2nd Sunday of Lent Fr. Leo
Rembrandt’s painting, “The Sacrifice of Isaac," captures all the painful drama conveyed in the story we just heard. It makes me wonder, did God really ask Abraham to sacrifice his son? Did Abraham go out to do so? I don’t have answers for those questions, but I do know, that God desires that kind of faith from us so that we might be willing to sacrifice what is most precious to us for him, that his will may be done. This challenge is real and as dramatic for us who try to live it as the story and the painting mentioned. The spiritual life is a constant seeking to do God’s will at what may appear to be the sacrifice of our own. When we do make that sacrifice, we inevitably come to know later that it was a blessing to do so. Constant discernment is our lot in prayer as we seek the Lord.
Our second reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans, makes it clear how much love the God we seek has for us. “If God is for us, who can be against.” Jesus died for us and will always intercede for us in the Spirit to help us grow in love. Nothing can separate us from this love of God when it is God we seek, no height or depth, or life or death.
God’s goal in helping us seek him is for us to share in his divinity. Mark’s gospel today gives us the story of the Transfiguration of Jesus. The three disciples were witnesses to Christ in his coming glory. A glory he wants to share with us that where he is we may also be. This glimpse of the Resurrection is what we are to remember as we journey though the discipline of Lent, losing ourselves and growing in Christ. The pain of giving up what is not life giving leads to greater life.
Sometimes life seems to ask too much. It is then we need to remember that God is for us and his resurrection is to become our own. With confidence let us keep climbing the mountain with Christ and descending with him that we may be faithful in all things at whatever price, and come to share in the fullness of God’s divinity in the home he as already prepared for us.
A Thought on Humility.
Humility is a key virtue in the spiritual life. What may help us grow in humility is to be inspired by the unlimited humility of God. In Christ, God humbled himself to live among us, and now in each of us. Mary can be our model here as she is now before the Lord always in perpetual adoration and wonder at God’s descent upon lowliness. (Based on and borrowed from Fr. Haggerty’s book; Saint John of the Cross: Master of Contemplation, p.377.)