Second Sunday of Lent: A very brief exegetical commentary on our Lord's Transfiguration

Readings: Gen 15, 5-12.17-18; Ps 27,1-9.13-14; Phil 3,17-4,1; Lk 9,28B-36

This is something I posted in August for the Feast of the Transfiguration. It is based on something that I originally wrote as an assignment while I was in diaconate formation. In light of my homily for the First Sunday of Lent, in which I focused on the necessity of Jesus' humanity for our salvation, this seems an appropriate and seamless follow-up. It is my prayer that this will aid the reader in her/his preparation for the celebration of the sacred mysteries this Sunday, which is always and forever the Lord's Day, until we realize the eighth day, which will never end.

Altar of Transfiguration painting by Raphael, 1520

Today we celebrate the Second Sunday of Lent during a year in which we are still covered on white. The whiteness of the snow is a great setting in which to reflect on today's Gospel (at least for those of us in the Northern hemisphere). It is, therefore, worthwhile for a little scriptural reflection/comparison/exegesis on the Gospel texts. To that end, I want to briefly compare this pericope as it appears in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. This being Year C our Gospel is taken from Luke's, which bears more than a passing resemblance to St. Matthew's account.

Like all synoptic parallel passages, Matthew and Mark, along with Luke, the third synoptic, share the same outline and structure. In all of these accounts the Transfiguration takes place some days (six in the case of Matthew and Mark and eight according to St. Luke) after Jesus' first prediction of his passion. On this day Jesus takes Peter, James, and John, who, the author of Matthew tells us is James' brother, "up a high mountain." It is on the mountain that "he [Jesus] is transfigured before them." Both authors describe a change in our Lord's appearance. Mark describes only the dazzling whiteness of his clothes, while Matthew, in addition to describing his clothes, also writes: "his face shone like the sun." In both accounts the disciples, while beholding Jesus' glowing transformation, also see Moses and the prophet Elijah "talking" with him.

Upon seeing this, Peter, in both versions, proposes building three "dwellings" on the mountain: one for Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. In both narratives a cloud overshadows the disciples and a voice from the cloud speaks. The voice identifies Jesus as "my Son" as well as "the Beloved." Peter, James, and John are given the emphatic directive "listen to him!" In Matthew's telling the voice also says it is "well pleased" with the Beloved, the Son.

It is in the responses of the disciples to the transfiguration that significant differences begin to emerge between these two tellings. In Mark's account Peter is "terrified" by what he witnesses. He seems to make his suggestion about erecting the dwellings because, as the author of Mark writes, "He did not know what [else?] to say." This would make Peter's suggestion far less pious than that of Matthew's awestruck Peter.

The reactions of the disciples to the cloud experience also interestingly differ. In Matthew's story, after hearing the voice, the disciples "fell to the ground and were overcome by fear." Jesus tells them to "get up" and "not to be afraid." By contrast, the story found in the Gospel of Mark, after hearing the voice, the three "looked around" and "saw no one with them anymore, but only Jesus." Subtle differences can also be seen as Jesus and the three disciples walk down the mountain. In both accounts Peter, James, and John are "ordered" by Jesus to tell nobody what has occurred until after his death and resurrection. Mark's disciples, despite the preceding prediction of the passion, are left "questioning what the rising from the dead could mean." Compare that to the understanding reception of Jesus' words by Matthew's three. They seem to know what Jesus is talking about, even before the issue of the return of Elijah preceding the advent of the Messiah is raised. From Jesus' answer to the query they comprehend that John the Baptist is Elijah and so what had been revealed on the road to Caesarea-Phillipi is only reaffirmed. Summarily, the differences between the two accounts is that Mark's features much more human disciples and a less wordy, less regal, and, hence, more human Jesus.

Lentenly simple

Despite the fact that I am not at all certain that the adjective Lenten can be turned into an adverb, this is a friendly diaconal reminder (i.e., a service announcement) that today is a Friday of Lent and a First Friday. Therefore abstinence is in effect. So, plan accordingly. On this first Friday, you might consider attending Mass and/or walking the stations of the Cross. You may do so this evening at the Cathedral of the Madeleine. Mass is at 5:15 PM with Stations following Vespers at about 6:00 PM. In addition to, or if you are unable to participate in communal devotions, you may want to consider praying the Chaplet of Divine Mercy.

Don Francisco, a Christian song-writer, sums it up well, if a bit bluntly: "Jesus didn't die for you because it was fun. He hung there for love because it had to be done". Remember, while feelings do play a part, and an important part at that, love is first and foremost not a feeling, but an act of the will. Put simply, love is a choice. Let us always choose love because to choose love is to choose God, quia Deus Caritas Est (1 Jn 4,8). Today is a good day to allow ourselves to be tutored in the divine way because it is a day on which, in an intense way, we remember, commemorate, even celebrate the love God has shown us in Christ, especially his enduring his Passion and death for our sakes. Dear Father, "for the sake of [Jesus'] sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world".

Lord Jesus,
Help us to abstain this day from what we do not really need, and help our brothers and sisters in distress

Teach us to be loving not only in great and exceptional moments, but above all in
the ordinary events of daily life

As March begins

Today begins the month of March, which will be exciting because on the fourteenth, the day before the dreaded "ides of March", the eighth successor of Lawrence Scanlan will assume the cathedra in our beloved Madeleine: Bishop John Charles Wester. If quantity is anything to go by, February was a record month here at Catholic Deacon. As it stands, quantity is just about all I have go by. Apart from the very constructive comments made by readers in response to An invitation and It's not too late, I have little indication as to how what I am writing is affecting anybody, or, if it is even affecting you at all. So, again, rather than one of my desparate pleas, á la last Fall when I was still a very insecure beginner in the blogosphere, this is a straight-forward request for constructive feedback, critical or encouraging.

So, whether you are a frequent or occasional reader, I would appreciate your constructive comments and feedback.

Also, over on our parish blog, you will find my most recent installment in an occasional, but open-ended, series about contemporary challenges to the faith. My most recent post is called Delivering a real blow to a shadow boxer

Do meetings make us stupid?

This question bears pondering. An article on yahoo seeks to make it a rhetorical question in an article entitled, Meetings Make You Stupid. While concluding that "some meetings are necessary as a means of getting information out to a large number of people at once," it makes a strong argument in favor of allowing educated, well-trained, motivated, and intelligent people to work alone for better creativity and results. What prompted this question was a MSNBC article (Meetings make us dumber, study shows Brainstorming sessions backfire when group thinking clouds decisions) that reported on the results of a study in which social scientists "exposed study participants to one brand of soft drink then asked them to think of alternative brands. Alone, they came up with significantly more products than when they were grouped with two others".

Year C, First Sunday of Lent

Once again, at least until next Sunday, you can watch instead of read this homily on the Intermountain Catholic's "Broadcast of Mass from the Cathedral On Demand" for free and without registering. However, if your are a subscriber, why not register? If you are a Utah Catholic and not a subscriber, why not?

Readings: Deut 26,4-10; Ps 91, 1-2.10-15; Rom 10,8-13; Lk 4,1-13

One question that bears asking in light of today’s Gospel, is the question Was Jesus free? Did he have real alternatives and choices? Or, “had everything been decided for him in advance, only to be played out as a faithful reflection of God’s eternal choice?” The answer to this question makes a big "difference to the picture we have of Jesus and how we follow him" (To Follow You, Light of Life, pg. 13).

It is important to point out that the Church has given our question a definitive answer: "without a shadow of a doubt Jesus was indeed endowed with human will and freedom . . . he was a free person who chose his future under no constraint, and who accepted and took upon himself all the risks involved in freedom." In this we see that Jesus was able to say no to the Father’s plan and follow another path of his own choosing. Thankfully, he did not abuse his freedom in this way. "We have," writes the author of the Letter to the Hebrews, "one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin" (Heb 4,15). It is precisely because of his true and honest exercise of freedom that Jesus "broke the hold exercised by sin and" brought about new life (To Follow You, Light of Life, pgs. 13-14). This is why St. Paul, in our second reading from Ash Wednesday, can write: "For our sake [God] made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Cor 5,21).

Jesus knew "the risk and struggle involved in being free." He was really tempted and had the freedom to choose what he would do in the face of temptation. This brings us to today’s Gospel which tells us of our Lord’s forty days in the desert prior to inaugurating his public ministry. Despite the clear understanding of the faith on the matter of his freedom, Jesus’ temptations in the desert are still often interpreted as a kind of didactic moral lesson along the lines of "the Lord showed us how we should overcome temptation – but without really being tempted himself." Such a reading of Christ’s temptations tries to avoid the diminution of his divinity. Just as we tend to shrink back from an orthodox understanding of the Blessed Trinity by our refusal to come to grips with the real distinction of persons, thus remaining in the words of Fr. Karl Rahner "mere monotheists," as opposed to full-blown Trinitarians, for which Christian is the more familiar name, we tend to slight Jesus’ humanity out of fear of diminishing his divinity. Such an interpretation of this narrative deprives it of all seriousness and meaning, as it sees our Lord as merely going through the motions for the very stale purpose of giving us a moral lesson, without taking any risks himself. If such were the case, Jesus’ story would not be a truly human story, but – as philosopher Jacques Maritain might say – a "parody of humanity" (To Follow You, Light of Life, pg. 16) and would be powerless to break the hold of sin on real human beings, like you and me, thus emptying the mystery of the Incarnation, to which we bow each time we recite the Credo, of any meaningful content. We must never forget that "Christ does not save us from our humanity, but through it" (Pope Benedict XVI, Christmas 2006 Urbi et Orbi).

In St. Luke’s account of our Lord’s experience in the desert, his three temptations are paralleled with the temptations of Israel during the other scriptural event that we also see as being relevant to this holy season, their forty year sojourn in the desert in route to the Promised Land. Jesus redeems the sins of Israel by freely rejecting sin while professing faith in God. In the books of Exodus (chapter 16) and Numbers (chapter 11) we read about Israel’s hunger and their grumbling against God, to which the Eternal One responds with the gift of manna. This, of course, corresponds to the devil’s invitation to Jesus to turn a rock into bread (Lk 4,3). Jesus responds to this temptation by quoting from the Torah, "one does not live on bread alone" (Deut 8,3).

The second parallel comes with the devil’s invitation to Jesus to replace the true and living God with an idol, like Israel’s golden calf (Exo 32), when the devil tells our Lord that he will give him "all the kingdoms of the world" if he will but worship someone other than God (Lk 4,7). Again, Jesus responds with a quote from the Law: "You shall worship the Lord, your God, and him alone shall you serve" (Deut 6,3).

The final correspondence is between the devil’s demand that Jesus hurl himself off the parapet of the Temple for the purpose of calling down angels to rescue him from what would be a foolish and arrogant choice and Israel’s protest at Massah about being thirsty, which led Moses to sin by putting God to the test and calling forth water from the rock. This precipitous act precluded Moses from entering the Promised Land (Exo 17,1-7; Num 20,2-13). Jesus responds to this final temptation with an admonition directly related to the episode at Massah: "“You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test." (Deut 6,16).

In all this we see that Jesus really and truly experienced temptation’s seductive pull. He certainly knew the fascination of the political and worldly messianism of his time, encountered among his people as he shared their suffering under Roman oppression. Such political and worldly messianism is not limited to first century Jews, however. Indeed, beginning at the end of the nineteenth century and continuing throughout the twentieth until today, many have tried to demythologize the Good News that is Jesus Christ, by reducing him to a worldly, or existential Messiah.

Reflecting on these three temptations, we come to see that there is really only one temptation from the beginning of time. It is the temptation that seduced the first Adam, tripped up Moses and Israel, and has bedeviled you and me: the temptation to trust in oneself and the power of the world, to be “like” God in our own right, instead of trusting in God in his manifest "weakness." This reality, which we experience daily, forces us to make a radical decision posed by St. Augustine in this way: "love of self until God is forgotten, or love of God until self is forgotten" (De Civitate dei, 14.28).

My dear sisters and brothers, may we always remember that the “Church's mission is not an addition to that of Christ and the Holy Spirit, but is its sacrament: in her whole being and in all her members, the Church is sent to announce, bear witness, make present, and spread the mystery of the communion of the Holy Trinity"(Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 738). Hence, during these forty days we should be fully conscious that we are called to renew our covenant with God, through Christ, into whom we entered at baptism, and who gives us our sacramental identity by the power of the Holy Spirit. Lent is also a time of intensified prayer for and preparation of our Catechumens and Candidates, who later today will be enrolled among the Elect and called to continuing conversion as they make their way toward Easter. So, it is to that covenant we look on this first Sunday of Lent and hear God, speaking through the Church, asking each one of us, in imitation of our Lord in today’s Gospel: Do you reject sin so as to live in the freedom of God’s children? Do you reject the glamour of evil, and refuse to be mastered by sin? Do you reject Satan, father of sin and prince of darkness? (Rite of Baptism). Let us, like Jesus, use these forty days to anchor our freedom with the truth and at Easter respond with a resounding “Yes!” in the confidence that no one who confesses Jesus as Lord “will be put to shame” (Rom 10,11).

Martin Scorcese

The only other major I flirted with while an undergraduate was Film. Since I did not begin college in earnest until I was 23 years-old, most of my friends were graduate students in both Philosophy and in Film. I simply love the medium. I continue to study it and have learned a lot about the craft and history of this ever-evolving medium by reading various filmmakers. One filmmaker from whom I have learned a great deal is last night's winner of the Academy Award for best director, an honor long overdue, for his latest movie The Departed, Martin Scorcese. Scorcese, a one time seminarian, has taught me a lot through a series of commentaries on films from different countries, entitled A Personal Journey With Martin Scorsese Through . . .


Needless to say I am a film buff. In fact, my Spiritual Director and I became acquainted due to our mutual love of movies. One film of Scorcese's that had a tremendous impact on me at a very crucial juncture in my personal journey was his film adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis' The Last Temptation of Christ, a movie that sparked a huge amount of protest among many conservative Christian groups. I waded through sign wielding protesters to see the movie. This film sparked my imagination regarding Jesus Christ, it was also an entry way for me into theology. I read Kazantazakis' book after seeing the movie.

Now, do not get me wrong, Kazantzakis' Christology is not an orthodox take on the person of Jesus, but it is a valuable literary reflection that helps us see that our Lord was truly human. I have often toyed with writing an essay comparing the Christology of Kazantzakis in The Last Temptation of Christ with that of Anne Rice in her novel Memnoch the Devil, which is basically the opposite of Kazantzakis', to show that overlapping these two literary views of the person and mission of Christ gets us somewhere close an orthodox understanding of him.

Scorcese's adaptation of this book remains a masterpiece of what, I am convinced, is the most difficult genre of film, adapting a complex literary work into a film and doing it well. His finally being recognized by the Academy for yet another masterful film adaptation makes me very happy.

This is too cool

I will post my homily from yesterday later this afternoon, but in the meantime, I cannot help but point you in the direction of the coolest thing I have read in awhile. As usual, this comes from Rocco over at Whispers, the post, about the Bavarian supremo of Sant'Anselmo, who is also the abbot-primate of the worldwide Benedictine Confederation, Dom Notker Wolf, entitled AP/DC.