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Homily for the
Second Sunday of Lent
16 March 2014
Second Sunday of Lent
16 March 2014
Peter,
James and John were great men. Abram, too, was a great man. But, let’s face it,
at times they were idiots.
Yes,
these great men of faith were, at times, idiots.
And,
please don’t take offense, but like them, we can be idiots, too.
This
is what I mean: When their humanity got the best of them, Peter, James, John,
and even Abram failed to trust in the Lord. They didn’t always allow their
experiences with God to shape their lives so as to receive the graces that God
wished to bestow upon them.
We,
too, can allow our humanity to get the best of us. There are moments in our
lives when we can feel the presence of the Lord pulling us in one direction,
while society, family, friends, and other influences pull us in another
direction. When we ignore God’s tugging on our heart, when we allow the pull of
that which is not God to win out in our lives, that is when we are, for lack of
a better word, idiots.
Yet,
this is why we celebrate the season of Lent; this is why every Second Sunday of
Lent we hear the Gospel story of the Transfiguration. This Sunday, which marks
one-and-a-half weeks into this season, reminds us that there is a goal in
sight, and the only thing we need to do is to trust in the Lord.
When
Abram, Peter, James and John allowed themselves to truly trust in the Lord,
like we see in the First Reading, then they were able to do great things. We
know how Abram became Abraham, and how he became the father of three great
peoples of faith. Peter, James and John, when allowing their trust in the Lord
to guide them, and through the grace given by the Holy Spirit, were able to “bear
[their] share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God,”
which Paul reminds Timothy in our Second Reading today, whether that hardship
be eventual martyrdom, as we see for Peter and James, or the loneliness of
exile, as we know John endured.
Yet,
when they allowed themselves to be overwhelmed by the human experience, and
failed to allow the experience of the Divine to lead them, to guide them, to
envelop them, they entered into the arena of spiritual idiocracy, for they
failed to simply trust in the Lord.
The
experience of the Transfiguration is two-fold: It helps us to know of the glory
that awaits us who follow Christ; yet it also reminds us that we must travel
through the valleys to Jerusalem, where our faith and trust will be put to the
test.
Think
for a moment about what Paul wrote to Timothy: “He saved us and called us to a
holy life, not according to our works but according to his own design and the
grace bestowed on us in Christ Jesus before time began . . .” All of time and
space, all that we experience around us is moved by the design of God. Does
this mean that God wishes us to experience joy? Of course, for that joy is a
foretaste of what we will experience in Heaven. Does this mean that God gives
us suffering and pain? Of course not, for God never inflicts suffering upon us –
but He allows suffering to occur that we may learn how to trust in Him more.
I
know that may sound a little crazy, or, using the word of the day, idiotic. However,
the Lord will never give us more than we can handle; the Lord desires for us to
trust in Him. Many of you might be thinking, “Father, you have to say that; you’re
a priest.” I’m not saying what I’m saying because I’m a priest. I’m not telling
you this because it’s simply what the Church teaches or believes.
I’m
telling you this because I’m an idiot, for in my life there have been times in
which, like Peter, James and John, I allowed the human experiences in my life
to overwhelm me, and I failed to allow the presence, promise and providence of
the Divine to envelop me.
I’m
telling you this because there have been times in my life where I have failed
to keep the vision of the Transfiguration and Resurrection before me.
I
have failed to make the response of our Responsorial Psalm my own: Let Your
mercy be on [me], O God, as [I] place [my] trust in You.
But
as much as I have failed, I know that you have failed, too. Each one of us has
fallen short of the glory of God because we fail to trust in Him in those
moments when we need to rely on Him the most. This, my brothers and sisters, is
humanity at its weakest. Yet, it has the potential to be humanity at its
greatest.
We
need to make the vision of Christ at His Transfiguration and His Resurrection
that vision which guides us throughout these days of Lent – and beyond! We need
to allow the Heart of Christ to become our heart, no matter what may befall us.
We
need to simply allow Christ to become our Vision, our Mission, our Heart, our
Guide – and we need to trust in Him.
My
friends, we can be as great as Abram, Peter, James and John, or we can allow
ourselves to fall into the downward spiral of spiritual idiocracy that happened
to them when they failed to trust in God. Lent is that time for us to, once
again, trust in the Lord: Our lives are not simply a collection of mountain-top
experiences, nor should they be. We have to travel through the valleys; we must
carry our crosses with Jesus.
In
a few moments we will experience the pulling of our God on our lives once again
as we come forward to partake of the Blessed Sacrament. Our reception of the
Eucharist is probably the greatest acts of trust we make as Catholics, for upon
receiving the Lord, upon saying our “Amen”, we open ourselves to the Lord’s
work of transforming our hearts, the envelopment of His Love as we are
overwhelmed by our human experiences, and the refocusing of our lives to truly
make Him and His Gospel the vision which guides us and our lives.
“Let
Your mercy be on us, O God, as we place our trust in You.”
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Enjoy the journey . . .
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