This Sunday all three
readings follow the same thought that, perhaps, can be expressed in this way:
faith is a journey we are all on, a journey of joy, a journey that demands
sacrifice, and a journey that leads to glory. Yes: faith is a journey. That's a strange statement. Perhaps you might
say, "I thought faith was the sum total of the things that you
believe." No, faith is much more
than that. Faith is the way that we live
reflecting our beliefs. So, faith is a
journey. It is a journey of joy as
we grow in the realization that we are happy when we are united to God. We are given a small portion of the joy that
God has for us when we recognize His Presence and His working in our lives.
When we live our faith we are happy with ourselves. Faith is a journey of joy
as we experience others coming to the Lord, particularly our young, but all
others who find Christ[1].
The first reading for today presents the journey of Abram, the patriarch
whom God would later name Abraham. Abram
was 75 years old when God called him to make a journey of faith. He called him
out of Ur[2]. He called Abram to leave his
kinfolk, but he promised him that if he makes this sacrifice, he would make of
Abram a great nation. Out of faith Abram began the journey. His faith was
challenged over and over, culminating in the supreme challenge when he was told
to sacrifice his son Isaac. Abram did
not allow his faith to waiver. Each time
he was challenged he took another step of faith in his unseen God. Abrams life
is a journey of faith. Abraham is the Father of Faith, the Father of the Chosen
people.
Many times people are edified by those who live their faith and, as a
result, these people change their own lifestyles so they also can be people of
faith. That is part of the joy of the
journey, there are always new people joining us on our walk. But, sadly,
sometimes people are intimidated by people of faith. Some do their best to
attack us. In Paul's time, that attack was physical. In our time, that attack is both intellectual
and psychological. So we may hear,
"You Catholics are leftovers from a past that reasonable people have
rejected." That is not true. The
greatest intellects in history have embraced their Catholic faith such as Augustine,
Aquinas, Anselm and Albert, and that is just a few of the “A’s.” Some great
minds who were not Catholic, such as John Henry Newman, have sincerely sought
out truth and embraced the Catholic faith[3]. We know who we are. We know the happiness we have when we live the
life of the Lord. Satan wages spiritual
warfare on us by tempting us to think that we are somehow less than we could be
because we refuse to embrace the immoral aspects of society. We would rather
choose Christ and be happy than choose immorality and be desperate for love. It
is true, though, our journey of faith will always bring hardships from others,
but then again we are following the One who leads us to Calvary.
It is in this vein that we can understand the importance of the gospel
reading for today, the Transfiguration of the Lord. Jesus meets with Moses and Elijah. Moses represented the Law; Elijah, the
Prophets. They were the main figures in
Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament.
They met with Jesus to discuss how the Word of God was going to bring
God's Word to its fulfillment. The
disciples witness the glory of God. They were ecstatic. They were given a
glimpse of their deepest hope, that Jesus was Lord. But then they were told
that they need to be quiet about this until after the death of the Lord. Jesus’ glory cannot be understood apart from
His sacrifice.
The concept of only recognizing glory when it is a result of sacrifice
is not that extraordinary. We do this all
the time. No one honors someone who was
just lucky, say in purchasing a winning lottery ticket. But a person is honored when his or her
success is the result of hard work. His or her glory is due to his or her
sacrifice. The athlete is honored not
just for the event, but for the training and sacrifice that gave her or him the
ability to perform. So, faith demands that we make that joyful journey from
sacrifice to glory. It demands that we separate ourselves from our own selfish
desires in order to give to others. This
is the path to glory for a Christian. And it is a path full of joy. We Christians are happy because, like the
disciples on the mountain of the transfiguration, we have experienced a touch
of heaven, the joy of the Lord, the happiness that is to come. Faith is not
just something we profess. Faith is a
life that we lead. It is a life of joy,
a life of sacrifice, and a life leading us to the Glory of God ■
[1] 2nd Sunday of Lent A, March
16, 2014. Readings: Genesis 12:1-4; Responsorial Psalm 33:4-5, 18-19, 20, 22; 2
Timothy 1:8b-10; Matthew 17:1-9.
[2] Possibly in present day Iraq.
[3] Blessed John Henry Newman CO
(21 February 1801 – 11 August 1890, also referred to as Cardinal Newman, was an
important figure in the religious history of England in the 19th century. He
was known nationally by the mid-1830s. Originally an evangelical Oxford
academic and priest in the Church of England, Newman was a leader in the Oxford Movement. This influential
grouping of Anglicans wished to return the Church of England to many Catholic
beliefs and forms of worship traditional in the medieval times to restore
ritual expression. In 1845 Newman left the Church of England and was received
into the Roman Catholic Church where he was eventually granted the rank of
cardinal by Pope Leo XIII. Newman's beatification was officially proclaimed by
Pope Benedict XVI on 19 September 2010 during his visit to the United Kingdom.
Newman was also a literary figure of note: his major writings including his
autobiography Apologia Pro Vita Sua
(1865–66), the Grammar of Assent
(1870), and the poem The Dream of
Gerontius (1865).
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