The Gospel for the second Sunday of Lent is always the story of the Transfiguration. Sometimes we wonder how most of the original Apostles could go to their death professing Jesus raised from the dead. I think one reason is the experience of James, John, and Simon (Peter) at the Transfiguration. Just imagine what it would have been like to be there and see what they saw and hear what they heard. I doubt that we can really imagine it.
The title line from this week’s post, from the Gospel, of course, reminds me of Mary’s instructions to the servers at the Wedding Feast at Cana (Jn 2) where she says to “do whatever he tells you”.
It seems to me sometimes we make things too complicated. What if we just listened to Jesus and did what He tells us? How much better off would we, and our world, be if we did that? A lot better in my view.
I’m not saying we ignore Jesus commandments but we clearly hear them through the prism of our nuanced beliefs. So many want to find justifications for their political beliefs. We have leaders who claim to be called by God to their office. I’m not questioning anyone’s faith, including those leaders. I’m just saying we need to try and peel away from that distortion that happens when we hear Jesus in light of what we want to hear for other reasons.
Jesus told us to love one another as He loves us. He told us to serve the poor, to forgive even our enemies, etc. I understand there are those who aren’t allowed to receive the sacraments with us because they are out of communion with us but we are still to love them, serve them, and forgive them. There is so much division in our world and I get that it can be complicated, think Israel and the Palestinians, but I think a step forward for everyone would be to simply listen to Jesus.
Although Lent has already started there continue to be reflections you can subscribe to that can help you grow closer to Jesus before we reach Easter. Here’s an example of one I think I mentioned a couple of weeks ago from the Jesuits: https://mailchi.mp/d4eaa71040be/travel-the-landscapes-of-lent-12681389?e=af1d31d716
If you’d like to sign up to see other Lenten messages from the Jesuits you can click https://mail.yahoo.com/d/search/keyword=jesuits?reason=invalid_cred
For those of you who like to read here’s a list of four books to read for Lent from NCR. https://www.ncregister.com/features/a-religion-teacher-s-take-on-what-to-read-for-lent
That’s it for now. Thanks for reading.
I hope you have a great week.
Peace, Bob
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