2ND SUNDAY OF LENT A
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THE IMPORTANT WORD
There it is again! At the
Transfiguration, the Lord Jesus heard another time the sweetest words ever
addressed to him. "Son! This is my beloved Son." Surely this event took him back
to his baptism when at the Jordan he heard those words for the first time in
public. What a wonderful
experience to hear your Father proudly call you son, beloved Son.
The willingness of Jesus to offer
all his life for the sake of the kingdom was due to the fact that he knew he
had a place in that kingdom. His Father was always with him. And he was always
at his side. Nothing more could be more ecstatic than to know that you are
truly loved by the one you truly love. For Jesus this was the core of all his
relationships, the source from which flowed all his fervor to embrace others as
his brothers and sisters.
Why do we listen to the gospel of
the Transfiguration (Mt 17) today? Well because at Lent we too are drawn back
to the unique experience we had when God, the Father of Jesus and our own
Father, called us his son… his daughter… his beloved. Lent is a return to
baptism, in case we forget how great its importance is. We were baptized not
primarily to be card-carryiing member of the church, to be given the name Christian,
to enter the family of believers. Above all that, baptism is the moment God
called us by name, as his very own children. Isn’t that wonderful?
A young filmmaker from Australia
recently returned to the country to look for his birth parents. Mature and accomplished,
his life seems incomplete until he could find the first people in the world who
called him “son” before he got lost and was sent to an orphanage and from there
for adoption by an Australian couple.
Because Jesus was reminded of the
Father’s love, he faced his life with excitement and energy. Because he heard
his Father addressing him with affection and devotion, he courageously faced
everything that was to come to him. This boldness and adventurousness towards
life was what he wanted to share to his disciples as he said to them: Do not be
afraid!
A Christian, a child of God is
not a slave to fear, but a master of it. Whether you are faced with trials as
big as mountains, sins as stubborn as rocks, personal circumstances that seem
irreversible, the Lord is asking us to regain strength and continue embracing
both the cross and the glories of life.
We are baptized, we are Christians and just like Jesus, our first
companion and guide is our Father.
Praise to his name!
