In the Gospel today, we hear the story of the Transfiguration, where Jesus revealed His glory to Peter, James, and John. A few days prior to this event, Jesus had predicted His Passion. He gave His disciples this revelation of glory to give them strength on the journey they would undertake.

The Transfiguration gives us courage, too. As we face hardships in our lives, we know the end of the story. It may not always be easy for us to be faithful to the Lord, but we know that there will be a peace and strength that the Lord will give us, even in this valley of tears.

Even now, we are being transfigured, transformed by the Spirit Who is at work in us, preparing us for eternal life. The Transfiguration is an exhortation to be courageous. We will have our own cross, our own Calvary. We know that the glory that is prepared for us will far surpass any of this. The hope of eternal life can never be extinguished.

The desert sand is not under our feet but in our hearts.  Its grit is the daily irritations and indefinable loneliness we often feel.  We need these Lenten weeks of heightened awareness of the importance of uncluttered spiritual and physical space we can discover the beauty of God and our sisters and brothers under the surface sands of our busy lives.  We may then become much wiser about the spiritual baggage that we as wilderness travelers, need to keep or discard in the trek toward Easter.

In the gospel, Jesus is approached by a leper. He is moved by compassion, the deep gut-wrenching response that identifies with the suffering of another. Who are today’s “lepers,” people whom some consider as “polluting” society by their differences in race, culture, social mores, or physical and intellectual disabilities? What are our attitudes to those we might consider as weakening the moral fiber of society – the drug addicts, the HIV/AIDS sufferers, those in prison? Are we on the side of harsh, punitive justice or compassionate, restorative justice?

In the healing of Simon’s mother-in-law we have a vignette of the mission of Jesus, the free man, who cares nothing for taboos that prohibited the touching of a woman not one’s wife, and especially on the Sabbath.  Jesus has healed the tormented man in the synagogue, and he will make no discrimination between male and female, even though to hold the hand of the sick woman could earn him the accusation of ritual uncleanness.  Compassion has a more urgent hold on Jesus.

Jesus healed the man of the unclean spirit, and the people called this action of Jesus a “teaching”: “[They] asked one another, ‘What is this? A new teaching with authority.’” It is God’s presence and power that is the lesson not only to learn but to encounter.  Ultimately we are all students of the one teacher, whose authority is ordered to our salvation. From this school we never graduate; this teacher is always guiding us. This education is perfected for our final purpose: to know God.

Jesus does not issue orders to his followers like a charismatic military leader; he offer no rallying call to a revolutionary war, but he does make promises. Do we live as though we believe these promises? How constant, how radical are we in our following of Jesus to which we are invited by our baptism? How discerning of its demands are we in our contemporary society, and has Jesus priority in our lives?

This gospel proclaims that all discipleship is an active and involving relationship with Jesus: a following, seeking, staying, finding, and dialoguing with him.  We hear how each decision to follow Jesus is a response to a statement about Jesus’s identity as Lamb of God, Rabbi, Messiah, by people whose ears and hearts are open to the Word of God, who hear his invitation through the words of friend or stranger, through events of joy or sorrow, or who discern a moment of religious significance in the everyday.

This gospel is a declaration of who Jesus is to Mark’s church, a statement of their self-understanding as disciples of the new messianic times who are sons and daughters of the Father because they are baptized into the Spirit-filled and Beloved Son, and commissioned to serve in his name. Throughout Mark’s gospel, those who follow Jesus will struggle to understand what is revealed to Jesus as he rises from the waters: that humanity, despite its sinfulness, is loved with the prodigal love of God.

When we place the Magi in our Christmas crib, the truth that their visit declares and the symbolism that their presence in the crib proclaims is the gospel truth that Jesus is king for all the nations of the earth. This is what we pray for in the words of the responsorial Psalm 72: the establishment of God’s kingdom of justice and peace throughout the world so that the rights of the poor and helpless are respected and the cries of the needy are answered.

Every family whether gifted with many children or none or one, has a role to play in God’s dramatic story of salvation and share in the miraculous gift of hope children represent. Each child has been willed by God to serve a unique purpose. May and Joseph were “amazed at what was said about” Jesus, for he was the fulfillment of all hopes. But in the reality of the Holy Family, we see the miraculous nature of every child and every family reflected.