This Is My Beloved Son...Listen To Him

03-05-2023Weekly ReflectionFr. Manasseh Iorchir, VC

The Season of Lent is always an important annual segment of our journey of faith. For this reason, we are invited by the Church, through the Readings, to reflect on the beginning of the journey of faith embarked on by Abraham our Father in Faith, and the defining moment of the Transfiguration, Jesus’ theophany after which Scripture reports “He set His face towards Jerusalem” (LK 9:51). Both journeys provide a living standard by which we, as Christians, can measure our own journey of faith.

The First Reading tells the story of the call of Abraham (at that time, Abram) from Ur of the Chaldees, to leave his home and to go to an unnamed place where God would show him. God made promises to Abraham which included making him a great nation, blessing him, giving him a great name and making him a standard by which nations of the earth would be blessed. We are told that, in spite of the uncertainties surrounding this call and the natural instinct to resist any separation from an established comfort zone, Abraham obeyed in faith and did what was required of him. Like Abraham, we too have been invited by God, first to a life-long journey of holiness and, during this Season of Lent, to a journey of renewal. In spite of the many uncertainties and the obvious discomforts we may experience, the First Reading assures us that if we trust God, we shall possess multiple blessings. This journey of faith is not without hardships and huddles of which the Second Reading encourages us to bear, whether they are external difficulties or self-imposed mortification of Lent.

The Gospel passage for the Second Sunday of Lent tells the story of the Transfiguration. Jesus knew that the time for Him to make a final journey to Jerusalem, where He would face His passion, was drawing close. He knew that in Jerusalem, His Apostles would witness His scandalous passion and death and He knew how their faith in Him would be affected by that. Therefore, He provided an opportunity for them to catch a glimpse of His Glorious Divine nature. The witnesses to this theophany were Simon Peter, James and John. While they were on the mountain, Jesus’ body was transfigured and Moses (the lawgiver) and Elijah (the greatest of the prophets) came and were conversing with Him. Although we are not made privy to what they discussed, Scripture scholars suggest that their presence was a confirmation of Jesus’ authority over the law and the prophets. The Gospel passage also recounts that a cloud cast a shadow over Him and a voice was heard from the cloud proclaiming Jesus as “...my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased;” and directing the awed Apostles to “....listen to Him.”

As we continue on our spiritual journey of life and the journey of Lent, God the Father, the source of the eternal life towards which we are journeying, instructs us to listen to His Son. We should listen to Him as He speaks to us through the Scriptures, through prayer, through the injustices that cry out for resolution in our world, and through the pain and suffering of the poor around us. Jesus speaks, let us listen.

May our spiritual ears be opened so that we can say less and listen more to Jesus, and when we have heard Him, may may we seek not to limit our experience of the epiphany to the mountain, but may we be aided to carry joyfully the Good News to the valleys of our homes, places of work and everywhere we find ourselves.

Please be kind and may God bless you.

Fr. Manasseh