What is your perspective on today’s Gospel reading? What is this Gospel saying to you right now? What is it speaking into your heart? I’m going to be silent now.
(10 seconds of silence). I have four children at home, so if no one wants to say anything, I will gladly take all the silence I can get. … (response about being silent in prayer). Yes, thanks for sharing. How did you feel about the silence when none of us were speaking? Did the silence feel uncomfortable?
As I was meditating on today’s Gospel reading, it became clear that God wants us to get comfortable with the uncomfortableness we feel when none of us are speaking and God is speaking to us in the silence. St. John of the Cross said, “God’s first language is silence.” Remember, that the Word of God, Jesus Christ, was with his Father and the Holy Spirit in silence before God ever said the words, “Let there be light.”
If we want to converse with God in his native tongue, silence is the language with which we should start the conversation. During Jesus’ transfiguration, instead of conversing with God in his first language of silence, we hear Peter give in to the temptation we may also sometimes give into. This is the temptation of feeling like we have to always be saying something in our own language or feeling like we have to always be doing something. Simply being in Jesus’ presence, listening to the words Jesus is speaking into our hearts, and basking in the glow of God is enough for us, in fact, it is more than enough.
In today’s Gospel reading, we hear a delicious morsel of truth in Matthew’s account of the transfiguration, which is not included in the accounts of Mark and Luke. When describing Jesus’ transfiguration, Matthew tells us that “his face shone like the sun.” Just as you cannot be exposed to the sun without receiving its rays, neither can you be exposed to Jesus without receiving his divine rays of grace, love, and peace. Instead of Peter just basking in and soaking up these divine rays in silence, Peter busies himself with talking and wanting to put up tents, which could result in blocking these divine rays from reaching others.
How many times have we blocked the blessings that come from these divine rays in our own lives? We block the blessings from these rays when we focus too much on acting as a human saying or a human doing, instead of living as we were created, as a human being.
During this penitential season of Lent, let us call to mind all those times we, like Peter, were so busy saying and doing things that we were blocking God’s blessings and grace from illuminating our lives. Maybe it was when we were so busy talking to others or doing a bunch of activities that we didn’t make time to receive God’s grace through the Eucharist at Mass on the weekend or on a holy day of obligation. Or it could have been during what is supposed to be our time conversing with God in prayer when we tried to dominate the conversation.
Let us come before God with contrite hearts for the times when we have turned into that annoying person in a conversation who was doing all the talking when we were instead meant to embrace the silence to make space for God to speak into our hearts. These are just a few of the ways that we may have given into the temptation of feeling like we always have to be saying something or doing something. In the process, we ended up blocking the rays of God’s blessings that Jesus wanted to touch our lives.
Just being fully present with and listening to someone who has wisdom they want to share with us could be the most important thing we do today. Our father reminds Peter on the mountaintop, and each of us here today, to listen to Jesus. So, before we go off saying and doing a bunch of things, let us simply be with and listen to Jesus as this is what he desires. Our God loves spending quality time with us, free from a bunch of talking, busyness, and distractions. God knows our hearts. God knows when our hearts desire divine help to resist the temptation Peter gave into, the temptation of always feeling like we have to be saying something or doing something.
Tomorrow, before we say anything or do anything, let us go be with Jesus in prayer and let us listen to what God has to say to us in the Bible. Then, after having spent time being with him in prayer and listening to his word in the Bible, let us feel Jesus touch us, as he touched Peter, James, and John in today’s account of the transfiguration, and say to us, “rise, and do not be afraid.” For when we have basked in the divine rays of being in Jesus’ presence and have clothed ourselves in his word to be the lamp to guide our day, as our feet hit the floor, it is not us who are afraid, it is the enemy who is afraid.
As we descend the mountain with Jesus, walking in his light, we are reminded that Jesus’ glory is both something he has and something Jesus gives away to each of us so that we may freely choose to bring this glory back to him. God’s will is for there to be a circulation of his grace and glory. Our hearts become radiant in Jesus presence, strengthened by our yearning for Jesus. It is when we are most satisfied in being with and listening to Jesus that God is most glorified in us.
With eyes of faith, we can see glory shining forth from Jesus here and now. Our participation in the Eucharist already gives us a foretaste of Jesus’ transfiguration of our bodies. As we receive the Eucharist, this is when we both give Jesus a home as well as give Jesus our hearts, so he can give our hearts a home in him. As the whole body of baptized believers, this is how we enter into the mystery of our transfiguration in Jesus.
Well, for a homily on silence, I’ve already said too much. So, I’m going to be silent now before a voice comes from the cloud saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” Does anyone else have anything you would like to say? (silence followed by thumbs up. Pointing to ear and point to Jesus on the crucifix.)
2nd Sunday of Lent Cycle A – March 8, 2020
Mass Readings:
Reading 1: Gn 12:1-4a
Psalm: Ps 33:4-5, 18-19, 20, 22.
Reading 2: 2 Tm 1:8b-10
Gospel: Mt 17:1-9