Christ brings the heavenly down the mountain for us – Matt 17:1-9; Gen 12:1-4a

Second Sunday of Lent; Holy Cross parish.

“Luke, I am your father;” the de-masking at the close of the Marriage of Figaro; the transformation of the Beast into Belle’s prince; the quite frankly bizarre moment in more than one Shakespeare play when a woman lets down her hair and only then do the rest of the dramatis personae realize she’s not a boy: literature is fascinated by these scenes, in which a character’s true identity, hidden from other characters or even from the reader, gets made visible, when the dramatic x-ray machine cuts through flesh and marrow and discloses bone.  This is the vision God granted these three disciples, a preview of the future resurrection body, a disclosure of the glorious light Christ was in-their-midst, in contrast to the hiddenness, homelessness and hostility with which he was more normally clothed.  They weren’t there the first time around, so they’re granted a repeat of the heavenly voice from Christ’s baptism, the unwavering assertion of his beloved sonship, the identity that he had and would again unwaveringly assert in the face of temptation.  They see him in his super-natural habitat, surrounded by representatives of the heavenly world.  Christ who had left his throne on high to come to be God-with-us, re-enthroned, even if just for a moment.

Christ raises us to be who were created to be – Gen 2:7-9, Matt 4:1-11

Preaching on the First Sunday of Lent at Sacred Heart parish, CO Springs.  This is the parish where I assisted when I was a novice, and it was wonderful of them to welcome me back to preach as I began my week of retreat at the novitiate to prepare for priesthood.

Whenever I get anxious or stressed, my instinctive reaction is to say to myself: “I need a cigarette.”  Now, I don’t.  I quit smoking thirteen years ago.  Any physical nicotine addiction left in my body is long gone.  But, there’s some kind of memory lurking there that tempts me.  It tempts me to forget who I am, to forget my identity of ex-smoker.  It remembers all those times when I felt stressed and anxious because of nicotine withdrawal and whispers: “that’s all this is!  You can evade all your stress just by lighting up.”  Now, luckily, my conscious mind has gotten pretty good at telling that instinct that it’s wrong, that it’s confusing my identity, that a cigarette would not help me one whit.  But, it’s still there.

First Sunday in Lent: an exercise in mystery

I'll be on retreat this current week and won't be able to put my Sunday homily online.  Looking over some resources to prepare, I re-read a paper I wrote a while ago on the collect for this Sunday.  It wouldn't work as a homily (too academic), but there are some nuggets here worth sharing (I hope!).

Collect
Grant, almighty God, through the yearly observance of holy Lent
that we may grow in understanding of the riches hidden in Christ
and by worthy conduct pursue their efforts.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ...

Catechumens hearing this prayer for the first time don’t know what they're letting themselves in for.  They know that, with the blessing and support of their godparents, they will later in that Mass walk into the sanctuary and sign their names in a book.[1]  They know that they are then “elect to be initiated into the sacred mysteries at the next Easter Vigil.”[2]  They do not yet know that Lent itself is a great mystery, a mystery that can only be experienced by being walked through and that they will not just walk through that period of purification once.  They do not know that that Lenten walking will be the way they will peel layer and layer off the mystery that is Christ, a mystery they can only encounter in the walking.  They don’t know how hard it will be.  I don’t know how rich it will be.  Luckily this was known in the eighth century, and the insights of this understanding found their way into the collect for the first Sunday of Lent in the Gelasian Sacramentary[3] and from there into our current Mass texts.

God re-ablazes us – Joel 2:12-18 (Ash Wed)

Ash Wednesday; St. Stan's.

Plants absorb light from the sun, little by little, day by day, and (in a seemingly mundane marvel) manage to use that sunlight to grow.  They store the energy that is gradually poured in the branches and leaves they grow.  It’s possible to release that energy all at once with the right stimulus.  That’s what fire is.  Fires burns so bright because all of the sun energy that the plants have bit by bit absorbed gets let out in a brilliant blaze that can light up the darkest night.  As a fire burns, ashes are created.  Ashes are a side-effect of fire.  But, while a fire is ablaze, we rarely notice the ashes.

God dispels our worry – Matt 6:24-34

OT C 8; Holy Cross - St. Stan's parish.

This week, the lesson plan for Kindergarten and First Grade Religious Ed invited them to talk about the signs of spring they could see.  I was a little worried about this.  You see, we get out religious ed materials from a company called Pflaum, who write their lesson plans up around six months in advance, send them to us about three months in advance, and then our catechists put them into action.  It’s in general a pretty good system, but sometimes having your lesson plans written for you months in advance causes problems.  And this week, when I was covering K and 1^st religious ed, and saw that I was meant to ask them to point out signs of Spring they could see… that was one of those times.