Today's gospel reading and that of yesterday relate moments that surely must have provided the disciples with genuine confusion. They must have had one of those "I just don't get it" moments. Imagine a la Ignatian meditation style: imagine standing with the three disciples atop the hill and seeing this incredible moment only after hear a few days ago that "following me is going to be painful, there will be suffering, I must be brought to death." Imagine this to make it real: your boss or your spouse informs you that the financial crisis has come to your desk or to your home: there will be no salary raise this year and there will be only four days of work (pay) each week or that there just isn't enough money in the bank now nor in the next year to allow "junior" to attend the colleges he has hoped would be his ticket to the future.THEN
a few days later your boss or your spouse returns to speak seriously to you: there will be a "nice" raise beginning tomorrow or "yes" we can afford to send our son to the college of his choice. What is going on? This must have been how the disciples felt.
Imagine being told death lies ahead and then being present for the Transfiguration! From the hard to hear predictions of the future to the exultation of the Transfiguration! Wow!
What is Jesus doing to the disciples and to us who are watching and preparing our hearts for another season of Lent? This is a part of the "measured pace" of Mark's unfolding who Jesus is. We are today presented with another moment of coming to understand what it means to believe, what really is faith. Like the blind man whose healing was a gradual event, we are invited to live in the moments that all forth from our hearts and souls an exercise in faith.
We might consider this: through the trials we encounter the ups and downs of life God has been and will continue to present to us. We have to believe! It is those moments when there is a rewarding spiritual insight or a moment of goodness that we should repeat what Peter said to the other disciples: "It is good that we are here." Likewise we might recall what is written in the Letter to the Hebrews: "He rewarded those who seek him."
Imagine being told death lies ahead and then being present for the Transfiguration! From the hard to hear predictions of the future to the exultation of the Transfiguration! Wow!
What is Jesus doing to the disciples and to us who are watching and preparing our hearts for another season of Lent? This is a part of the "measured pace" of Mark's unfolding who Jesus is. We are today presented with another moment of coming to understand what it means to believe, what really is faith. Like the blind man whose healing was a gradual event, we are invited to live in the moments that all forth from our hearts and souls an exercise in faith.
We might consider this: through the trials we encounter the ups and downs of life God has been and will continue to present to us. We have to believe! It is those moments when there is a rewarding spiritual insight or a moment of goodness that we should repeat what Peter said to the other disciples: "It is good that we are here." Likewise we might recall what is written in the Letter to the Hebrews: "He rewarded those who seek him."
