When you set out on a trip, it’s always encouraging to visualize what awaits you at the end. For high school students, it is graduation and either acceptance at college or joining the work force; for vacations, it is the ocean or the mountains; for Christians, it is eternal life with God. No matter how long the journey may take or how difficult the obstacles along the way, as long as we can see what awaits us at the end, we proceed with hope and longing. Jesus knew that, and that is why He gave the disciples the privilege of observing the Transfiguration (Mark 9:2-10). He knew the journey on the road for the disciples would be long and dusty with stormy weather and all sorts of hardships to overcome. He knew the danger of discouragement and wanted the disciples to see a beacon of hope at the end of the tunnel. So He allowed them to see His glorified body and at the same time a glimpse of what they, too, would share, if they persevered.
As we begin our Lenten journey, the Transfiguration is there for you and me to do the same. So let us shoulder our packs as we march off with prayer, fasting, and almsgiving toward the glorious feast of Easter.
- Father Carl
“Proceed calmly in life.” The Pope, who used to teach high school literature, used an image from an Argentine novel by Ricardo Guiraldes, in which the protagonist—gaucho
Don Segundo Sombra— looks back on how he lived his life. “He says that in his youth he was a stream full of rocks that he carried with him; as an adult, a rushing river; and in old age, he was still moving, but slowly, like a pool” of water, the Pope said. He said he likes this image of a pool of water—to have “the ability to move with kindness and humility, a calmness in life.”
~ Pope Francis’ “Secrets to Happiness” (#3 of 10)
