Faith always implies a courageous and committing choice.  We are invited to listen to and follow Jesus not only on the mount of transfiguration, but also in the suffering of the Cross which precedes the resurrection.

What does it mean to believe in God?  In which God do we believe?  Is it in the God of Jesus Christ or in the God according to our image and likeness?  What is faith?  Today’s liturgy helps.

TRANSFIGURATION IS ANTICIPATION OF EASTER

The second Sunday of lent puts us before Jesus transfigured on the mountain.  It is a paschal anticipation.  It is the certainty that darkness is already defeated, that suffering love apparently sterile is, instead, very fruitful that death is not the ultimate word, that “to lose own life” is the only way to find it.

In everyday life we have of these moments of certainty to recover strength and courage; so that our faith becomes divine strength to accept the cross as blessing instead of shrugging it off as a weight, in order to have the strength to move forward inspite of all without taking refuge in a nostalgic past and without fleeing into future impossibilities.

DISTORTE IMAGE OF GOD DOES NOT LEAD TO TRUE FAITH

We note that the transfiguration happened after the apostles, and Peter in particular, rejected that Christ should suffer and die denied by all.  They could not understand a crucified Messiah.  They could not imagine a God from the part of the humiliated, the rejected, the forsaken.  For the apostles, as for us, the transfiguration is given to us as interpretative key to the Christian faith.  One must always follow Christ even in the choices that brought Him to failure and death (see beginning of 2R).  This is the way of success guaranteed by God.  And in this sense the Father presents Jesus, the beloved, and says to us: “Listen to Him”.

Faith means sharing the destiny of the One we are following.  “Where I am, there will my disciple be”.  Faith is being docile to that love, which once received, can lead us to where we do not wish.  Faith is not so much saying like Peter at foot of Mt. Tabor “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” as saying with the centurion at the foot of the cross: “Truly this was the Son of God”.  Faith means accepting the logic of the cross not in abstract way but in the life of every day, in the choices, in the families, relationships, economic, scholastic, in committing our free time, in conducting our affairs, in determining our scale of values.

ABRAHAM, EXAMPLE OF TRUE FAITH AND OUR COMPANION

In 1R we are presented with an example/model of true faith and a companion in Abraham, the Father of believers.  God asks him to leave house, relations and acquaintances.  To abandon acquired security to launch into the unknown.  Abraham accepts on the word of God.  He trusts God.  This is faith.  But the walk of faith is not easy.  Abraham soon realizes that the word on which he risked his life is not to be realized.  He should become father of a people, and when he has one, God orders him to sacrifice him to Him.  One asks if God is not enemy to His promises?

The same thing happens to Jesus.  He also trusted God who sent Him to save mankind.  There was an easy way to make them accept Him: the messianism of miracles, the conquest of power, the exploitation of glory, the use of convincing methods.  This is human logic.  Here God is not needed.  But the Father chose another route: that of solidarity, of love, of service.  To follow this proposal it is necessary to trust God as Jesus who will die like all but; “My God, why have you abandoned me”?  It is the return of the temptation which Jesus will again overcome in faith, “into your hands I commend my spirit”.  Jesus like Abraham dies without seeing the result of His mission.  He only lived after all the trust in God.

MOMENTS OF TRANSFIGURATION ARE FOR MOVING FORWARD

It is difficult to live the faith.  It is hard to live our baptism.  Does God know?  Jesus knows.  Because of this, now and again we are conceded moments of transfiguration, of enthusiasm, of joy.  These moments, however, are for moving ahead, not to stop.  “Lord, let make three tents here”.  But Jesus invites us to descend with Him from the mountain.  It is not possible to resurrect without having died first.  For us as for Abraham, the order is always this: leave, walk, go along the way.  Security does not come to us from the home, from country, from persons, from religious forms, from social and political structures.  The unique security is God who walks with you.  The rest change, exactly because you are on the way.  But God who accompanies you and precedes you, never changes.  It is on Him and not on these created by Him that we should base our faith and risk our life.

God bless you!

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