The Transfiguration of Jesus [March 4, 2012]

The Sunday Gospel [March 4, 2012]

Mark 9:2-10

2After six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, 3and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no fuller on earth could bleach them. 4Then Elijah appeared to them along with Moses, and they were conversing with Jesus. 5Then Peter said to Jesus in reply, “Rabbi, it is good that we are here! Let us make three tents: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 6He hardly knew what to say, they were so terrified. 7Then a cloud came, casting a shadow over them; then from the cloud came a voice, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.” 8Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone but Jesus alone with them.

9As they were coming down from the mountain, he charged them not to relate what they had seen to anyone, except when the Son of Man had risen from the dead.10So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what rising from the dead meant.

Reflection

“This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.” ~ God in v. 9

Each of us is required to make Abraham’s sacrifice, (First Reading). We all must face the inevitability of letting go our most beloved person, task, accomplishment, joy. Everything dear to us, everything given to us by God is subject to death: its own and ours.

The essence of the story is this: Is God good? And will God keep his promises? Abraham is our father in faith because he embodies the final act of faith that all of us must make. We all face the sacrifice. We all stand before the terrible relinquishment of everything we hold most dear.

And our very God does the same. “This is my beloved Son.” God’s “only begotten,” one of our own kind, will go through our passages – even the passage of death.

God has made the promise not only to Abraham and to us. God has made the promise to God’s very self.

Is it possible that God, who did not spare his only Son but handed him over for the sake of us all, will not grant us all things besides?

Reflection Credits: Fr. John F. Kavanaugh, The Word Encountered, excerpts

Source: The Reflection is from Bro. Abel Navarro (you can visit his blog at http://myblogabelnavarroabel.blogspot.com/).