Second Sunday of Lent
Today's Readings
First Reading: Genesis 12:1-4a
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 33
Second Reading: 2 Timothy 1:8b-10
Gospel: Matthew 17:1-9
Read today's readings at USCCBReflection
Abraham was seventy-five years old when God said go. Leave your land, your family, your father's house. Go to a place I will show you. No map. No timeline. Just a promise: I will make of you a great nation.
He went.
The Second Sunday of Lent always gives us the Transfiguration - the moment of glory before the descent to Jerusalem. Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up the mountain. His face shines. Moses and Elijah appear. The Father's voice declares: "This is my beloved Son. Listen to him."
Peter, overwhelmed, offers to build three tents. He wants to stay. He wants to preserve the moment, bottle the light, set up camp on the summit. The impulse is entirely human. When you've glimpsed glory, you don't want to come back down.
But they come back down. They always come back down. And Jesus says: tell no one until the Son of Man has risen from the dead. The glory is real, but it's not for staying in. It's fuel for the road ahead - the road that leads through Gethsemane, through Golgotha, through the tomb, and out the other side.
At this stage of life, you've had your Transfiguration moments. The Mass where the veil seemed thin. The prayer that felt answered before you finished asking. The hospital room where peace settled in despite everything. The sacrament that burned with meaning you hadn't expected. Those moments were real. But you came back down the mountain every time.
Paul tells Timothy to bear hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God - strength "bestowed on us in Christ Jesus before time began." The strength was there before the mountain. The strength remains after you come back down.
Abraham was seventy-five and he went. You are wherever you are, and the voice still says: go forth. Not to a new land, perhaps, but deeper into the one you're in. Deeper into prayer. Deeper into trust. Deeper into the Lent that leads to Easter.
The Rosary Today
The Glorious Mysteries - The fourth Glorious Mystery is the Assumption of Mary, taken body and soul into glory. Like the Transfiguration, it's a glimpse of what awaits. Tonight, pray one decade with gratitude for the moments of glory God has given you along the way.
Prayer of the Faithful
For the Church throughout the world, that like Abraham she would go forth in trust whenever God calls her into unfamiliar territory. We pray to the Lord.
For the elderly and those in the evening of life, that the mountaintop moments of past decades would sustain them on the ordinary road ahead - and that more such moments would come. We pray to the Lord.
For those who are suffering and cannot see past the present darkness - that the Transfiguration would remind them: glory is real, and the cross is not the end. We pray to the Lord.
For the faithful departed, that they who glimpsed God's glory in this life would now see him face to face in the light that never fades. We pray to the Lord.
Something to Do
Call or write to someone who has been a "Transfiguration moment" for you - a person through whom you glimpsed God's glory. Tell them. Don't wait.
“Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you.”
— Psalm 33:22
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