Year A Second Sunday of Lent

Readings: Genesis 12:1-4a; Psalm 33:4-5.18-20.22; 2 Timothy 1:8b-10; Matthew 17:1-9

The Lord’s Transfiguration is the fourth Luminous mystery of the Blessed Mother’s Holy Rosary. This mystery’s fruit is the desire for holiness. In the part of the Sermon on the Mount known as the Beatitudes, which we spent several Sundays listening to just before Lent, Jesus calls blessed those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.¹

What does it mean to be holy, to be righteous? It means to be like Jesus. This requires obedience to the Father by listening to His Son’s teachings and endeavoring to follow them. Transfiguration or, more succinctly, conversion, is a better way to think about repentance than just being sorry for your sins, which, while necessary for repentance, is far from sufficient.

This holy season is a time-gift we receive each year. Receiving this time gift means repenting and believing in the Gospel, which is not a self-improvement project. As our responsorial for today puts it: “Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you.”² To be like Christ means surrendering yourself to God. Indeed, Christ “saved us and called us to a holy life, not according to our works but according to his own design.”³

Abram, later Abraham, our father in faith, exemplifies this our reading from Genesis, which is summarized in the final sentence: “Abram went as the LORD directed him.”⁴ Jesus Christ is the Gospel. He is the Good News of salvation, the One who surrendered Himself completely to God, relinquishing His own will for the sake of love, even to the point of death.⁵

In the whole of our uniquely Christian scriptures, which together we call the New Testament, eternal life is clearly defined only once.This definition is found in the Gospel According to Saint John:

Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ⁶

Being a Christian means to desire holiness. It means being hungry and thirsty to be like Christ, a desire that is strengthened by the Eucharist. Becoming holy requires me to confront myself in those ways I know I am not like Him.

Transfiguration, by Titian, 1560 (Public Domain)

These realizations should cause me, in words from our Ash Wednesday reading from the Book of the Prophet Joel: “Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the LORD, your God.”⁷ This exhortation ends on a note of encouragement that gives hope:

for [the LORD] is gracious and merciful
slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love,
and relenting in punishment⁸

The Lord taught that those who truly hunger and thirst for righteousness will be satisfied.⁹ Without repentance, there is no hunger, no thirst for Christ. Hence, there is no forgiveness, no conversion, no salvation. What good is a gift you refuse?

The good news, in part, is that, at least until death, God never ceases offering you the gift of salvation, purchased by the death of His Son, no matter how many times you refuse or ignore it. But that part, at least until death, recalls that I am dust and to dust I will return. This realization gives the Lord’s call great urgency.

As Count Leo Tolstoy wrote in a pamphlet at beginning of the twentieth century: “everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself.”¹⁰ While you cannot be transfigured into Christ’s image merely by your own efforts, you certainly can’t be so converted with no effort!

Today, with Lent in full-swing- though it’s never too late to start- the Lord says to you: “Rise and do not be afraid.”¹¹ He desperately wants to hear you respond, “Jesus, I trust in You.”

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1 Matthew 5:6.^↩
2 Psalm 33:22.^↩
3 2 Timothy 1:9.^↩
4 Genesis 12:4a.^↩
5 Matthew 26:39.^↩
6 John 17:3.^↩
7 Joel 2:13.^↩
8 Joel 2:13.^↩
9 Matthew 5:6.^↩
10 Leo Tolstoy. "Three Methods of Reform." Translated in 1900.^↩
11 Matthew 17:9.^↩