living faith like that of Abraham, trust in the word of God, the hope of being guarded by his love, whatever the circumstances through which faith will lead us.
Paul, a prisoner in Rome, shortly before his death wrote to his favourite disciple to encourage him not to blush about his mission as a preacher of the Gospel. Timothy's apostolic life is based on the holy vocation that comes from God, from his free initiative and not from the merits of those who are called. In following it, one must, therefore, trust in the power of God (1st reading and psalm). Then Paul develops the theme of the grace of the vocation by linking it to Jesus Christ. He says that even before the incarnation, from eternity, grace was given in Christ Jesus (cf. what Jesus says in the Gospel of John 8,56: Abraham exulted in the hope of seeing my day); then he recalls the work of Jesus fully manifested in his resurrection: death has been won, life and immortality shine through the Gospel. Timothy can find (like Paul himself) a supplement of courage and strength for his ministry. Jesus the Saviour has already accomplished the essentials of the work; we are now in the climate of the Transfiguration through which Jesus wanted to strengthen the faith and courage of the apostles before his passion.
The gospel narrative of Jesus’ transfiguration is usually seen as an anticipation of the glory of Christ (cf. in John 12,28, 1st voice of the Father: I have glorified him and again I will glorify him!). His face is transfigured, as later will be the face of the risen one, which will take time to be recognised. The transfiguration is also seen as support for the faith of the apostles. Peter, James and John will be the witnesses of the agony, when Jesus, and no longer the apostles, began to feel sadness and anguish ... prostrated himself with his face on the ground (Matt 26,37-39). Shortly before the Transfiguration, Peter had confessed faith in Jesus the Son of God: the voice of the Father confirms this profession of faith and the comment made by Jesus: My Father who is in heaven (he has revealed it to you) (Matt 16,13-20). But Peter’s faith was still very weak; shortly after his confession, he had manifested his total misunderstanding of the mystery of the cross and Jesus had treated him as Satan (Mt 16, 13-23). Perhaps this context of tension between Peter and Christ may explain the fear mentioned by Matthew. Sacred fear that the encounter with the divine causes in man, and that Jesus comes to placate with a fraternal gesture noticed only by Matthew. In the story we also see a confirmation of the nature of Jesus and his prophetic mission: My Son ... listen to him. A deeper reading of the transfiguration episode shows us how Jesus is the heir of the whole Old Testament. This is attested by the presence of Moses and Elijah, the two great prophets, the two witnesses (which we find in Rev 11,3); and also the two whose death exceeds the common fate (the tomb of Moses was never found and Elijah was taken away on a chariot of fire). It shows also how Jesus is the prophet announced by Deuteronomy who will take the place of Moses: A prophet like me; you will listen to him (Deut 18,15, quoted in Acts 7,37). As the face of Moses was radiant on his descent from Sinai (Exodus 34), the face of Jesus shone like the sun. This detail belongs to Matthew, while Mark and Luke are content to say that the face of Jesus changed its appearance. A deeper reading shows us Jesus as the one who is preparing the new Easter. The high mountain, the coming of the cloud, the fear it causes remind us of Sinai; the tents that Peter wants to build are reminiscent of the desert.
On this second Sunday of Lent, the liturgy offers us a mystery of Jesus’ transfiguration: a luminous, consoling mystery. Jesus climbs a high mountain and is transfigured in front of three disciples: Peter, James and John. The evangelist says: his face shone as bright as the sun and his clothes became as snow-white as the light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared there, conversing with him. The Transfiguration is a revelation of the person of Jesus, because immediately afterwards a luminous cloud appears, announcing the presence of God, and a voice says: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him. With this event, the disciples are being prepared for Jesus’ paschal mystery. They are prepared to pass the terrible test of passion, and they are also prepared to interpret the resurrection well. The story speaks of Moses and Elijah. Indeed, this episode has a relationship with two other divine revelations, two theophanies, which occurred one for Moses and one for Elijah. Unlike these two episodes, (Exodus 33,18 - 34,7 and 1 Kings 19,9-18) in the Transfiguration it is not Jesus who has the revelation of God (as Moses and Elijah had) but in him that God reveals himself, who reveals himself in turn to the apostles who went up the mountain with Jesus. Therefore, anyone who wants to know God must contemplate the face of Jesus, his transfigured face. In the Gospel of John, Jesus says: Whoever has seen me has seen the Father (John 14, 9). Jesus is the perfect revelation of the Father's holiness and mercy. On Mount Sinai, Moses also had the revelation of God's will: the Ten Commandments. And also Elijah on the mountain had from God the revelation of a triple mission to accomplish. Jesus does not receive the revelation of his mission, because he already knows it; but it is the apostles who receive the revelation of the will of God: Listen to him. By now the will of God is not manifested in a series of commandments written on stone tablets, but is fully revealed in the person of Jesus. Whoever wants to live according to the will of God, must follow Jesus, listen to him, accept the words and, with the help of the Holy Spirit, deepen them. Thus he finds the perfect revelation of the will of God. This episode, as has been said, prepares the apostles to face the passion of Jesus, to overcome its terrible, painful and humiliating aspects. Then the apostles will know that he who suffers is the beloved Son of God and will interpret passion as a mystery that is at the same time dark and luminous. Passion is a dark mystery, because of the aspects of humiliation, pain, and scandal even on the part of men. Luminous, because it reveals the infinite love of God. It reveals the love of the Father, who gives his Son for us; reveals the love of the Son who, in perfect adherence to the will of the Father, gives himself, offers his life, gives the greatest proof of his love, because, as Jesus says, nobody has a love greater than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends (John 15,13). After the Transfiguration, Jesus gives the three disciples an order that may seem surprising. We read: And while they were descending from the mountain, Jesus ordered them: Do not speak to anyone about this vision, until the Son of man has risen from the dead. The apostles should not speak to anyone about this episode before the passion and resurrection, to avoid illusory or false interactions of Jesus’ glory. This could be interpreted as the glory of a human conqueror, a powerful one of this world. Instead, Jesus knew he had to go to the cross; therefore, he did not want to obstruct his path with a revelation that would come prematurely. But after the passion, the Transfiguration helps to understand the resurrection well. Jesus’ glorification should not be understood as a simple exaltation by God of a man who devoted himself, generously, to the good of his brothers, but rather like his filial glory, the glory that he possessed even before the Incarnation and that now, after the resurrection, he also fully finds himself as a man. In the priestly prayer, Jesus says to the Father: And now, Father, glorify me before you, with that glory that I had with you before the world was (John 17,5). Thus the apostles will be able to recognise, in the glory of the Risen, the glory of the Son of God, and will proclaim it. Paul says that Jesus was made Son of God by the resurrection (Rom 1,4). In the second reading, Paul shows that the appearance of our saviour Jesus Christ reveals the grace of God, because he has conquered death and made life and immortality shine through the Gospel. This mystery involves us. Indeed, it is for us that the promise of God's victory over evil and death, the promise of a new life, which is a participation in the filial life of the Risen One were made. On this Sunday, we are also invited to prepare ourselves for the passion of Jesus, knowing that in it is the Son of God who gives his life for us, for our salvation. We can recognise with Paul: This life which I live in the flesh I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (Gal 2,20b). We can also contemplate the resurrection of Jesus as the full manifestation of what was anticipated in the Transfiguration, that is, the full manifestation of the filial glory of Jesus, perfectly united to the Father, beloved Son, in whom we too are called to become children of God. May we, in this Eucharistic celebration, obtain the grace that will enable us see God’s full revelation in the person of Jesus and follow his directives. +John I. Okoye
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