Genesis 12:1-4; Matthew 17:1-9:
God will not change His promises to us because we are sick or old or poor or childless or because we have problems. God’s promises will always come to pass. In the midst of Abraham’s worries and old age God asked him to look at the stars. “Your descendants will be as many as the stars”, God said. Abraham believed. He left his Father’s land. He did not listen to voices asking him to look at his limitations and old age; he looked at the stars; he looked at God’s promises.
In life, we can either be transfigured or disfigured. To listen to our fears, our limitations, our doubts and to believe in them and to believe that God’s promises cannot happen to us, is to allow ourselves to be disfigured by life. Abraham, like our mother Mary, is transfigured and blessed, because he believed that the promises made to him by the Lord will be fulfilled.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus took his friends to the mountain, to his place of prayer for them to experience what happens to him in his encounter with God. They heard those words that are meant also for us, “You are my Son, my chosen one.” We should never forget these words. We are God’s chosen one. This is our true nature. It is our true figure. If we are truly God’s children nothing should make us live the life of a slave. God’s promises to us reveal who we truly are. We are not our sins; we are not our failures; we are not our disappointments; we are not our addictions; and we are not our sickness. To believe that we are these because of how often they occur in our lives is to allow disfiguration to happen to us. But to believe that the promises made to us by God will be fulfilled, to believe that we are God’s children no matter where we have been or what we have done, to be believe that God’s grace can find us, to believe that we can do all things in Him who gives us strength, to trust in God’s word and to believe that we are an important part of God’s wonderful plan and gift to this world is to allow the transfiguration of Christ to happen to us.
During this season of Lent, may we be transfigured by the love and grace of Christ and not be disfigured by the challenges of our lives. May God bless you.
