The Transfiguration of Jesus

Last Sunday we went with Jesus down to the desert. This week he is asking us to accompany him up Mount Thabor. We went down through penance and repentance; now, purified and cleansed, we climb up to the heights of the spiritual life, with the new wings sacrifice and mortification have given to us. Even though it is only 300 metres above the plain, it looks higher than it is, because it stands alone surrounded by flat terrain. There is a magnificent view and a beautiful church on top. It is only an hour of climbing, but the road goes straight up. The higher you go the more you see.

You feel closer to God when you reach the summit. It is part of our Lenten exercise, to climb up the mountain of our sinfulness, towards God, leaving material things behind. You cannot carry much weight if you want to follow Jesus and keep his pace. The closer you become to the top, the more light you find yourself surrounded by. Saints love going up to the mountains to meet their creator. They have received many graces up there. The air is thinner, the light is purer, solitude welcomes you, silence envelops you, and here you feel that God is listening to you. Above the sounds and distractions of society, you find a better connection with God.

Jesus took with him his three beloved apostles, Peter, John and James, to accompany him; the first Pope, the first apostle martyred and the last to die. He took them on other special occasions. But especially they witnessed both his transfiguration and the agony in the garden. The highs and the lows of his earthly existence. Both in beautiful natural surroundings, a mountain and a garden. They were the only ones to attend both amazing events. Would Jesus take us with him? Are we part of the group of his close friends? Are we ready to withstand the highs and the lows of the Christian life?

Why did Jesus transfigure himself in front of them? To show them his divinity, just before he was going to show them his horrible passion and death. He does the same with us. If he takes us with him high on the spiritual life, he is going to asks us also to go through suffering and penance. It is the story of every saint. That’s is why there are only few saints; we like the mystical experiences, but we run away from the cross. In both events the three beloved disciples fell sleep; they let Jesus down. We too fall asleep when Jesus asks us to accompany him. But if three of Jesus’ best apostles couldn’t keep their eyes open, we mustn’t feel too bad when we do the same.

When they arrived at the summit Jesus began to pray. This scene in the Gospel has been depicted traditionally as an icon of contemplation. Before we discover Jesus’ divinity, we need to spend time in prayer, contemplating his humanity. Only when we manage to be in deep concentration, detached from any earthly attachment, sitting above our miseries, can we discover the true face of Christ. It must have been an amazing experience, when they woke up and found themselves in front of the real Jesus. They never forgot that vision. Jesus does the same with us. When he asks us to share the sufferings of his cross, he also sends to us a bit of honey, a spark of heaven, a glimpse of his beautiful face.

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Lent 1 Temptations

Jesus goes to the desert led by the spirit to be tempted. He allows himself to be tested, to share our normal ordinary existence. By doing this, Jesus has entered the drama of human experience. We accompany him, to learn from him, to share his strength. Jesus fought and defended himself as a man, with the same weapons we have. We go to the desert with Jesus, like the desert fathers, to become stronger and be ready to fight the evil one. In the desert there are no distractions, no virtual reality, no place to hide. We can see the devil coming with all his false devices, and we can defeat him more easily. We draw him out from the city and we bring him to our home turf. Here we are just the three of us, and our enemy is outnumbered: we are two against one.

This Lent we are going to spend 40 days with Jesus praying and fasting. The Israelites spent 40 years in the desert. Moses and Elijah spent 40 days of penance and prayer before they met God. 40 is the number of testing, discovering of who you are and prayer in the Bible. We need time to get to know ourselves and get ready. After 40 days of prayer and fasting, Jesus is weak, and the devil takes advantage of this moment to tempt him with strong temptations. Traditionally we call our three enemies, the devil, the world and the flesh. The world are others and the flesh is ours. They could attack us one, two or three together. The worst one is us. We are our biggest enemy.

Why was Jesus tempted? It is a mystery. Maybe the devil wanted to know who Jesus was, how strong he was, a bit of a testing match. We witness a battle between God and the devil. We are not in the middle. We can choose sides. Hopefully we are in God's side, in the right one, the winning one. In the history of humanity at the end God always wins, even though many times it looks like the devil has the upper hand. God uses the attacks and machinations of the evil one to bring his plans to completion. It must be frustrating for him to see all his work undone. He becomes more experienced with time, but he can never defeat God. In the crucifixion, Satan thinking that killing Jesus was going to win, served God’s plan for our redemption.

Why God allows us to be tempted? Temptations in themselves are indifferent; they are good if we win, they are bad if we lose. Sometimes we win, other times we lose. They help us to grow in love and virtue. We ask God to get rid of them because we don’t want trouble. To become stronger: difficulties help us to grow. To show him that we love Him: we put Him first. To become more humble: we need his help. We realise how weak we are. They help us to increase our merits.

Get to know ourselves. We normally get tempted the same way. Be sincere. Oscar Wilde was running away from temptation very slowly, for it to catch him. I know that if I go to bed late... Once I begin to speak about this topic... If I go out with this person... Once I start eating peanuts I cannot stop. We know that we will never tempted above our strength. We have all the weapons to fight temptations. We need to use the right ones, like in computer games. The Bible: Jesus uses it against the devil. Pope Francis says that we should use the Bible as we use our cell phone: carry it with us, read it frequently, go back home to pick it up. The best weapon against the devil is Our Lady.

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Ash Wednesday

“Return to me”, the Lord is telling us on the first reading of today’s Mass. It means that we have been wandering off, we have lost our direction and we need to stop and come back. We have been going rather in the opposite direction, towards our own ego, our selfishness and our pride. Return to me, turn around, do a “u” turn. It is hard to do it; it demands a small conversion, to recognise that we have been wrong and we need to put God back at the centre of our lives. Return “to me”, abandon the desires of your heart, that don’t make you happy, and return to your God, to your Creator, your Father, to what constitutes the meaning of your life.

When the priest today places the ashes on our forehead, he will remind us of the famous words of the Scripture: “Remember man that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return.” It is a reminder that without God we are nothing; without God all that remains is this pile of dirt that we see in this little dish. The wind is going to blow away the dust of our bodies. We shall return to the earth where we came from. We get the ashes on our forehead, to make sure our thoughts are in the right place. The Church wants to inscribe on our minds what it is important in life. Memento mori. Remember, we come from God and we are going back to him.

In the book The Alchemist the boy asks him: “Why do we have to listen to our hearts?” And the old man answers: “Because, wherever our heart is, there is also our treasure.” Ubi thesaurus cor; your heart is in your treasure. If we want to know what our treasure is, we should listen to the beating of our hearts. It is not familiar music, because we don’t normally listen to it. It is normally hidden from our senses. We need to listen carefully. Pope Francis says that “our heart always points in some direction: it is like a compass seeking its bearings. We can also compare it to a magnet: it needs to attach itself to something.” It is always seeking something and it is good for us to know what it is.

Pope Francis in one of his homilies for Ash Wednesday, proposes three steps for Lent: “Almsgiving, prayer, fasting. What are they for? Almsgiving, prayer and fasting bring us back to the three realities that do not fade away. Prayer reunites us to God; charity, to our neighbour; fasting, to ourselves. God, my neighbour, my life: these are the realities that do not fade away and in which we must invest. Lent, therefore, invites us to focus, first of all on the Almighty, in prayer, which frees us from that horizontal and mundane life where we find time for self but forget God. It then invites us to focus on others, with the charity that frees us from the vanity of acquiring and of thinking that things are only good if they are good for me. Finally, Lent invites us to look inside our hearts, with fasting, which frees us from attachment to things and from the worldliness that numbs the heart. Prayer, charity, fasting: three investments for a treasure that endures.”

In this journey through Lent, where do we fix our eyes, our gaze? What should we focus on? The Church has the answer: on Christ crucified. It is very simple: Jesus is on the cross and if we want to find him, we need to climb up to the cross.

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Yes meansYes

“Let your Yes mean Yes, and your No mean No.” This was the motto of a boys’ school, to teach the kids to be sincere. They used to ask me, why do we have to say the truth, if with a lie we can get away with things. I used to tell them that Jesus is the Truth and if we want to be closer to Jesus, we need to be truthful. Let what you say reflect what you think. Let your mind express itself. Gulliver in one of his travels comes across an island populated by horses, and tries to explain to them what human beings are. The horses cannot understand creatures that are able to lie: How can they think one thing and say a different one? Scientists say that the difference between computers and human beings is that computers cannot lie; they are programmed to come out with what is right. The day they learn how to deceive others, they will be like us; then we will be in trouble, completely at their mercy.

Society needs the truth to function properly. We live in a relativistic world where people are not interested in the truth. They are only interested in their truth. As long as I am happy in the way I live, I change the truth to suit my life. The internet is full of fake news. We like to access web sites that say things we agree with. The protagonist of the movie “A Few Good Men” has a famous line: “You cannot handle the truth”. It is true: we don’t want to handle it, to live by it, to live our lives according to the Truth, with a capital T. Martyrs used to lay down their lives for what they believed in. We are not ready to do so. We are only ready to die for what give us most pleasure, money, drugs, sex, alcohol or food.

First we need to be sincere with God. It is silly to try to deceive God, because He knows everything. But we don’t want to face him, to acknowledge his presence. We live ignoring him, as if he doesn’t exist; we only go to Him when we are in trouble. How can we love Him if we are afraid of him? Maybe we contact Him once a day, out of duty, just in case, when we pray before going to bed. We need to force ourselves to spend time with Him in silent prayer, to try to see things through His eyes, to look at Him with loving eyes. Somebody said that we should look at Jesus’ eyes at least once a day. Sooner or later we are going to face Him.

In the temple of Apollo at Delphi there was a famous inscription: Nosce te ipsum; know yourself. One of the most difficult things in life is to know ourselves. Because we live inside of ourselves, because we don’t like how we are, we create a different image of ourselves. I’d like to have another inscription: Ama te ipsum: love yourself; love yourself in the way God created you. God doesn’t love a virtual you; he loves you in the way you are. Unless we accept ourselves in the way we are we cannot be sincere with ourselves. How can we love ourselves? How can we get to know ourselves? Open your interior to somebody you love, to somebody who can help you, like in spiritual direction; we all need a sounding board to check who we are and how we are.

Lastly, sincerity with others. It is very important in human relations. If people know that we are not sincere, they cannot trust us. It is not easy to live with a person who is constantly lying to you. Once we start lying, it is not easy to stop. The truth is harder, but will set you free. How can we stop lying? Try to catch the lie before it goes out; bite it. Slowly you can win the battle.

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Salt and Light

Jesus reminds us today in the Gospel that we Christians are salt and light; salt of the earth and light of the world. Both are related to two senses, seeing and tasting. Without light we cannot see. Without salt the food becomes insipid. Jesus doesn’t say what we should be, but what we are; we are because of our Baptism. Not because we are better, or because we have done well, but because of his will, because he wants it. Christopher West always reminds us: You are a gift, be what you are.

We are precious in the eyes of God, like Gollum with his ring. In the old world salt was very valuable. The Jews made their offerings to God seasoned with salt, to make it pleasant for him. The Greeks considered salt to be divine. The Roman soldiers were some times paid with salt. In the times where there were no fridges, to make the food last, it had to be covered with salt. The human body contains almost a kilo of salt. Comparing us with salt, Jesus is telling us how valuable we are in his eyes.

What does it mean to be salt? It is white and pure; we should live a clean life, different from other people’s tasteless lives. It gives flavour to the food; we should make the world more pleasant, more lovable. It sterilises the wounds, stopping infections; we should preserve society from the effects of sin. It melts the ice when the roads are covered with it; we should melt the coldness of humanity with the warmth of the love of God. It preserves the food from decay; we should be like preservatives, to stop society from disintegrating, keeping things fresh and healthy. It produces thirst, the desire to drink; we should foster our thirst for God, that only his love can quench. But if the salt becomes tasteless what can you do with it? Throw it away. If it becomes contaminated, it becomes useless. When the salt in the underground water comes to the surface, the field becomes barren. It is possible for us to lose our way, our truth and our light.

Light is very important for us. Without the light of the sun it is impossible to live. Our eyes are our most valuable sense. The same happens in the spiritual life: God is the light. The first thing he did when he created the world was to separate light from darkness. When we see God, we see light. The devil is the prince of darkness. Hell is pitch black. When we baptise a baby we light a candle, to signify that his soul is full of light. Jesus came to dispel darkness.

We are the light of the world, not our light, but his light. We need to let his light to shine on us. We need to learn how to reflect his light, not ours. Like the moon, that reflects the light of the sun. We compare Mary with the moon. We should be like a lighthouse: to show people where the rocks are, where the danger is. Jesus is the beacon; we are the lighthouse. We can be a beautiful lighthouse, close to the sea, on the forefront, but if our beacon is out, we are useless. To give light we have to have it. Many times instead of salt we are vinegar; instead of giving light, we give darkness. We ask Mary our mother to remind us what we are: children of the light, pure mineral salt.

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Presentation of Our Lord

Today Jesus is brought for the first time to his temple, to fulfil the duties prescribed by the Jewish Law. He comes in his mother’s arms; he is too little to be able to walk. Joseph brings a pair of pigeons. They were a poor family and couldn’t afford a lamb. A poet says that because God couldn’t find poverty in heaven, he came to find it on earth. After all these centuries waiting for the Messiah, when he arrived, there was no party to welcome him. Only two people recognised him. God normally comes unnoticed; he likes to hide and disappear. We are the ones who need to look for him. We complain that he doesn’t appear to us. He doesn’t like to impose himself; he prefers to respect our freedom. He gives us enough signs for us to notice his presence.

How did Simeon discover Jesus? What did he see? We don’t know; but we know that Simeon in spite of being very old, he had a very young heart. He was looking forward to see the Messiah. And thanks to his hope in his faith he was going to meet him, his heart was full of love, and he had the right vision. His eyes discovered him among the multitude of babies brought by their parents to be rescued. Old people are normally grumpy, complaining about the past and making life unbearable to people around them. Simeon was the opposite; he was a sweet gentle man, of good humour, optimistic, full of life with bright dark eyes. He was looking forward to meeting God. We must have the same attitude. Every day that passes, we are one day closer to meeting him. Our Lord is coming. All we need to do is wait for him, standing up, walking towards him. Every night, before going to bed, when the priest prays the divine office, he repeats Simeon’s words: Nunc dimitis; let me go now in peace to encounter your presence.

We are jealous of Simeon: he took baby Jesus in his arms. Mary let him have the baby. Not many people managed to do so. We too ask her for this privilege. But she will ask us to wash our hands, comb our hair and clean our shoes. Maybe we need to go to confession first, forgive a grudge or to apologise to somebody about something we find difficult to recognise.

Simeon didn’t bring good news to the young couple. Till now all the announcements of the angels were full of joy and hope. After a month of silence, some of the questions they had about the future of this child were answered by Simeon: he was going to be a sign of contradiction. This baby was going to bring mixed feelings, suffering and joy, cross and glory, all at the same time. From now on, people won’t be able to remain indifferent at his passing. You either have to be with him or against him. To follow him is great, but it is going to bring together two extremes: a joy rooted on a wooden cross.

Simeon said something softly, in a low voice, only for Mary to hear: “A sword will pierce through your own soul.” She had sensed it already when the angel asked her to be the mother of God. It is something every mother finds out when they have a baby. Life brings sorrow; love fosters suffering. She began to experience the cross before her son. It was a prophecy that was going to find its consummation at Calvary. In the same way Jesus’ breast was pierced by a lance, opening his heart for us, Mary’s soul was going to be penetrated by a sword, for us to see her motherly love for us.

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The Beatitudes

One of the most beautiful places in the Holy Land is where the church of the Beatitudes is located. It is built on a grassy hill with an amazing view of the lake of Gennesaret. It is one of those places that hasn’t changed much. It is situated on the northwest side of the lake, three kilometers from Capernaum. The area is called Tabgha, meaning seven springs, still flowing down towards the lake. There are two other churches in proximity, on the site of the multiplication of the loaves and the fish, and the primacy of Peter. The church is built in an octagon, in remembrance of the eight beatitudes. You can walk around the outside of the church on a covered veranda, contemplating the lake and the surrounding countryside. You are tempted to keep circling the church watching the panorama and praying about the Beatitudes.

The Prophets of old used to preach from the top of the hill for people to be able to hearthem. We see here a classic depiction of Jesus inscribed in our minds, preaching the Gospel to the crowds, sitting down while people remain at his feet, listening to him, completely absorbed in his words. Pope Francis stresses the importance of “how the proclamation of this message happened: Jesus, seeing the crowds that followed Him, climbs up the gentle slope that surrounds the Lake of Galilee; He sits down and, addressing His disciples, proclaims the Beatitudes. Therefore, the message is directed to the disciples, however, the crowds are on the horizons, namely, the whole of humanity. It’s a message for the whole of humanity.” It is the attitude we must have for entering the kingdom of heaven.

It is not easy to preach about the Beatitudes, to give a meaningful commentary about them. We priests try to avoid them. Why? Maybe because you need to be very close to Jesus to be able to explain them well. Thank God they speak for themselves. You only need to read them and pray about them, listen to their voice. Once they left Jesus lips, they have a life of their own. Their sound keeps moving through time, amplifying their waves among the history of men.

They are simple and profound. They speak to us in many different ways. They are very practical, proposing ideas for our own lives. We can try to live them now, today, during the course of the day. They push us to make small resolutions that will bring us closer to God and to others. This is why it is so difficult and so easy to talk about them: they become very personal, suggesting down to earth ideas, like bubbles of soap, popping out from the tube, that resonate specifically to each one of us. This is why we don’t like to read them very often; too many desires come to our minds, with dangerous changes in our way of life. We prefer to close the book and leave it for tomorrow.

Maybe I have been a bit negative in my outlook today. The Beatitudes are very demanding and I am getting old. Time makes things more difficult. It is easy to become discouraged. We tried them and we failed. We didn’t find them wanting, but we found ourselves failing. We need to keep trying, hoping that one day God will lift us up, whenever He wants to.

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Follow me

Jesus begins what we call his public life calling twelve men to follow him, to accompany him, to share his life. We call them apostles, the one who is sent out. They are going to hear his message and to be entrusted with the task of passing it on to others. Most of them were fishermen, rough guys, not very smart; one of them betrayed him and the leader of them denied him three times. At the end, all of them but John ran away from his passion at Calvary. Their weaknesses give us hope. We too begin a new year in our lives and we have an opportunity to make a renewed commitment to follow Jesus a bit closer. Last year we ran away from the cross. Hopefully this year we can keep him company.

”Follow me.” This is what Jesus told them, how he called them. He is asking them to follow him, to walk behind him, to try to place their feet in his footprints. This means to imitate him, to become more like him, to keep his pace. To follow a perfect man. It was love at first sight. They were all attracted to him. There is nobody like Jesus. We can try to find the perfect person, but we will never find him. Only Jesus can fill all our expectations; he is the one we have been looking for. And this is what he is reminding us today: “You have been created to love me; only in me can you find happiness; that’s why I am asking you to follow me.” Every year, every day, every hour, he is telling us the same. Because we don’t listen, because we stray from the path, because we get distracted, because we follow him from a distance, he is never tired of repeating the same: “Follow me.” It is the best for us.

“Follow me.” Follow my footsteps, follow my direction, follow my pace. It is not easy. We go either too fast or too slow. We can be doing too many things, with plenty of activity, but we are not concentrating on what’s important. We don’t have our priorities right. Saint Augustine says: bene curris, sed extra viam; you run well, but off the path. Or maybe our laziness is in command, we procrastinate, we become indifferent, and we are going at a tortoise pace. Jesus’ pace is the right one for us. He knows us well. If we go too fast, we overtake him; if we go too slowly, we miss him. For us to know the way is to follow him. We all would like to know what is ahead of us and plan accordingly. But God wants us to fix our eyes on Him and not to worry about what lies ahead of us. We should trust Him as a good loving father. We only need to look at Him to know we are on the right path.

Is it a command or a request? It is a gift. It is a hidden treasure, a pearl of great value, a bright diamond, a big star shining in the night sky. If we know where we are coming from and where we are going to, it is easier to recognise the value of our treasure. It is a big grace, an amazing offering, that God presents to us. Many are called but only few are chosen. Here we are. And we follow him dragging our feet.

We are chosen for two tasks: to be with him and to be sent to others. To get to know Jesus Christ and to introduce him to others. The more we know him the better we can present him to our friends and relatives. We need to discover him, to recognise who he is to be able to show him to others. A treasure cannot be hidden. A great treasure becomes greater when it is shared.

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