Second Sunday of Lent
In the front of my Breviary for Lent and Easter, the book of prayers that priests, deacons, and consecrated men and women are required to pray throughout the day, is a Post-It note, on which is written: Sirach 6:5-17. The last part of this Scripture passage reads:
Faithful friends are a sturdy shelter;
whoever finds one finds a treasure.
Faithful friends are beyond price,
no amount can balance their worth.
Faithful friends are life-saving medicine;
those who fear God will find them.
Those who fear the Lord enjoy stable friendship,
for as they are, so will their neighbors be.
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| Fr. Kregg Hochhalter |
This Post-It note was put there by one of my best friends from college seminary, Kregg Hochhalter, who is now a priest of the Diocese of Bismarck. He stuck it there when I visited him once while he was still at St. John Vianney College Seminary. Every Ash Wednesday I open it up, and I immediately think of him and our friendship. Because we live so far apart, and because we have such busy lives, we rarely get to see each other. In fact, after his ordination to the priesthood a few years back, I had not seen him until last summer, when his retreat happened to coincide with my summer studies at Mundelein Seminary in Illinois. We didn’t have much time to catch up because of his retreat, but we spent the better part of an hour or two finding out how the other was doing.
Friendships like these are not too uncommon. Many times friends from college move away from each other. But if they are truly good friends, then all it takes is a meeting, even after a few years, and they can pick back up where they left off. What is a blessing for me is that every year, I am reminded of our friendship, pray for Fr. Kregg, and try to send him a little note. That yearly physical reminder I have in my book eases the year’s worth of not being able to see him.
Abraham (still called Abram at this point in the story) in our first reading is given a physical reminder of his covenant, his friendship, with God, who promises Abram descendants more numerous than the stars in the sky. Abram would never see that promise fulfilled, nor the promise that his descendants would have the land. But each time Abram looked into the night sky, and saw all the stars, he was reminded of what God had sworn on oath would happen. In fact, that very bloody covenant ritual of cutting up animals and burning them, was the ancient way of saying, “May I be as these animals if I do not fulfill my part of the covenant.” Each time Abram saw the stars, he knew that his descendants would one day be many, not just the child of his slave woman, Ishmael, or the child of his wife, Isaac.
Jesus also gives Peter, James, and John, the Big Three of the apostolic college, a glimpse of something spectacular which is meant to hold them through the suffering and crucifixion of Jesus. Peter, James, and John see what a glorified body will look like, and they see Jesus surrounded by Moses, who represents the law, and Elijah, the greatest of all prophets. They are given a glimpse of the resurrection. They don’t really understand it, other than knowing it’s truly awesome.
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| Mural of the Transfiguration at the top of Mt. Tabor |
And it is even more awesome when one recognizes how much of a change it would have been. I have been to Mount Tabor, to the place of the Transfiguration. Today it has a switchback road with small busses to take people up. But I climbed in my Birkenstock sandals to the top on one of my pilgrimages. And even though I had showered that morning (as I do every morning), I was a mess by the time I made it to the top. There were weeds, brambles, thorns, and the like, as well as loose rocks. I doubt Jesus would have showered that morning; no doubt they were all a bit dirty from walking so much on the dirt roads, the sun beating down on them. So when Jesus’ face “changed in a appearance and his clothing became dazzling white,” I’m sure Peter, James, and John knew this was something divine, a moment from God that was meant to strengthen their faith in who Jesus is.
God will often give us moments or Post-It notes that are meant to remind us of what is to come. There is no better moment than the one we have here. Jesus, under the appearance of bread and wine, is made present for us once again in the Sacrament of His Body and Blood. This place is not heaven, but is meant to be a reminder of us of heaven, where we will worship God and have communion–union with–God. It is our weekly, or for some of you, daily reminder of God’s love and of what we have to look forward to if we follow Jesus. May our Lenten practices help us to be aware of the many ways that God gives us a glimpse into what is to come, the bounty, the good things of the Lord that we hope to see in the land of the living.