Transfiguration?

From WikiMedia Commons. Saint Catherine's Monastery, Sinai (Egypt) / K. Weitzmann: "Die Ikone"

Jesus was transfigured.  His appearance changed.  I believe he became other worldly in appearance.  Many commentators state that the transfiguration is a view into the glory Jesus has as Son of God and will receive in his resurrection from the dead.¹  This is the glory that God wants to give us.  This is the glory we participate in because we are part of the Body of Christ, the Church. (See Col 1:18; Eph 5:23)

During this week, we are reminded that we are not merely creatures.  God has a purpose for us: We are to have the glory that the resurrection provides.  Our prayer, penance and almsgiving should bring us closer to the glory of God.  Although what we do does not earn us God’s love and salvation simply by prayer, penance and almsgiving, our Lenten practices do prepare us to receive the grace of God.  Like when we pound on a piece of beef so that the marinade can permeate it, our Lenten practices  (when done in the right spirit) allows the graces of God to permeate our being.  When we allow the grace of God to be a part of us, we also allow the glory of God to be manifested in us.

In St. Luke’s version of the transfiguration (which we read this weekend), the voice says that Jesus is the Chosen, unlike the versions (of Ss. Matthew and Mark) which say that Jesus is the Beloved.  Because Jesus is chosen, he is to be listened to.  God chose Jesus to carry out His Will and proclaim His Word.  God’s offer of salvation is made through Jesus.  Thus, to listen, that is, to hear and put into practice what Jesus teaches is paramount.  When we are able to listen and then do what the Chosen One has proclaimed, we also prepare ourselves to receive the glory that God wants to give.  Thus, prayer, penance and almsgiving must include that which Jesus teaches and commands: love.  After all, love is the reason we were made and the reason we were saved.

Let us pray this week to persevere in our Lenten preparations.


1.  See, for example, Luke Timothy Johnson, The Gospel of Luke, Sacra Pagina Series Volume 3 (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1991), 152-153.

Our Temptations

(Apologies: I had neglected to post this on the First Sunday of Lent.  I only realised this when I began to prepare for my post for the Second Sunday of Lent.)

Temptations are not to be trifled with.  They can be a serious problem in our lives, especially when we are making a great effort to be at rights with God.  The problem is that we have made temptations less to do with the spiritual and supernatural, and more to do with the physical world.  That is the evolution of language, I suppose.  However, we must not mix up the temptations from the evil one with the non-supernatural kinds.  Of course, the evil one can tempt using non-supernatural or non-spiritual means.  However, we must trace the non-supernatural and non-spiritual to the supernatural and the spiritual to know the danger the evil one poses.

Let me provide a simple example:

I was tempted to eat ice cream.

Ice Cream Dessert by Lotus Head. From WikiMedia Commons.

Why is eating ice cream wrong?

1. Am I unhealthily overweight?
1. Am I being indifferent to my health?
2. Am I being a glutton?


2. Am I trying to look slim?
1. I want to look good.  Am I being vain?
2. I want to fit back into my clothes.  Do I regret going on a binge?

When I say “I was tempted to eat ice cream”, what is actually happening?  From the above list of possible answers, I have to consider whether eating ice cream was the actual temptation.  Wanting to look one’s best might be due to wanting to show respect for the person we are meeting or simply to impress, in other words, to raise our standing with that person.  The actual temptation for 1A above is more about not treasuring the gift of our bodies and health and less about eating the ice cream itself.  Gluttony is a capital sin and vanity is part of pride, another capital sin.  In 1B, the eating is wrong because it is linked to gluttony.  In 2A, it is the result of not eating that is dangerous.  2B needs more questions and discernment to get to the spiritual meaning of the main sentence: I was tempted to eat ice cream.

As we can see, in most cases, the real temptation was not directly about eating the ice cream but the reasons and motivations behind the act of eating.  If I struggle with temptations that are from spiritual or supernatural origins, I should not despair.  It is an indication to me that I am clear with what is of God and what is not.  What should be worrying to me is when there is no struggle.  Have I given up trying to be closer to God?  Or perhaps, I do not even recognise that I am drifting away from the Lord.  After all, the devil will not need to do anything to me if I am on my way to hell.  

As we begin Lent, let us pray that our hearts might be graced to be open to Him who aids us when we struggle with temptation to sin.  The spiritual activities of prayer, penance and almsgiving help us in being open to him.

Our Call to be Disciples

(Apologies: I had forgotten to publish this and the next post after writing them.  Only discovered my negligence when I started to prepare the post for the Second Sunday of Lent)

Our call to be Christ’s followers is meant to elevate us to be truly children of God.  Many people remark that they did not choose their parents.  I believe that it is the same way when it comes to God: we did not choose to be made by Him nor called by Him.  However, it is our response that we choose.  Just as we can choose to treat our parents as parents, we can choose to respond to God’s call with a Yes or a No.  If we say Yes, it is not because we were good enough to choose to be God’s child but that God makes us good enough when we respond with a Yes.  Here lies the mystery of the grace of God and His gift of free will.  In history, there have been many who have struggled to understand this mystery.  In our limited human capacity to reason, we cannot seem to understand how the human will is dependent on the grace of God and yet remain really free.  (If you are interested in this, you can refer to New Advent's article on Pelagianism and the summary of St. Augustine’s treatise on Grace and Free Will.)

The earliest portrait of Saint Augustine in a 6th century fresco, Lateran, Rome.
From WikiMedia Commons

Let us get back to our call to be disciples.  Observing the First Reading of this Sunday’s Liturgy (5th Sunday in Ordinary Time), we discover the truth that God makes us worthy to be His Son’s disciples. It was and will never be because we were worthy in our own right.  So, if we feel we deserve to be Christian, perhaps we need to revisit our understanding regarding the virtue of humility.  If we feel unworthy, we should need to continue to humbly pray to the Lord to help us, with a prayer not  unlike the father of a boy who was possessed by a dumb spirit (Mark 9:14-27) who exclaimed, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (v. 24).  The paradox of the disciple is that it is that it is when we are aware of our unworthiness that we are able to totally depend on the grace of God.  As St. Paul wrote, “for when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Cor 12:10)  The temptation is for us to think that because we are made worthy, we become worthy in ourselves.  We should then take note of next week’s Gospel reading on the Temptations of Christ.

Let us continue to bask in the grace of God and ask God to keep us humble so that we can do great things for God, just like St. Peter, who became a true fisher of men.

Jesus, a celebrity?

Jesus was viewed as a celebrity in the Gospel today. The villagers of Nazareth had heard of the things that Jesus had done in other places. So, the homecoming of Jesus to his home village had caused excitement.  The local boy had made it big. So he has returned and had proven himself to be an eloquent speaker, or else he would not have “won the approval of all.” (As the Jerusalem Bible states.). Then Jesus proceeds to tell them that they would not get what they were hoping for: a demonstration of his powers. Of course, after his rather long discourse, the villagers were riled up.

Are we not like the villagers from Nazareth?  We gravitate to the spectacular. We would prefer the eloquent speaker to the less eloquent. Retreats and talks: do we regard the retreat masters and speakers like celebrities?  Whilst I understand that we want to be enriched spiritually by a meaningful retreat or talk, there are times I would pick and choose on the basis of whether the speaker meets my expectations.  At those times I recognise the villagers of Nazareth in me.  It is not the speaker I should be concerned about, but whether I am open to the message if Christ that is transmitted via the speaker.  If we are open to the Lord, He can speak to us with the plainest of statements.  There are many times when I chide myself for not delivering a homily well. Yet,someone would come to me and share how something I said during the homily was significant to them.  This does not excuse me from preparing for my homilies but it does indicate to me that it is God who matters, not me, the one who delivers the message.

Let us pray this week that we would stop being groupies or fans of particular speakers.  Rather, let us be followers of Chrst Jesus, the Son of God. Let us remember not to turn our priests and religious into celebrities. 

To be healed

What struck me in this week’s Gospel is the passage of scripture Jesus read in Nazara, his hometown. He was sent to “bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and to the blind new sight.” (from the Jerusalem Bible)  For Jesus to do that to us, we need to admit that we are poor, captive and blind.  It is easy for us to admit those things when we are in crisis, personal or otherwise.  However, when we find ourselves in pleasant times, can we admit them as well?

We can be materially comfortable yet poor in our spirit, poor in our emotional dealings with others, or poor in our relationship with God, just to name a few examples.  We can be held captive by sin.  We can be held captive by bad habits.  We can be held captive by our pride, not being able to see that there may be more than one way of looking at things besides our own.  We can be blind in the sense that we are not sensitive enough to the things that are happening around us, even with the people we love, the people we are most familiar with.  The converse can be true: we pay attention to the little things that we become blind to the larger picture.  Was there not a saying: Cannot see the forest for the trees?  Can we admit that even with a 20/20 sight, we can be blind?

This is where the good news come in.  Jesus has come to bring us out of our poverty, captivity and blindness.  The thing is, unless we can admit our being poor, being held captive and being blind, we will not be able to accept the help of Jesus.  And if we cannot accept help from Jesus, can we truly help others in need?  Can we truly be able to continue the mission of Jesus as Christians?

Let us take the time to consider our poverty, captivity and blindness.  Then by admitting that we are, open our hearts to the aid, healing and grace of Christ.

“Do whatever he tells you”

These are the words Mary tells the servants when the wedding celebration was out of wine.  Jesus seemed to have protested but yet Mary did not seem not to have heard.  Was Mary being difficult?  Did she not hear what Jesus said?

I can picture it.  Mary knows that there was a difficulty and her son had some of his companions with him.  Her son should be able to do something to help the couple celebrating their wedding.  I believe she heard Jesus.  Just like most mothers, I suspect, she did not understand completely.  Yet she did respect Jesus’ answer that it was not his hour.  It was probably like, see what you can do to help.  So it was not Jesus' hour, yet there is definitely more than one way to help them, right?  Perhaps, Mary thought that her son could get his companions together to carry the jugs of wine from the vineyard in the next village.  Whatever it was, Mary must have had the confidence that Jesus would be able to help in some way.  That was why she did not specify the help.  She simply said, “They have no wine.”  Her instructions to the servants were just as simple: “Do whatever he tells you.”

Unlike Mary, we might not be so simplistic when we encounter a crisis.  We would probably specify what God needs to do.  Instead of saying, “Lord, I am in trouble,” and then listen for his instructions, we probably would say things like, “Lord, I need to get out of this mess I am in.  Can you get me out of this mess?”  When the Lord tells us what to do, we would probably not understand anything because we have got in our heads the solution we want.  His instructions would be left unheard and then we would complain that the Lord had not heard our prayers.  Ironic isn't it?

The Baptism of Jesus

One question regarding Jesus’ baptism had struck me many years ago: Why did He, who had no sin, need to be baptised?  Of course, after 20 years of priesthood, I have given a standard answer every time this question comes up.  Jesus wanted to be identified with sinful humanity even though he was sinless.  Saint Paul would say this, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor 5:21)

This idea of identification brings to mind what our attitude should be in this Jubilee Year of Mercy.  We need to identify ourselves with our brothers and sisters before we can truly be merciful as God has been merciful to us.  One of the ways of identifying ourselves with our brothers and sisters is to feel with them: to have sympathy.  In the Gospels, Jesus is said to have had compassion on the people around him.  He is able to have compassion because he sympathised with the people.  Let us not talk about mercy from a top-down perspective: Those people are less fortunate than me and since I am able, I will help them.  God’s mercy is not like that.  God knows our weaknesses and difficulties.  He sent His Son to become one of us to live in this weakness.  His compassion is not one of I’ve got the means and so I’ll help you.  Rather, it is one of I’m helping you because I’m with you.  Of course, we must have the means to help or else we cause more trouble.  Yet when we have God, we have the means.  He will indicate to us the means to help.  He will indicate to us how to help.

I remember many years ago, I was told this little principle: Don't just give fish, show how to fish.  Sometimes we have to just give fish.  Most of the time, after giving fish, we teach how to fish.  We can only know when to do which when we are with the people we serve.  When we give fish, we do not need to know the people we help; we simply provide.  To teach how to fish, we need to encounter and interact with the people; we must be with the people.  This calls to mind the little problem in an European country some time back regarding helping the refugees from the Middle East.  The refugees complained that they were given food that they were not allowed to eat.  Whilst it could have been a simple misunderstanding, I believe that the situation could have been avoided if those who wanted to help by providing food took some time to be with the refugees.

Thus, may I humbly suggest that the next time we are given the opportunity to help, we take a short time to discern.