As we look around the world today, and see the many troubling signs, I think most people who believe in God would be grateful if He were to just come down and let us know that everything will be okay. In the readings this weekend, you and I are reminded that He has.
One of the greatest stories of faith in the Bible is that of Abraham, whom God called to leave his prosperous existence in his home land of Ur to journey to the Promised Land. Called at a point of time when he was of an advanced age, Abraham was asked to give up everything to follow the Lord, at a point in his life when most people would be getting ready to die. Childless, and way beyond child bearing years, Abraham and his wife Sarah, are promised that they will have more descendants then the stars in the Heavens. Putting their trust in God, they follow and enter into a covenant with the Lord. Through faith, Abraham follows the Lord and believes in the promises that God has made to him. As today’s first reading states: “Abram put his faith in the Lord, who credited it to him as an act of righteousness” (Genesis 15:6).
For both the Jewish and Christian people, Abraham is known as the Father of Faith. His example is important because Abraham shows us the importance of believing in God and the promises that God has made to His people. In today’s reading, when God promises Abraham that his descendants will be greater than the stars of Heaven, God also reminds him of what He has already done for him as reason for relying upon God’s word. Part of the covenant that Abraham enters into with God is based upon what God has already done. Abraham is called to remember who it is with whom he is entering into the covenant. God reminds Abraham that this covenant is being formed with the same God who was with him as he came out of the land of Ur and was given the land of Israel for himself and his descendants.
Remembering who God is, and what He had already done for Abraham, was to be the foundation for trusting God in the present and placing hope in the fact that God would fulfil the promises that God has made. By remembering what God had done for Him, Abraham was called to live in a covenant relationship with God.
You and I are called to live a covenant relationship with God.
It may not always be something that we recall with clarity, but each time we come to Mass we hear in the words of the Eucharistic Prayer: “THE BLOOD OF THE NEW AND ETERNAL COVENANT, WHICH WILL BE POURED OUT FOR YOU AND FOR MANY FOR THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS. DO THIS IN MEMORY OF ME.” God has formed a New Covenant with us in the Blood of His Son. At every Mass, when we proclaim the Mystery of Faith, we remember that Christ has died, Christ has risen and Christ will come again. Recalling what God has already done, is to give us the foundation for believing in faith that He remains with us and will strengthen us through the present trials of life for our journey to the Kingdom of Heaven. Just as recalling what God had done for him strengthened Abraham for his journey; recalling what God has done for us already is to strengthen us for our journey to the Kingdom of Heaven, with the assurance that the Lord is with us today.
Saint Paul writes to the Church of Philippi to remind them of the kind of journey that they are on in life. He states: “But our citizenship is in Heaven, and it is from there that we await a savior, Jesus Christ our Lord. 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” (Philippians 3:20-21). This statement sums up the reasons why we are to trust in the Lord. It is the foundation for everything that we are celebrating in this Jubilee Year in which we are called to be Pilgrims of Hope. Christ who has risen from the dead, is with us on our journey, and will come again at the end of time to raise us up to share life eternal with Him. Our destiny, our citizenship is in Heaven. As I have pointed out a few times during this Jubilee Year, the banners that we have hanging in the church, with the winding and bumpy path, destined for the rising sun, are a reminder that Christ is with us and will be with us till we come to be with Him at the end of time.
The story of the Transfiguration is a beautiful reminder of what each Mass should be for us. Before He was arrested and suffered and died, Jesus wanted to give His disciples an experience of who He was to strengthen them for the trials that were to come. He knew that they were going to be frightened by His arrest and crucifixion and be tempted to doubt in whom He was. For this reason, Jesus takes them up a mountain to show them who He is. Moses and Elijah appear with Him so that the apostles might understand that Jesus is the Holy one of God—the Messiah. Before their eyes, Jesus is transfigured to display His Heavenly glory, in order that they might understand that His and their true citizenship is of Heaven. The passing nature of their experience, of our life on earth, was indicated by the reality that there was no point making a dwelling place for Jesus, Moses and Elijah on the mountain, because their time here, like ours, is passing. The high point of the experience, however, comes when from the cloud a voice came that stated: “This is my chosen Son; listen to Him.” I believe that is what God is calling each of us to do in the midst of these troubled times. We are called to listen to His Son—Jesus Christ the Messiah.
Now, sometimes in the season of Lent, when we are told that we should listen to Jesus I think we tend to understand that to mean that we are called to remember His commandments and ask ourselves if we are keeping His commandments, and change our lives in those areas where we are not. Of course, that is always a good idea. However, this year, as we celebrate the Jubilee of Pilgrims of Hope, I would like to suggest that what we are called to listen to are the promises that Christ has made to us. These are the promises on which our Pilgrimage of Hope are to be founded. As we prepare to renew our baptismal promises this Easter, the promise that I would like to remind all of us about was that one which Jesus left us before He ascended into Heaven. In Matthew’s Gospel, before Jesus ascended into Heaven, He gave His disciples the great commission to go out to the whole world and baptize in the “name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” This was concluded with the promise: “I am with you always, to the close of the ages.” Reminded this weekend that our true citizenship is in Heaven, as we are called by the God the Father to listen to His beloved Son: the promise that He is with us until the close of the ages, and that we will be with Him in Heaven, is to be the guiding light on our Pilgrimage of Hope.
This weekend marks the fifth anniversary since the country was shut down by the pandemic in 2020. The events surrounding that were ones that changed my life. I have recounted to you how when the pandemic first began, before the government supports were announced, parishes were told to lay off all staff. On one of the first evenings of the pandemic, a man attacked the door of the rectory with a hammer. He banged on the door for about thirty minutes straight before I was stupid enough to answer it at about 3:00 in the morning. He was terrified to live in the shelters were he thought he would get COVID. To protect himself from COVID, he had wrapped himself in the plastic from the dry cleaners. Only because I was able to explain to him that I was also frightened to let him in because he was waving a hammer, did he agree that he would not need to stay in the rectory. However, that evening I had a bit of a panic attack, imagining that experience was what the entire pandemic was going to be like. It was at that point that I really felt called to remember the promises that the Lord had made and trust that He was with me and would be with me throughout. It was one of the most powerful spiritual experiences that I have had and in many ways changed my faith life. In the midst of life’s challenges, you and I are called to find hope by listening to the promises that Jesus has made and believing in faith that He will fulfill those promises.
Today’s Gospel concludes by stating: “They fell silent and did not at that time tell anyone what they had seen.” This silence might seem strange after such a powerful experience. However, the silence is based on the reality that this experience will not be something that makes sense to others until after Christ’s resurrection. After the resurrection, it is offered as a way of pointing to who Christ is and what we are offered at every celebration of the Eucharist. In the Eucharist, we recall what Christ has done for us, we hear Him speaking to us, and remember that He has come, is with us today, and will come again in glory. The Eucharist is the New Covenant in His Blood, by which we can recall that the foundation of all our hope is that He has come into our world, given His life for us, sent the Holy Spirit into our hearts through baptism, and will come again at the end of time to bring us to our true homeland in Heaven. As we hear today the call of the Father to listen to His Son, may we recall all of the promises that the Son has given us to be with us until the end of the ages. This promise is the source and foundation of all our hope- no matter what may happen on our journey.
May God bless us with hope in this Lenten season.
Fr. Michael McGourty,
Pastor—St. Peter’s Parish—Toronto, Ontario
This reflection is based on the readings for the Second Sunday of Lent—Year C: Genesis 15:5-12, 17-18; Psalm 27: Philippians 3:17-4:1 and Luke 9:28-36.
