Reading 1 – Genesis 15: 5-12, 17-18

The Lord God took Abram outside and said,
“Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can.
Just so,” he added, “shall your descendants be.”
Abram put his faith in the LORD,
who credited it to him as an act of righteousness.

He then said to him,
“I am the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans
to give you this land as a possession.”
“O Lord GOD,” he asked,
“how am I to know that I shall possess it?”
He answered him,
“Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old she-goat,
a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”
Abram brought him all these, split them in two,
and placed each half opposite the other;
but the birds he did not cut up.
Birds of prey swooped down on the carcasses,
but Abram stayed with them.
As the sun was about to set, a trance fell upon Abram,
and a deep, terrifying darkness enveloped him.

When the sun had set and it was dark,
there appeared a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch,
which passed between those pieces.
It was on that occasion that the LORD made a covenant with Abram,
saying: “To your descendants I give this land,
from the Wadi of Egypt to the Great River, the Euphrates.”

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 27: 1, 7-8, 8-9, 13-14

1. The Lord is my light and my salvation.
   The LORD is my light and my salvation;
   whom should I fear?
   The LORD is my life’s refuge;
   of whom should I be afraid?
2. The Lord is my light and my salvation.
   Hear, O LORD, the sound of my call;
   have pity on me, and answer me.
   Of you my heart speaks; you my glance seeks.
3. The Lord is my light and my salvation.
   Your presence, O LORD, I seek.
   Hide not your face from me;
   do not in anger repel your servant.
   You are my helper: cast me not off.
4. The Lord is my light and my salvation.
   I believe that I shall see the bounty of the LORD
   in the land of the living.
   Wait for the LORD with courage;
   be stouthearted, and wait for the LORD.
5. The Lord is my light and my salvation.
   

Reading 2 – Philippians 3: 17—4:1

Join with others in being imitators of me, brothers and sisters,
and observe those who thus conduct themselves
according to the model you have in us.
For many, as I have often told you
and now tell you even in tears,
conduct themselves as enemies of the cross of Christ.
Their end is destruction.
Their God is their stomach;
their glory is in their “shame.”
Their minds are occupied with earthly things.
But our citizenship is in heaven,
and from it we also await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
He will change our lowly body
to conform with his glorified body
by the power that enables him also
to bring all things into subjection to himself.

Therefore, my brothers and sisters,
whom I love and long for, my joy and crown,
in this way stand firm in the Lord.
Gospel – Luke 9: 28B – 36

Jesus took Peter, John, and James
and went up the mountain to pray.
While he was praying his face changed in appearance
and his clothing became dazzling white.
And behold, two men were conversing with him, Moses and Elijah,
who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus
that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem.
Peter and his companions had been overcome by sleep,
but becoming fully awake,
they saw his glory and the two men standing with him.
As they were about to part from him, Peter said to Jesus,
“Master, it is good that we are here;
let us make three tents,
one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”
But he did not know what he was saying.
While he was still speaking,
a cloud came and cast a shadow over them,
and they became frightened when they entered the cloud.
Then from the cloud came a voice that said,
“This is my chosen Son; listen to him.”
After the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone.
They fell silent and did not at that time
tell anyone what they had seen.

 

Listen to the scriptures: click on the link below:

http://ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/16_02_21.mp3

 

2^nd SUNDAY OF LENT – C

 

 

THEME:  Christian Hope.  Hope is a natural human instinct and a Christian virtue.  Jesus Christ is the hope of Christians.  Those who believe in Him are called to witness to their hope in their daily lives.  Christian hope reminds us of our future as believers and places on us material and spiritual responsibilities in the present.

 

Sometimes life can be a drag.  Daily living is full of frustrations, discouragements, defeats and failures.  Often there seems no real reason to think tomorrow will be any different or better than today.  Some people just give up on living because nothing in their lives appears to go right.  The cards look as if they are all stacked against them.  It is easy to despair, and the growing rate of suicides in our society is just one indication of how many pessimists there are.

 

Point 1: To hope is human.  It is normal for human beings to hope, however.  We all have a sense that things as they now are do not tell the whole story of human existence.  We have an intuition that there is more to life than the present, that tomorrow can be better than today, that our present difficulties are only temporary and will be resolved in the future.  We know that somehow we are unfinished beings with an unfinished agenda.  We constantly look to the future with its promises.  Most of us are born optimists much of the time.  “We are future.”  It is abnormal for human beings to be pessimists about life.

 

Point 2: Jesus Christ is the hope of Christians.  Christian hope is not identical with human optimism, although it may incorporate it.  Christians have a covenant with God through their baptism.  God has promised us eternal life, perfect happiness and glorious union with Him if we are faithful to our covenant with Him.  In Jesus Christ we see what it means to be transformed as God has promised.  In Jesus we have a foretaste of our future as faithful believers.  We too will be transformed just as Jesus was.  We believe that God will be true to his promises because we know the wonderful things God has already done for us in Jesus.  The future will definitely be better for us if we are faithful to God’s demands on us in the present.

 

Point 3: Christian hope is not just talk about “pie-in-the-sky”.  Christian hope means action in the present.  Christians do not despise this world or become passive creatures waiting for some better day.  Our covenant of hope with God in Jesus Christ requires that we keep God’s commands, especially the commandment of love, which Jesus has made known to us.  We must put our hope into action every day, especially through the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.  Through them we help others to banish despair from their lives and show that we ourselves really believe in God’s promises.

 

Conclusion:  In this season of Lent, we should put our difficulties with daily living in the proper perspective of Christian hope.  Like Jesus, we will have to experience suffering, perhaps even death, before we enter into perfect glory.  If we see daily life from God’s viewpoint, we will detect glimmerings, little transfigurations, of what we and others are yet to be and will use the seeds of hope in ourselves and others to build a better world in which love, justice and peace reign now.

 

 

QUESTIONS THAT MAY LEAD TO OTHER THOUGHTS / REFLECTION / DISCUSSION / WRITTEN

 

 

1. You have been told in these Scriptures that you are climbing your mountain in order to be transformed. The voice of God speaks to you that “this is my chosen Son; listen to Him.”  How have you been listening to Jesus?  What has been your response to Him this Lent?

 

2. Lent is not only the desert of last week’s liturgy, but also the mountain of your transformation, your conversion. Paul tells you that your Lent can “change your lowly body to conform with Jesus’ glorified body;” thus you must “stand firm in the Lord.”  If you are being transformed, what are the visible fruits – the visible signs of that transformation?

 

3. How do you go about detecting the small transfigurations that God is working daily in your own and others’ lives? What do these transfigurations mean for you and them?

 

4. If you had to deal with someone contemplating suicide, what would you say and do?

 

5. How do you translate the corporal and spiritual works of mercy into daily practice in your life?

 

 

Read and reread these words and the Scriptures of this Sunday.  Then meditate on their meaning before you tackle the questions on the other side of this sheet.

 

Do you not find it interesting that a few days after revealing his imminent death to His disciples Jesus took three of them to a secluded place and was transfigured before them.  Scripture says that His face shone like the sun, and His clothing became white as snow.

 

Like Jesus we are all faced with imminent death.  The cross (the cross of pain and suffering) is ever present in our lives.  No one escapes from the Cross.  If I were to ask every one of you,  “What is your Cross?” you could tell me the particular way in which you are burdened with sorrow and suffering.  There are as many crosses as there are men and women in the Church; every cross is different and each must be borne (to the end).

 

There are ways, however, in which the burden may be lightened.  One is to remember that every suffering we accept (peacefully) is a participation in the passion of Christ, a mysterious contribution to the salvation of the world.  The second is for each one to help his neighbors bear their crosses.  There is nothing so powerful as mutual assistance – a helping hand, a supporting shoulder, a kindly word of encouragement – to make the heaviest burden seem lighter and more bearable.

 

But like Jesus we all have our moments of transfiguration.  Again, if I were to ask you, “What were your moments of greatest joy?” you would all come up with individual stories of the moments in your lives when you knew all was well; when you wished desperately that time would stop; when you tried very hard to “build a tent” so that your happiness would stay with you.  That was probably Peter’s wish – to remain upon the mountain slopes.  He wished that great moment to be prolonged.  He did not want to go down to the everyday and common things again, but to remain forever in the sheen of glory.

 

That is a felling which all of us has known.  There are moments of intimacy, of serenity, of peace, or nearness to God, which everyone has known and wished to prolong.

 

But the mountain of transfiguration (those high moments) is given to us to provide strength for the daily walk which has its frustrations, discouragements, defeats and failures, given to us to confirm our hope, that sense we all have that things as they are now do not tell the whole story of human existence, given to us to confirm that intuition that there is more to life than the present, that tomorrow can be better than today, that our present difficulties are only temporary and will be resolved in the future.  It confirms us in the knowledge that somehow we are unfinished creations with unfinished agendas.

 

The radiant vision of Jesus (the Transfiguration) did not last: neither do our highest joys.  We must always return from these high points to our daily routine, to a world that has not yet been finished and has not yet accepted its redemption.

 

The strength, the hope the transfiguration was meant to give, is to stir us to action in the present.  We are not taught by the Lord to despise this world and its troubles or to become passive creatures waiting for some better day.  We are taught to put our hope into action every day – and thus gradually to transform ourselves and our world.

 

In this season of Lent, we should put our difficulties with daily living (and I know they are many) in the proper perspective of Christian hope.  Like Jesus, we have and will have our trials, sufferings, even death, before we enter perfect glory.  If we see daily life from God’s viewpoint, we will detect (see) glimmerings, little transfigurations, of what we and others are yet to be and will use the seeds of that hope in ourselves and others to build a better world in which love, justice and peace reign now.

 

Those moments of transfiguration should stir our hearts and remind us that we are not a people who labor, who struggle or suffer without hope, for we know in our hearts (our faith) that Jesus our Lord has risen to die no more.  Thus in Him, with Him and thru Him there is no failure His love cannot reverse, no humiliation He cannot exchange for a blessing, no anger He cannot dissolve, no routine He cannot transfigure.

 

Life accepted with faith and lived (and borne) with patience does not lead to defeat and death, but to victory and life.  All is swallowed up in victory.

 

We need to hear anew and loudly the words Jesus spoke when He walked up to Peter and said, “Do not be afraid”.  I would like to paraphrase His words: Be not afraid of life.  Believe as I have taught you that life, all of it, is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.

 

Second Sunday of Lent – 21^st February 2016

For the Church: that we may listen deeply to God’s beloved Son so that our deeds may manifest God’s glory, let us pray to the Lord.

For the grace of recognition: that we may look beyond our daily routines and like Abraham see God’s blessings that are as infinite as the sky and as numerous as the sands of the sea, let us pray to the Lord.

For a deeper understanding of our baptism: that we may grow in our covenant relationship with God who has called us to be daughters and sons and promised to love us faithfully, let us pray to the Lord.

For a deepening of hope: that in the midst of negative and doubting messages from our society, we may grow in trusting that God will never give up on us, let us pray to the Lord.

For a deeper awareness of life’s goal: that we may allow God to change and transform us day by day so that we may come to the fullness of life with God in eternity, let us pray to the Lord.

For all who are on a journey, whether physical or spiritual: that they may know God’s presence each step along the way and rely upon God’s light and truth to guide their steps, let us pray to the Lord.

For Pope Francis as he continues his ministry as Bishop of Rome and shepherd of the Universal Church: that God will bless with health and peace as he continues to work and pray for the church, let us pray to the Lord.

For all who are homeless or outcasts: that they may find shelter, protection and friendship, let us pray to the Lord.

For all who live in the Holy Land: that all who draw faith from the witness of Abraham may work to bring forth a new understanding and a season of justice and harmony, let us pray to the Lord.

For all judges and lawyers: that they may work diligently for justice and for the protection of the powerless in our society, let us pray to the Lord.

For members of Parliament, District Assemblies and Congress: that God will give them insight and courage to explore new ways to work together to effectively address the needs of all the people of this nation, let us pray to the Lord.

For all who are searching for meaning, particularly young adults: that God will lead them to new insights about their gifts and how they can help others who are in need, let us pray to the Lord.

For all who are ill, especially those with cancer: that God will touch their bodies and spirits with tenderness and healing love, let us pray to the Lord.

For all the Candidates for Full Communion with the Church: that they may experience the transforming power of God’s love and grow in their desire to love and serve God, let us pray to the Lord.

For all who are grieving: that God will wipe away their tears and give them courage and hope for tomorrow, let us pray to the Lord.

For peace: that the Spirit of God will lead all the human family away from war and speed the quick return of all military to their loved ones, let us pray to the Lord.