Suy Niệm Chúa Nhật thứ Hai Mùa Chay năm C

 Suy Niệm Chúa Nhật thứ Hai Mùa Chay năm C

Con người chúng ta thường không có sự kiên nhẫn, khi họ muốn hay biết trước cái gì đó tốt, họ muốn nó ngay lập tức, không muốn chớ. Abraham đã được Chúa hứa ban cho một người con trai để làm kẻ thừa kế, nhưng để bù lại ông phải có lòng tin tưởng tuyệt đối vào Thiên Chúa. Nhiều năm trôi qua, và cả Abraham và Sarah đã lớn tuổi, nhưng vẫn chưa có được mội người con trai. Họ bắt đầu mất hy vọng, nhưng Thiên Chúa đã cho Abraham nhìn lên những chòm sao trên bầu trời và nói con cháu của ông sẽ được còn nhiều hơn sao trên trời. Thiên Chúa đã long trọng lập giao ước với Abraham, và giao ước này đã được hoàn thành với sự ra đời của Isaac. Chúng ta luôn luôn có thể dựa vào Thiên Chúa, nhưng chúng ta phải kiên nhẫn. Những điều sẽ xảy ra sẽ tùy thuộc vào thời gian của Thiên Chúa, không phải chúng ta.

Thế giới có thể là một nơi tối tăm và đáng sợ. Vì vậy, thường như là chúng ta không thực sự thuộc về nơi này, và Thánh Phaolô có vẻ như đồng ý. Quyền công dân của chúng ta ở trên trời. Chúng ta sẽ đợc sống theo chiều hướng khá khác biệt so với cộc sống thực tại thế giới. Chúng ta bắt đầu sống cuộc sống của chúng ta trên trời trong khi chúng tôi vẫn đang còn ở đây trên trái đất này, và đó là những gì làm cho chúng ta khác biệt với những người khác. Chúng ta hãy sống ngày hôm nay như thể chúng ta đã và đang sống với Thiên Chúa.

Reflection Sunday 2nd Lent

People are not usually very patient. When they want or anticipate something good, they want it now. Abraham had been promised a son and heir in return for his absolute trust in God. Many years passed, and both Abraham and Sarah had grown old, but still no son. They began to lose hope, but God took Abraham outside and told him to look at the stars in the sky — his descendants would be far more numerous. God made a solemn covenant with Abraham, and it was fulfilled with the birth of Isaac. We can always count on God, but we have to be patient. Things will happen in God’s time, not ours.

    The world can be a dark and scary place. So often it seems like we don’t really belong here, and Paul would agree. Our citizenship is in heaven. We dance to music that is quite different from that of the world. We start living our heavenly life while we are still here on earth, and that is what should make us different. Let us live today as if we are already dwelling with God.

    The transfiguration was an awesome and dazzling event, and Peter wanted to build three shrines or tents to commemorate it. He was trying to ‘capture’ it so he could experience it over and over again. That is often what we do with our experiences of God. All experiences of God should result in love, service, and a desire to do the will of God, regardless of how difficult.

Opening Prayer: Father in Heaven, Jesus taught us to call you Father and you have revealed that we are your children. Thank you for inviting me to this moment of prayer with you. Just as you called Peter, James, and John apart with you, you are inviting me to enter your heart. Increase my faith, hope, and love, as I recognize that I am in your presence. May I fully enter this sacred space and time of dialogue with you. 

Encountering Christ: 

1.     Privileged Place of Prayer: Today’s Gospel reading marks the second Sunday of our Lenten journey, and is an important moment in Jesus’ self-revelation to his Apostles—and to us. It is significant that this event happened when “Jesus took Peter, John, and James and went up the mountain to pray.” As we strive to discover God’s presence in our daily lives and, perhaps, open our hearts to God with our Lenten resolutions and commitments, let us not forget this one: taking time and space apart for prayer is essential to growing in our relationship with God. There, in a privileged way, he reveals himself to us. Let us recognize with Peter, “It is good that we are here.” 

2.     Good Jesus Prepared Them: Our Lord called these three Apostles apart at a significant time in his ministry. Already, he had predicted his Passion to them twice, yet it is clear from Luke’s Gospel–and clearer from Mark’s (9:30-32)–that they did not understand what he was talking about. He knew the immense blow it would be to their way of seeing things. They were still arguing about ranking order among themselves while Jesus was opening his heart to them and sharing with his friends that he was going to suffer. Perhaps they still imagined a political savior, a terrestrial king, and an all-too-earthly Kingdom of God. Their faith was real, but it was weak, and Jesus wanted to prepare them, to teach them to see things with God’s eyes rather than their own. Perhaps in this time of prayer, we can let rise up in our heart that particular person for whom we need more light to see with God’s eyes. We can speak to Our Lord about this as we sit apart on our “mountaintop” in prayer. 

3.     Remembering His Faithfulness: Appearing together with Jesus were Moses, representing the fulfillment of the Old Testament law, and Elijah, fulfillment of the prophecies. For Peter and the Apostles, their presence would have pointed to the true identity and mission of Jesus and the revelation of God’s plan—though they would need time and the guidance of the Holy Spirit to fully grasp it. Perhaps this vision strengthened their experience of God’s fidelity. God, who revealed himself to Abraham, who gave his law to Moses, and who promised that another Elijah would come to reveal his presence among men, had been fulfilled in Jesus before them. And everything was affirmed when they heard, “This is my chosen Son; listen to him.” As we repeat these words over and over in prayer, may our faith be strengthened, together with theirs. 

Conversing with Christ: Father, you are faithful to your word, to your promises; nothing that you do is in vain. I believe this. You know my faith is weak, as the Apostles’ faith was. Strengthen my faith. Give me the grace to open my heart to you in prayer and teach me to see things a bit more like you do, with great trust in your providence. Above all, Lord, fill me with your love and let me hear your voice in my heart today, saying that I, too, am your beloved child. 

Resolution: Lord, today by your grace I will strive to let these words or another phrase from my prayer accompany me throughout the day, repeating them from time to time: You are my beloved child. In you, I am well pleased. 

Second Sunday of Lent

One week into Lent is a tough place to be. We have five weeks left until Easter. Around this time we begin to look longingly at the indulgences that make up our life the rest of the year. It seems as though we ought to be further along than just beginning the second week. At least, I hope this is how you feel. If not, if Lent is going along easily, if you forgot that it was Lent, then you probably are not doing enough for Lent. Lent is only easy if we are already perfect or if we are not doing it. The point of Lent is to die. On Easter, Jesus rose from the dead. If we want to rise with Jesus this Easter, we will need to be dead by then. Lent ought to be killing us: that is how you know it is working.

How glorious it is then that the Church gives us some refreshment today. Not the mistaken refreshment of those who think that Sundays are a day off from Lent, as if Jesus took a day off each week during the 40 days in the desert. No, man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. The readings today, the Word of God, provide our example,

encouragement, and refreshment.

We begin with a good example in Abraham who, at the Word of God, left his home and traveled across the whole Middle East. Abraham believed that God would fulfill his promise. We can only begin to imagine the sacrifices he made. It was 25 more years before the promise began to be fulfilled with the birth of Isaac. God has made promises to us also. He promises us that if we leave our lives behind, he will give us far more than anything we ever gave up. We should believe this promise.

After the example we get encouragement and advice. St. Paul tells us, “Bear your share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God.” We are not supposed to use our own strength. There is a strength that comes from God and it is stronger than we are. We prayed in the psalm today: “Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you.” Lent is not a time where we learn to trust in ourselves. If the fasting of Lent or the additional work and prayer we do were done with our own strength, then Lent would make our pride and self-reliance grow. If, instead, we do everything with the strength that comes from God, then our reliance on God will grow, our love for God will grow.

Then we arrive at the refreshment. The Gospel today is the Transfiguration, as it always is on the Second Sunday of Lent. The Transfiguration is such a beautiful image, like an eyewitness account of heaven. All of salvation history is present on the mountain. Moses, who wrote down the Law, was there. Elijah, the greatest of all the prophets, was there. Jesus, son of David, King of Israel, was there. Peter, who was the first pope and wrote two letters of the New Testament, was there. John, who wrote a Gospel and another letter, was there. James, the first apostle to be a martyr was there. God is present: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father speaks; the Son, Jesus, shines forth like the sun; and the Holy Spirit is present as the bright cloud.

The Father said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” What a wonderful relationship between the Father and the Son. We were supposed to have perfect families like that too, but sin ruined it. Imagine, children, if your parents were perfect. Perhaps I am surprising you, when I warn you that they are not; perhaps you have already figured that out. But if they were perfect, it would be easier to always obey them. And parents, imagine if your children were perfect. How much easier it would be to be their parent! Our families are not perfect, because we are not perfect, but for now, let us just stay on this mountain, and imagine. Peter was so happy to be on the mountain that he did not even know what to say; he only knew that he wanted to stay there. I wonder whether he interrupted Moses or Elijah, who were conversing with our Lord, with his offer to set up tents. Years later, Peter recalled this moment in a letter, reminding people that he was actually there on the mountain, that he had really heard the Father’s voice say, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Life was good, that day, on top of the mountain. It was as close to being in heaven as a person can experience on the earth. If we sit and contemplate that image, of Jesus shining like the sun, surrounded by saints, we can share in that taste of heaven.

We will probably have to wait until heaven to see heaven. When we see Jesus shining like the sun, surrounded by the saints, it will be on the other side of whatever death is out there waiting for us. But we do have a sort of mountain we can visit: right here at Mass. We will not see Moses or Elijah or Peter, James, and John, but we will read about them, and Jesus too. Jesus will be present, not in shining white garments, but hidden under the forms of bread and wine. The apostles spent time with Jesus every day, but his true identity, which was usually hidden, was revealed on the mountain. We can receive the Eucharist every day, and we believe that Jesus’ true identity is hidden in these symbols of bread and wine, which actually are the Body and Blood and Soul and Divinity of our Lord, the same Jesus Christ who was transfigured on the mountain. Indeed, the apostles saw Jesus on that mountain, but we, when we receive the Eucharist, are united to him in our bodies.

When we come here each week, it is like climbing the mountain. The world still exists out there, but we can forget about it for a little while. We should savor this time we spend with God. We cannot set up tents, though. We have to go back into the world. Jesus had to come down from the mountain and go die on the Cross. We have got five more weeks of Lent, and then the rest of life, before heaven.