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About a month ago, a brother priest and I were discussing the importance of loving God first and foremost in life. Naturally, there are many people that we love and cherish with intense feeling, and we all have various hobbies or interests that command a powerful devotion.
Yet, above all these, it is important for us to love God and to treasure our relationship with him more than anything else. Intellectually, most of us can recognize and assent to this right away, but in our fallen human state, wherein we wrestle with our own sinfulness and divided hearts, we sometimes can elevate other things above God — perhaps a family member, perhaps a sport or even perhaps our own health.
The readings at Mass this coming weekend are a wonderful opportunity for each of us to reflect upon why we should treasure God above all other things and let our love for the Lord govern everything else we value in our lives.
The Second Sunday of Lent interestingly always contains one of the Gospel passages on Jesus’ Transfiguration. As we prepare to embrace the long haul of our Lenten observances, the Transfiguration reminds us of the infinite splendor of God and why these sacrifices are warranted for us to grow in love of him. This year, we are treated to hearing St. Mark’s account of the Transfiguration, which offers a few insights into this radiant revelation of Christ’s glory that we do not find in either of the accounts from St. Matthew or St. Luke.
The Markan account of the Transfiguration describes Jesus’ clothing as becoming so white that “no fuller on earth could bleach them.” In this description, we realize that Christ’s glory is something that the world cannot produce and that it is infinitely beyond the reaches of this world. As a result, we realize that even the greatest things of our material life pale in comparison to Jesus and we should prioritize him over everything. The newborn child that parents hold in their arms is a wondrous gift that uniquely manifests God’s goodness, but even this most precious of human moments and relations pales in comparison to the embrace that awaits us when we surrender ourselves to God.
Following upon this point, St. Mark also is much more explicit in what the disciples are feeling when they see the Lord’s glory revealed: “They were so terrified” that Peter does not know what to say. The disciples’ reaction is produced by the overwhelming glory of God, which means they are now starting to see everything differently. Similarly, as we encounter God through our faith and the sacraments, we also must begin to see everything differently. We do not need to forswear our friends and family, or even our favorite dessert, but we do need to approach each of these things with a new question in mind — namely, how does this help me draw closer to God?
Father Meyers is pastor of St. Francis Xavier in Buffalo. He can be reached at [email protected].
Sunday, Feb. 28
Second Sunday of Lent
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