Author: Brendan Coffey

Fr William Fennelly OSB

‘The disciples told their story’, Saint Luke tells us, about what had just happened on the road to Emmaus and about how, at the breaking of bread, they finally recognised that their new companion was Jesus, their Lord. you can almost feel the buzz. You can hear the urgency in their voices telling what they’d seen. And they were so consumed with the business of telling the others, that Jesus comes again and interrupts them mid-flow.

Telling stories about Jesus, sharing news of God’s wonderful works, and witnessing to the Risen Lord remains a vital task for 21st-century disciples as it was two thousand years ago. It’s how the faith was spread, often at great sacrifice and risk, and how it has been handed down through countless generations the world over. In this sharing of the Good News of Jesus Christ, no detail is more important than the Resurrection, not least because, as Jesus says, it fulfils the scriptures.

So, how good are we at engaging in and performing this key resoinsibilty? Have you, for example, radiated some of that same joy of the early disciples as they basked in the light of the Risen Lord? Have you greeted people with the traditional Easter greetings like ‘Christ is risen! Alleluia!’? When was the last time you spoke with friends about an encounter with Jesus like the Emmaus disciples? How many of us see his Holy Spirit as an animating force in our lives? Did you, this Easter, choose the Easter bunny and Easter eggs over the cross? These are searching questions to ask of ourselves.

The Korean German writer, Byung Chul Han, says that  Homo sapiens have degenerated into “phono sapiens”. Storytelling used to bind us together around the campfire; it connected us to our past and helped us imagine hopeful futures. The digital screen has replaced that fire, making us individuals that perform fictitious versions of ourselves to unseen peers, tailoring our looks, lives and opinions to get our story liked. “This smart form of domination constantly asks us to communicate our opinions, needs and preferences, to tell our lives, to post, share and like messages”. Han argues that in a fog of instant information, commodified data, and selfie updates, our ability to tell our stories has degenerated. He surely has a point and the effects of this decline really affect the christian community’s efforts to share its story and encourage each other in the faith. My story seems to be hard to connect to our story as christians.

One issue is ignorance of the story itself. You can’t speak about what you do not know about. ‘Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ’, it is said. Reading scripture and spending time in prayer are humble and faithful slow works of a lifetime, part and parcel of being a disciple.

Another obstacle is of course our sin. Our credibility as storytellers, as sharers of the Gospel, depends on the way we live our lives. People are rightly reluctant to accept the word of a hypocrite, one who says they know Jesus but doesn’t keep his commandments, as the Second Reading put it. Actually, I think few have the brass-neck for such double standards and so the result of sin is not that the Gospel is shared by sinners and is disbelieved, but that it isn’t shared at all for fear of being labelled a hypocrite or judged ourselves. Of course, not one of us is perfect and so failing to proclaim the Lord because of our own shortcomings is a complex but real state of affairs. Happily, there’s a remedy and one that is found in the very thing we seek to proclaim.

When we sin and we all do, we can confess and repent, as St Peter said in the first Reading. We repent knowing of the Lord’s victory over sin and death, confident of his forgiveness for all. As forgiven and redeemed people we can testify to others that we need not be trapped by our faults and vices in an endless cycle of guilt. Moreover, when we seek to avoid sinning, we hold to the ideal of being a genuinely good person on our horizon so that, ‘God’s love can come to perfection’ in us. Only by living God’s love will the Good News be seen for what it is: authentic; compelling; and transformative.

Jesus tells the disciples, as he tells us, in no uncertain terms ‘you are witnesses to this’. So let’s tell his story! Tell his story in your story! And tell the stories well, because salvation depends upon this vital task.

Fr Jarek Kurek OSB

Quite recently the death occurred of a Polish man whose name was Ernest Bryll. He was a well-known writer and poet; a man of wide cultural horizons. He had a particular affection for Irish Culture and because of his love for this country he gave his Polish readers many Irish gems. For instance, he made a translation into Polish of Irish poems from the 6th to the 19th centuries. But also, and I have this book here with me, he left us with a most fascinating account of the
journey he made with his wife across Ireland, a journey that started in Dublin, where the two of them followed the trail of James Joyce’s Ulysses, and continued until they eventually reached Dingle and the Blasket Islands, mapping out for the reader all the cultural phenomena they encountered.

Mr Bryll lived in Ireland, back in the early 90s’, while he was serving as the first Polish ambassador to Ireland. And it was during those years that he had a very memorable encounter with a Polish nun called Sr Faustina Kowalska. Well, like it or not, you are stuck with the Poles today…

To be perfectly honest with you, Mr Bryll, didn’t think too much of Sr
Faustina’s revelations initially. To him they seemed quite odd. But he was lucky enough to be challenged by some Irish people who helped him to appreciate her. He happened to meet a local Irish woman, the owner of the hotel he was staying in, and in that hotel there were some pictures of Sr Faustina and the Divine Mercy. That landlady said to him: ‘You are from Poland, are you not? Tell me everything about this Sr Faustina, because, you know, her revelations are very important to us here in Ireland’. The Ambassador looked at her quite perplexed and thought: ‘What am I supposed to tell her? I don’t really know anything
about them’.

On that occasion he managed to save face by remaining rather vague. However, that conversation made him read up on Sr Faustina and her legacy, to avoid similar future embarrassment. At this stage it was still too soon for him to read the actual Diary containing her revelations and he still maintained a low opinion of these writings. He believed
they were rather chaotic, a folksy text produced by an uneducated nun and not worth his scholarly attention.

It was only some years later that he finally started to seriously explore the spiritual experience of the Diary. Only then did he discover that there was far more to this than he had originally though. This highly educated man humbly admitted to himself that this Diary, so often
unappreciated and ridiculed, could actually have a transformative power on its reader.

And a spiritual transformation is what Ambassador Bryll experienced as he carefully read these pages. This extraordinary man subsequently became a herald and promotor of Divine Mercy. We read in the Diary those powerful words that Jesus spoke to Sr Faustina: ‘I want to give Myself to souls, I yearn for souls, My daughter. On the day of My feast, the Feast of Mercy, you will go through the whole world and bring fainting souls to the spring of My mercy, and I shall heal and strengthen them, amen’.

Fr Senan Furlong OSB

That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been … think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first
link on one memorable day.

Great expectations were shattered on the Friday we call good. Jesus’ death on the cross seemed so final, so irrevocable, the erasure of meaning and hope. Things fell apart and those left behind were broken and devastated. The violence of Friday however gave way to the stillness of Saturday and now, it’s early dawn on the first day of the week, the first Easter Sunday. And the first link of the long chain of new life on this one memorable day is an empty tomb.

Sometimes things come along that you didn’t know you needed until you’re offered them. And who would ever have imagined that something as unpromising as an empty tomb would be one of these? On one memorable day three people, one woman and two men came to the tomb where Jesus had been laid. Each came looking for something, not really knowing what that something was.

First came Mary of Magdala, grief stricken and inconsolable. To her horror, she found that Jesus’ body was gone. Then came Peter and the beloved disciple running to the tomb at Mary’s news. Peter did not hesitate to go straight in, but all he could understand then was emptiness: an empty tomb and empty grave clothes. The beloved disciple who outran Peter also entered in. “He saw and he believed.” What he believed is hard to say. Even if he outran Peter in faith, clearly neither of them yet understood what this was all about, for both of them just went home. But Mary, who stood by Jesus as he was dying on the cross, now waited at the tomb in tears; and it is to her that the first link, the empty tomb, yielded up its meaning. Mary is the first to see the Risen Lord. She is first to proclaim, ‘I have seen the Lord.’

We may think we know what we are looking for, hoping to fulfil our great expectations. And then suddenly everything changes: the tomb is empty! Our expectations are shown to be far from great, what we were looking for embarrassingly paltry.

Waiting at the empty tomb like Mary changes us. We seek the Lord only to find that it is the Risen Lord who is seeking us. No matter what we throw at him, however deeply we reject him, however much we seek to bury him, he will find a way back to us. Nothing can separate us from the love of the Lord, not even death itself. This is the story of Easter, this is the story of eternity. Today is the one memorable day that changes the course of our lives and binds us with the long chain of God’s infinite love.

Abbot Brendan OSB

As we listened to the account of God’s dream for the world in the Liturgy of the Word; could you feel the presence of the Risen Lord with us? Has this dream become a reality? The promises made to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Elizabeth and Zacheriah, Mary and Joseph, have they come true?

Mary of Magdala, Mary the mother of James and Salome, came to the tomb. St Cyril of Jerusalem calls Mary of Magdala the philochristos – the ‘lover of Christ’. But strong as she was, Mary of Magdala was almost broken as she approached the tomb. It was all too much. She was reduced to misery. Like all the others she misread the situation.

John’s gospel tells us she had been weeping in the garden. This seems to be a human pastime, starting with Adam and Eve. The three women didn’t realise that God’s plan had already become a reality.

These women expected to see a corpse wrapped in a sheet, instead they see a young man dressed in white. They expected to see a body lying in the tomb, instead they see a man sitting on the right: on whose right? Someone placed this young man on his right hand, saying to him: ‘Sit on my right’.  Do we not remember the words of Jesus to the sons of Zebedee, “sitting at my right hand and my left, this is not mine to grant; this is for those for whom it has been prepared.”

“You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth”, said this man dressed in white, “he has risen, he is not here.” The place of deposition bears witness to this. The hour has come when the bridegroom has been taken away, just as he said.

There is one more line in this gospel passage which we never hear, it is always omitted. It says, “And the women came out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and amazement had gripped them. And they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

What an anticlimax! No wonder it’s omitted. They have just been told the most important news in all of history and what do they do? Nothing. They were afraid. I think this verse is actually more for us than for the women disciples.

Are we afraid of Jesus’ resurrection? Are we afraid of proclaiming it? Are we afraid to stand up for what is right and true in the world? Many of us in the church today are so afraid that we don’t even tell ourselves who we are anymore – the disciples of the Risen Jesus.

Yes, the problems of the world have not disappeared and life remains a struggle for many people, but Christ is Risen, the stone is rolled away from the entrance to our tomb, and we are the messengers of this truth.

Have you not heard, this is the night when a tsunami of grace is poured out, as it will be on Carole when she comes before the altar to receive the sacrament of confirmation.

So do not be afraid, listen to the voices of Mary of Magdala, Mary the mother of James and Salome. Listen to the voices of the peoples of Ukraine. Listen to the suffering people of Gaza and the Middle East. These are the voices crying out to the Risen Christ who stands among us and before whom one day every one of us must stand and ask for mercy. Christ is Risen and it is intolerable in our day that God’s children should be treated like this. Do not be afraid – proclaim the resurrection, proclaim the gospel!

Can you feel the presence of the Risen Christ among us? Can you hear what he is saying to us? We believe in the God of life and “He is going before you to Gallilee, there you will see him.” What shocked the disciples about the resurrection was not just that Jesus rose from the dead; they witnessed this before, Jairus’ daughter, the son of the widow of Nain, and of course, Lazarus. What was so shocking was that the resurrected Jesus did not come back from death as an avenger, but as the bringer of forgiveness. His pierced hand is forever raised against the flames of war, violence and vengeance and he says: Stop! ‘Peace be with you’. Such words break down the gates of hell. These are now our words, if we have the courage to use them.

Χριστὸς ἀνέστη! Ἀληθῶς ἀνέστη! (Khristós Anésti! Alithós Anésti!) Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!

Abbot Brendan OSB

We have listened to the Book of Exodus. How each household must share the Passover lamb with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, taking into account what each can eat. The Last Supper, the memory of which we keep this evening, was a meal Jesus celebrated with his disciples during Passover.

Over time the Passover traditions of the Jewish people strayed a little from the regulations in the Book of Exodus and by the time of Jesus, well over one thousand years later, Passover could also refer to the weeklong celebration of Unleavened Bread with which it had merged.

The famous Roman historian Josephus tells us that over 250,000 lambs were slaughtered every year on the eve of Passover between 3pm and 5pm, some in the Temple and some in people’s homes. This is the same time we will celebrate our Liturgy of the Passion tomorrow afternoon. The time that Jesus died on the cross. The lambs used in the Temple were, like Jesus, born in Bethlehem. They were without blemish, specially reared in the hills surrounding Bethlehem and brought to the Jerusalem Temple for sacrifice. The blood of these slaughtered lambs was collected in bowls and some of it thrown against the altar. Two rods in the form of a cross skewered the lambs before they were prepared and eaten. St John in his Gospel wants us to understand that Jesus is our Paschal lamb. The Lamb of God.

On this night Jesus chose to digress from the normal ritual of the Passover week. He rose from the table and washed the feet of his disciples. He made the disciples ritually clean and brought them into communion with him. Then he fed them with himself. The bread was his body, the wine his blood.

Next he goes to the Garden of Gethsemane, which means ‘oil press’. Do we not remember here another garden, the Garden of Eden with its two trees, the tree of good and evil and the tree of life. Despite what almost everyone thinks, nowhere does it say in the Book of Genesis that Adam and Eve ate an apple. Genesis only mentions that they ate fruit and the ancient Jewish tradition was that this fruit was probably fig, because Adam and Eve afterwards sewed fig leaves together to make themselves clothes. This also helps us make sense of what Jesus said to the fig tree as he was on his way up to Jerusalem for the Passover, “may no one ever eat fruit from you again”.

If tradition says the fig was the tree of good and evil, it also says that the olive was the tree of life. Gethsemane is the oil press where the olive from the tree of life must be crushed. The healing power of the tree of life, holy Chrism, has to flow down upon us from the Paschal Lamb on the tree of the cross.

This blessed night, the gift of the Eucharist, the gift of healing oil, the washing of our feet, reveals in a beautiful way what St John teaches us in the Gospel: “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end”.

Tomorrow, Christ our Paschal Lamb will be sacrificed. Tonight, he invites us to come home. He invites us to sit at his table with him to be washed and healed by his oil of love and feed on his body and blood.

Fr Abbot Brendan OSB 

This morning the monks at morning prayer listened to a sermon from St Aelred for today’s feast. It began like this, ‘Today is the Transitus of St Benedict and so I have to say a few words to you. This is particularly so, as you are so eager to listen.’ I hope that is also the case here? Today, 21 March, happens to be the traditional date for the spring equinox. As you probably know from your geography lessons, at the spring or vernal equinox, as it is called, the sun is directly over the equator making its way northwards. Astronomically speaking, it is the start of spring and summer. From now on the days will get much longer and the light grow ever brighter.

On this highly significant day of light, St Benedict passed from this life into glory in the year of our salvation 547. That is what we celebrate today. Today then we are remembering the day St Benedict died. Those of us who have lost relatives and friends will know how important it is to remember loved ones on their anniversary day. However, here the emphasis is different and we can learn a lot from it. The story of Benedict’s passing is told by Pope St Gregory the Great in his book, The Dialogues.

As Benedict was dying, his brother monks held him up, they carried him to the Eucharist. This is telling us that we as brothers and sisters are supposed to carry each other through life. At times we are all in need of this.

We are also told that after his death two monks saw a vision of a road leading from the monastery into heaven and this road had a carpet of light and was flanked by lamps. This is the road Benedict took when he went to heaven. The lamps are his good deeds in life and the shining carpet is charity, which covers all things.

It is also important for us to note that this account is told to us in the present tense. This passing into life is not an end, it is another stage on a journey. Both life and death are journeys and that journey is marked by the lamps of our good deeds and the carpet of love we leave as we travel this road.

Anyone who has lost a loved one will have little difficulty identifying with this vision and will also be able to take from this account great consolation that those we have loved and who have loved us, have passed along this road too on their journey. This is the message the Transitus of St Benedict leaves with us today, on this spring equinox, a day of light.

Fr Cuthbert Brennan OSB

The great prophet Jeremiah walks into our lives this morning and he is one of those people I’d rather read about than live with. He must have been one incredibly tough truth teller, reminding God’s first Chosen People how they had violated the covenant with their Creator, not only because of their worship of other gods but because of the way they had oppressed the poor.

So love of God and neighbour! It sounds familiar doesn’t it? Jeremiah announces a second chance – a fresh covenant, not one with new content but one with a new geography. From now on, the heart not
stone tablets will be the place where God writes his covenant. The late Stacy Simpson, a Baptist minister, in an attempt to understand what a heart inscribed covenant might look like, offers this reflection entitled Branded by God She writes; The image of God writing on the heart of the people is a compelling one, it also has a frightening aspect to it. Think of a tattoo. Pain, indelibility, identity are the central aspects of what it means to be marked. If it didn’t involve pain, it wouldn’t be indelible; marks that don’t hurt are the ones that wash off. If it were not indelible, what it revealed about a person’s identity wouldn’t be so critical.

Maybe you remember your catechism classes as a child where we learned that baptism left an indelible mark on our souls. At baptism a covenant was inscribed on us, our very hearts were tattooed by God. On the very centre of our being, we are fired with love, that same love which called St Patrick back to this land with the gift of the gospel. That gospel which isn’t simply a story showing us a path to life; it’s an education in what things are worth dying for.

Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains a single
grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. From Jesus, we learn that divine power is the most subversive force in all of creation. Rather than crush opponents, God’s power undermines evil and the violence it perpetrates. As Mahatma Gandhi explained, “Love is the strongest force the world possesses, yet it is the humblest imaginable.”

Ultimately, the greatest leap of faith Christians are invited to take is to
believe in this entirely counterintuitive and countercultural idea that the
forces of humility, generous love, and tender, nonviolent creativity are the instruments of world change. This is Jesus’ message. He taught that falling into the ground and dying lead to ousting the ruler of this world.

Jesus was planted on Calvary, St Patrick was planted in Ireland, we were
planted deep in a baptismal pool and it is here at our liturgies that we
rehearse transformation, we learn to germinate, we practise dying so that our lives when we leave here, can give seed to justice and care, respect and dignity, love of neighbour equal to a love of God.

Jesus knew what he was living for. And he knew what he was dying for. He was the grain of wheat that died and produced much fruit. That fruit is us. That leaves only one question on this St Patrick’s Day – What are we dying for?

Fr Lino Moreira OSB

In his dialogue with Nicodemus, a Pharisee who came to see him during the night, Jesus spoke about the light of faith, and at one point he said: ‘As Moses has lifted up the serpent in the wilderness so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life’ (Jn 3:14-15). Jesus was referring to chapter 21 of the Book of Numbers, where fiery serpents are said to have been sent among the Israelites in the desert to punish them for speaking against God. Moses interceded for the people, and then God told him what he had to do to save them. So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole – reports the sacred author. – And if a serpent bit anyone, they would
look at the bronze serpent and live (Nm 21:9).

Nicodemus was very familiar with this story, and Jesus told him that the bronze serpent was an image of himself, and that whoever looked at him with faith would be rescued from the power of Satan and live forever. But what exactly did Jesus mean by saying that the Son of Man must be lifted up? As is often the case in Saint John’s gospel, the assertion has a double meaning. Jesus was not simply predicting that he would be crucified in Jerusalem, he was explaining that his death on the cross would be the moment of his exaltation, the occasion when – having accomplished the task entrusted to him by his Father – he would be glorified with the glory that was his from the beginning
(cf. Jn 17:4-5; 19:30).

Seen in this light, the crucifixion of Jesus was not a humiliation, but
rather a revelation to the world that the Son of Man was also the Son of God, and that the one into whose hands the Father had placed all things (cf. Jn 13:3) was enthroned on the cross as supreme king over the whole creation. That is why Jesus said to Pontius Pilate: ‘You are right in saying that I am a king. For this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me’ (Jn 18:37).

As king of all creation Jesus was commissioned by God the Father to
judge the world on his behalf. And again according to Saint John’s gospel, judgement is an on-going event, not just something that will take place at the end of time. As we have heard today, Jesus gives a verdict for the here and now when he says that whoever believes in him is not condemned (cf. Jn 3:18). And then he explains that a genuine believer is someone who does what is true (cf. 3:21) – an idiom which means the exact opposite of doing evil (cf. 3:20). So we should ask ourselves constantly, as we go about our daily life, whether we are doing what is true – that is to say, whether we are living by the
truth and our deeds are good. Conscious of the many times we have fallen short, we may be inclined to think that the standards set by Jesus are simply too high for an ordinary human being – a fact which seems to find confirmation in Saint Paul’s sobering words: I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want (Rm 7:19). However, perfection is our goal, not our point of departure. Jesus calls all God’s children, saints and sinners alike, to come to him with full confidence, so that through his divine power they may overcome the darkness of evil and experience the joy of a new life. Let us, then, never lose hope, mindful of what our Redeemer said to some Pharisees who were less sympathetic than Nicodemus: ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life’ (Jn 8:12).

Fr William Fennelly OSB

There is surprisingly little in common between St John’s Gospel and the other three. Apart, of course, from the bare facts of Jesus’s life, notably his crucifixion, there are very few stories from his biography that all four agree on. But today’s tale of the ‘cleansing of the temple’ is such a one, and all four Gospels see this incident as closely related to Jesus’s death. This is not simply because Jesus was only making himself a nuisance and causing a fuss – even a potentially explosive fuss at the
biggest event in the Jewish year – but because by his actions Jesus was seen to be making a claim about himself, one that was absolutely unacceptable to the religious authorities of Jerusalem.

This is very obvious in the account that we read today. ‘What sign do you have to show us for doing this?’, he is asked. In other words, ‘Who do you think you are?, and why should we believe you?’ Now Jesus gives an answer, but it’s a cryptic one, which is naturally enough misunderstood, at least until the resurrection, when the sign is fulfilled. But in fact what he has done is itself the sign that justifies his action, if
we recognise the point of his saying about making the temple a ‘house of trade’.

Naturally we take this to mean that Jesus is against selling things and changing money in the temple. We may ask ourselves whether he would express equal displeasure at copies of Catholic newspapers and related products for sale in the back of so many Churches. But this misses the point. Without the sellers of animals for sacrifice, animals that were guaranteed to be acceptable according to the Law of Moses, there could be no sacrifices. Without the money changers, taking the
unacceptable Roman coins and converting them into the acceptable which was shekels, no-one could offer money to the treasury or pay the temple tax that every Jew took pride in paying. In other words, Jesus is not just trying to get rid of a few corrupt practices that have crept in to stain something he basically approves of; no, he is trying to put a stop to the whole thing.

And this is because Jesus brings, in his own person, the fulfilment of the prophecy of Zechariah – in fact the very last verse of his prophesying, which says that ‘there shall no longer be a trader in the house of the Lord on that day’. On what day? On the day of the Lord, when the Lord shows himself to be King over all the earth, when all the nations of the earth will be gathered into one, and when ‘living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem’. On the day of the Lord, the temple is no longer needed, because the whole world is sanctified by the presence of the Lord.

Jesus claims to be the one who brings in this day of the Lord. Indeed, when he is nailed to the cross, Pilate will truly (though he does not mean to be truthful) proclaim that here is the Lord enthroned as King. From that Crucified King living waters will indeed flow out from Jerusalem to bring life to the whole world, on the day when zeal
for God’s house does indeed consume him.

What is this zeal? On the one hand, it is the misplaced zeal of those trying to protect the status quo, the present arrangements which are working out very nicely. Thank you very much, for the temple authorities, and they’ll not encourage anyone who threatens their fragile authority. Or perhaps they are not so cynical: after all, the temple was a great institution, it was after all the place where God had chosen to make his dwelling among humanity and invite his chosen people to celebrate his mercy by participating in the sacrifices established by Moses. All of that, important though it was, was but a sign pointing towards its fulfilment, the astonishing fulfilment that came in the person of Christ. Perhaps we are all guilty, from time to time, of loving the outward signs more than the inward reality.

But more importantly, the ‘zeal for your house’ that consumed Jesus is also Christ’s love for God’s true house, which is the whole world, and which is every human heart that welcomes his Spirit of truth and love.
On the Cross Jesus died for love of us, as zeal for our hearts consumed him. The challenge is very radical for us. Today, will we decide to accept that life-giving love, and if we do, are we willing to accept the sometimes very inconvenient consequences of such a profound change? This renewed religious consciousness does not just arise out of our own selves; it is simultaneously the call of God addressed to us. And it is the working, the operation, of God welling up from the bottomless depths of our soul. Only if God is alive in us, will he be alive in the church.

Fr Denis Hooper OSB

LAST WEEK WE HAD ONE OF THE SHORTEST GOSPELS OF THE YEAR. THIS WEEK WE HAVE ONE OF THE LONGEST PASSAGES. TODAY’S GOSPEL IS ABOUT THE TRANSFIGURATION OF CHRIST. TO BE TRANSFIGURED IS
TO BE TRANSFORMED INTO SOMETHING MORE BEAUTIFUL.

JESUS’ TRANSFIGURATION SHOWS SOMETHING INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL AND IT IS A MANIFESTATION OF HIS GLORY. IT IS A PROMISE OF THE GLORY TO COME
IT IS AN AFFIRMATION THAT HE IS INDEED THE SON OF GOD AND THERE IS AN INSTRUCTION FROM GOD TO LISTEN TO GOD’S SON

JUST BEFORE THE TRANSFIGURATION IN MARK’S GOSPEL, JESUS TOLD HIS DESCIPLES THAT HE WILL SUFFER GREATLY. HE TOLD THEM THAT HE WOULD BE PUT TO DEATH THIS MUST HAVE THROWN HIS FRIENDS INTO CRISIS:

• THEIR HOPES FOR A STRONG MESSIAH WERE DASHED
• THEIR DREAMS WERE SHATTERED
• THEY WERE ASHAMED THAT JESUS THEIR LORD WOULD BE PUT TO DEATH LIKE A COMMON CRIMINAL

IT’S NO WONDER THEN THAT PETER WANTS TO MAKE THIS MOMENT OF TRANSFIGURATION LAST LONGER, TO DWELL ON THIS WONDERFUL SIGHT OF JESUS TALKING WITH MOSES AND ELIJAH THE DANGER FOR THE DESCIPLES AND INDEED FOR US IS THAT WE WANT THE MOMENT OF GLORY AND WE DON’T WANT THE CROSS – TO WHICH WE ARE JOURNING TO IN THESE WEEKS OF LENT WE ALL PREFER MOMENTS OF TRANSFIGURATION IN OUR LIVES. WE WANT TO ESCAPE TO THE PEACE OF THE MOUNTAIN AND AWAY FROM THE PAIN OF THE WORLD BELOW. AND WHO WOULD BLAME US?

SOME OF US ESCAPE THE PAIN OF THE WORLD THROUGH A MYRIAD OF DRUGS, AND ALCOHOL AND OTHER EXCESSIVE OBSESSIONS. SOME OF US JUST CAN’T FACE THE HARSH REALITIES OF THIS WORLD BUT AS BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN SAYS, “YOU CAN RUN BUT YOU CAN’T HIDE”

PSALM 139 PUTS IT IN SIMILAR WORDS:
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

IMMEDIATELY AFTER HIS TRANSFIGURATION JESUS WILL COME DOWN FROM THE MOUNTAIN AND SET OUT FOR JERUSALEM AND HIS CERTAIN DEATH JESUS’ OBEDIENCE TO THIS REALITY IS FORESHADOWED IN TODAY’S FIRST READING, WITH ABRAHAM PREPARED TO SACRIFICE HIS ONLY SON WHOM HE LOVED IN THE END, THE SACRIFICE WAS NOT NECESSARY AS ABRAHAM WAS FOUND TO FEAR
GOD.

ABRAHAM’S OBEDIENCE WAS REWARDED WITH BLESSINGS ON HIM AND HIS DESCENDANTS
SAINT PAUL IN THE SECOND READING REMINDS US THAT GOD DID NOT SPARE HIS SON, BUT RATHER GAVE HIM UP TO BENEFIT US ALL – WITH THE REWARD FOR CHRIST’S
OBEDIENCE BEING OUR SALVATION AS WE STAND IN THE GLORY OF THE TRANSFIGURED CHRIST TODAY, WE ARE AWARE OF THE NEED OF TRANSFORMATION IN OUR LIVES AND IN OUR WORLD TODAY THE LENTEN SEASON IS GIVEN TO US AS A TIME FOR PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION WHERE WE SEEK TO REMOVE WHATEVER COMES BETWEEN US AND A DEEPER
RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD AT THE SAME TIME, OUR WORLD IS IN DESPERATE NEED OF TRANSFORMATION
ACCORDING TO GOD’S PLAN IF EVER THERE WAS A TIME FOR TRANSFORMATION IT IS SURELY NOW:

• A LONG-RUNNING WAR IN UKRAINE – TWO YEARS YESTERDAY AND NO SIGN OF IT
  STOPPING
• WHILST TENS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE – MANY OF THEM INNOCENTS – HAVE
  BEEN KILLED OR INJURED IN THE HOLY LAND WHERE THE MAJORITY OF HOMES
  HAVE BEEN DESTROYED AND ACCESS TO FOOD, WATER AND HUMANITARIAN AID
  IS SCARCE
• AND IN ALL THIS INTERNATIONAL LAW SEEMS TO BE CONVENIENTLY FORGOTTEN

OUR EXPERIENCE OF THE MOUNTAIN TOP CALLS US TO SAFEGUARD THE LIGHT OF CHRIST AND TO SHARE IT IN THE HOPE OF TRANSFORMING OURSELVES AND THE WORLD AROUND US JUST AS JESUS COMES DOWN FROM THE MOUNTAIN TOP TO MEET THE PAIN AND SUFFERING FOUND IN THE VALLEY BELOW, WE ALSO MUST GO DOWN WITH HIM AND

MAKE HIS LIGHT SHINE EVERYWHERE, ESPECIALLY IN THE DARKEST PLACES OF OUR WORLD WHERE CHAOS AND SUFFERING IS ALL AROUND AS WE WALK THROUGH LENT, WE OUGHT TO REMEMBER THAT THE GLORY OF THE TRANSFIGURATION POINTS TO THE GLORY OF THE CROSS ALTHOUGH THE JOURNEY ENDS AT CALVARY – THE DEATH OF JESUS IS NOT THE END OF THE STORY. IT IS A NEW BEGINNING JESUS’ RESURRECTION IS GOOD NEWS FOR THE WORLD WE LIVE IN. THE TRANSFIGURED
CHRIST WILL CONQUER AND TRANSFORM THE WORLD’S SUFFERING, SIN AND DEATH.

AND SO, LET US BE ENLIGHTENED BY THE TRANSFIGURED CHRIST AND TAKE HOPE FROM WHAT WE HAVE HEARD IN TODAY’S GOSPEL, CONFIDENT THAT CHRIST COMES TO TRANSFIGURE US AND THE WORLD AROUND US.
AMEN.