St. Anthony & Our Lady of Fatima

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.