II SUNDAY OF LENT - Matthew 17:1-9
This Sunday, in the first reading, we are presented with the calling of Abraham and the promise that goes with it. God’s call sounded like a command: “Leave”. He had to leave his country, his family and his father’s house. He had to leave his past behind and break the ties that had him bound to a way of life. Obeying God’s command, he was going to make a new start and move into the unknown. That is only possible when there is a deep trust that someone will guide and protect you along the way while preparing at the same time a warm welcome at your arrival. God’s command was accompanied by a promise for the future: “I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name so famous that it will be used as a blessing.” (Gn 12:1-4). Life, all life, is always a call, which we accept to answer, moved and strengthened by a promise. Life always comes pregnant with a promise of a better life, a new life. However, for that promise to be fulfilled, we must embrace life with trust, certain that we do never travel alone but always have with us the Lord of life. So strengthened by faith, “Abram went as the Lord told him.”
In the history of religions, the experience of Abraham is considered the beginning of a new relationship with God based on faith. All those who live by faith go through the same basic experience as Abraham. Our way of life is put into question by a call that forces us to leave behind the home where we feel protected and at ease and move towards the unknown, strengthened only by trust and confidence in the One who calls us. The acceptance of the call becomes a source of blessings that will lead us to blissfulness.
Faith is a journey - the journey of life done in the company of the Lord. Interestingly, the ministry of Jesus is presented, mainly in the gospel of Luke, as a journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, a journey that will lead him through suffering and death to resurrection and glory. The scene of the transfiguration, read in this Sunday’s gospel, stresses the theme of the journey. Jesus had informed his disciples that he had to go to Jerusalem, where he would be arrested, tortured and sentenced to death, and then raised on the third day. This prediction was incomprehensible to the disciples and Peter reacted in alarm, saying that such a thing could not happen. Then, Jesus took with him Peter, James and John and went up a high mountain where he revealed all his glory as the beloved Son of God. All of us are called to go up the mountain with Jesus. That is the goal set for us by God. However, to reach the top, we must go through pain and suffering. That is, we must carry the cross with Jesus. Such a journey is only possible when we are guided by faith. That is what Paul told Timothy in his second letter:
“With me, bear the hardships for the sake of the Good News, relying on the power of God who has saved us and called us to be holy – not because of anything we ourselves have done but for his own purpose and by his own grace.” (2 Tim 1:8-9).
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