This Sunday we hear Mark’s account of the Transfiguration of Jesus. Right before the eyes of three of the disciples, Jesus’ true identity bursts forth and in one brief, brilliant, luminous moment, Peter, James and John are themselves forever changed...“transfigured,” with a growing awareness of the true identity of Jesus…“this is my beloved son, listen to him.” God speaks these words directly to Peter, James and John. Imagine for a moment what they must have felt hearing the very voice of God speaking aloud to them and giving them instruction! Imagine how seeing what they saw must have impacted their belief in who Jesus was and in who he was calling them to be. And, in who their God who sent Jesus was calling them to be?

I believe that each one of us have our own “moments of transfiguration,” moments in which we see or feel the very presence of God. They are moments when, deep inside, we come to know with certainty that God is present; that God is real and we are blessed. These moments may be found in the presence of a loved one, or the chance encounter of a stranger, or in the overwhelming beauty of nature, or in the silence of
prayer or in the joyous chaos of celebrating life.

Regardless, these profound moments of the awareness of God hold the potential to transfigure our lives into something new… something wonderful.

The challenge is “to learn to live out of these moments,” keeping these moments alive in our hearts and minds allowing them to continually transfigure us more deeply into the image and likeness of Jesus Christ, uniting us ever more intimately to God.

Each one of us carries within us experiences of the tenderness, mercy and love of God. But so often it is the chaos of our lives that “dim” the luminous moments of encounters with our God. We forget we ever had them in the midst of the rush and busyness of our daily lives.

Not all of these “transfiguration” moments are happy or joyful. Some of them come in the midst of sadness, even in the midst of tragedy and death. I have had such “transfiguration” moments with people as they were dying, luminous in-breakings of Grace that transfigured the dying person’s last
moments, as well as their family members, and transfigured me as well!

Transfiguration moments exist all around us in encounters with the poor and the marginalized, with the immigrant and refugee, with the one whom we see as “other.” There in these encounters is God -- present within these people, waiting, wanting us to reach out and take “the other’s” hand and to be transfigured by God’s grace through encountering God present in “the other”!

Lent is a wonderful opportunity to look for transfiguration moments in our daily lives, as well as to step back and recall those luminous moments of grace when the fullness of God burst forth into our lives in the past…when we realized that we were not alone… that there was something more to life, more than what we can see or touch, more than we can sometimes imagine…“God moments”!

When was my last “God moment”? How was I transfigured by that moment? What does that “God moment” call me to do today? Who does it call me to be today? Whose hand am I being called to reach out and grasp, that we both might be transfigured by God’s grace?
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Lenten blessings,
Fr. Tim

In this Sunday’s Gospel, we hear of Jesus’ 40 days in the desert where he was tempted by the devil to choose worldly power and fame over his mission of compassion and forgiveness, and the announcement of the “in breaking” of the Reign of God.

As we begin Lent it is appropriate for us to reflect a bit on our own lives, our own desert experiences and our own temptations. All of us as humans are tempted by pride, arrogance, selfishness, anger and greed. The real question is not if we have those temptations, but whether or not we give in to those temptations and live out of those darker places.

For some, who give in, they are led to disgraceful acts of greed and ego with catastrophic results. All we need do is to read the headlines in the newspapers or listen to the nightly news. We know who they are and are able to judge their heinous acts: choosing profit over the lives of innocent children, choosing furthering their career over making ethical and moral decisions effecting the lives of thousands or even millions of human lives, or manufacturing weapons of mass destruction solely for profit with total disregard for the loss of human life.
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But for most of us, our pride and greed are somewhat more contained -- a white lie here and there, perhaps a small theft once in a while or a few carefully chosen harsh words meant to wound. Most of us are basically good people trying to live as God has called us to live. In the recesses of our hearts, we know we’ve been tempted. We’ve stood on the precipice of surrendering to our baser desires…enticed by money, recognition, or power to take advantage of situations or people, neglect of our responsibilities, or treat ourselves or others with disregard and disrespect.

But take heart. The slippery slope toward sin does not a sinner make. St Paul in his letter to the Romans tells us that the “lie of sin” is that we think we can’t recover...that our sin makes us irredeemable…unloved and unlovable. Nothing is further from the truth!

We are assured over and over in the Gospels and the Psalms that nothing, no sin, can keep us from the love and forgiveness of God. God puts our sins as far away from us as the East is from the West! Lent is an opportunity to walk into the darker corners of our heart and face our shortcomings and open ourselves to the Light of Christ…to allow Christ to transform us into the people that God dreams us to be. But how do we do that individually, as a community and as a nation? How do we deal with our national sin of systemic racism and bigotry, as well as the sins of misogyny, the rejection of the immigrant, the refugee, sins against the LGBTQ community, the poor, the mentally ill, the handicapped, the rejection of the one who is “other” than me?

Lent can be a time to look not only at our personal sin but at our nation’s “structural sin”! Lent can be a time to begin again. Let us not allow the sins of our past and present to darken our future by thinking that all is lost! Instead let this Lent be a season of newness…a season of beginning again. What can I/we do to let the light of Christ illumine the darker corners of our hearts and of our nation’s soul? What feelings or actions do I/we need to let go of to begin again, living a more Christ centered life that can lead us to take on the structural sins of our country? What can I do this Lenten season to build up the Reign of God by working for racial justice and equality for all peoples.

Lenten blessings,
​Fr. Tim

Today’s Gospel tells the story of Jesus’ healing of the leper. In biblical times leprosy was a term used to cover a whole host of skin diseases and conditions. Many did not in fact have true leprosy. But unfortunately, they were nonetheless completely cut off from all family, friends and community. They became total outcasts, having to call out as they walked along “unclean, unclean”!

Imagine the damage to the human psyche -- how brutally hurtful to the soul it all must have been to live with a belief of yourself as “unclean;” how isolating it would have been. Imagine the powerful impact that Jesus’ healing had on this man -- it would have been completely and utterly life altering and transformative!

While Jesus had instructed him to tell no one about his healing he ran forth and told everybody he encountered about what Jesus had done and how he had healed him. But it is so easy to understand how he simply could not keep his mouth shut about what had happened to him. Suddenly he had his life back; he had his family back. He could once again enjoy the company of his friends and his community! He was no longer an outcast. He no longer had to identify himself as “unclean” and unfit and unable to be part of the human family!

And so, this Gospel begs the question: who are the lepers in our lives, in our communities, in our nation and in our world? Immigrants, refugees and migrants, people of color, members of the LGBTQ community – these people are treated with disdain and contempt by hate groups, and people who fail to see their common human dignity. They fail to see that the ones they hate are the beloved children of God! Racists, white supremacists, misogynists, xenophobes all fail the most basic test of discipleship! And yet so often call themselves Christians!

Their lives are ruled by hatred of “the other” and they do not love their neighbor as themselves, let alone love their enemy, as Jesus commanded all of us to do as his disciples! Living our discipleship means loving one another without limits or qualifications! It does not stand on how they treat us or how they think of us. It is about our attitude toward them, not what they do!

Treating “the other”, especially the one who has offended me, as the beloved child of God is no easy task but being a disciple of Jesus is no easy life. It ultimately leads to the cross! We must be willing to at least be open to the possibility of loving the one who hates and return their hate with Gospel love. To embrace them, not their hate-filled words and actions or intentions. We can strongly and loudly, in the name of the Gospel, call out as “sin” their wicked words and despicable actions! But that does not mean that we hate them, as they are still the children of God!

This is where it gets difficult -- to put what Jesus calls us to into action! To live the life of a disciple. We will fall down and fail but by the grace of the Holy Spirit, who dwells within us, we can rise up and start again!

We need to ask ourselves, who are the lepers in my life and how can I try to bring healing and wholeness to them? How can I actively work to bring an end to all of these “isms” that divide, devalue, and demean the human dignity of others?

As disciples of Jesus Christ what does this story of Jesus’ healing of the leper and returning him to life in his community speak to us about the war between Israel and Hamas and the death of tens of thousands of innocent civilians? And, how we as individuals and as a nation should be responding to these atrocities of war?

Blessings,
Fr. Tim

When I used to hear today’s Gospel -- the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law and how she immediately gets up and starts to wait on them and feed them -- I used to think “give her a break,” the woman was just sick in bed with a fever!

But have you ever just gotten over the flu or an illness and you feel empowered; you feel like you have to go and do something? It’s the story of so many of the people whom Jesus heals -- they run off telling all who will listen that Jesus has healed them, even when he has specifically told them not to tell a soul. They are filled with new energy; they have been given a new life.

I think it is interesting to note that in the Greek text of today’s Gospel story of the healing of the Peter’s mother-in-law, it says “and coming near, he raised her, holding the hand, and left her the fever, instantly. And she served them.” In the Greek the word that is used for “raised” is the exact same word that is used at the empty tomb when the angel speaks about Jesus being “raised” from the dead. Scripture scholars have noted that the author could have used other words but chose to use the same word later used for Jesus’ resurrection. Surely not lost on the first hearers of the Gospel of Mark.

In a very real way, the healings Jesus performs are often very truly a form of resurrection as the healed person is not just returned to health but they are returned to family and society, often having been social outcasts because of their disease or illness.

The healing allows them to rejoin society, and rebuild their human relationships that had been broken by their illness. Several healings appear in the first chapter of Mark’s Gospel, and Jesus’ fame is beginning to spread as we hear that. People start to gather at Peter’s house bringing the sick and the lame for Jesus to heal.

And the next day, Jesus says he and the disciples must move on to the next village. He pushes on because he feels the pull of his mission to proclaim the bursting forth of the Reign of God!

He feels the pull of the preaching of the Good News of God! It is that mission that Jesus gave to his disciples -- to preach the Good News -- even unto the ends of the earth!

One of our Spiritan theologians, Rev. Tony Gittins, C.S.Sp., used to say that “the church doesn’t have a mission so much as the mission has a church”! The church exists for the sake of the mission Jesus gave to his disciples. And it is that mission that drives the church and shapes its direction. It should be that mission that drives all Jesus’ disciples!

This is part and parcel of what, I believe, Pope Francis is trying to get across to the church today, attempting to help us understand that we are called to live the Gospel in and through our words and actions “in the world,” in and through our daily lives.

Evangelization is not a thing we do that is separate from the rest of our daily lives. It is lived out by how we inhabit our daily lives. The preaching of the Gospel -- the Good News of Jesus Christ -- is a way of being in the world. It is proclaimed through our relationships with our families and friends, with our classmates and coworkers, with our neighbors and with the strangers whose paths we cross each day.

We proclaim the Gospel in small acts of kindness as well as in profound acts of peace making and justice building. We proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ by showing our love of the other -- the one who is different from me, the one who is made outcast, who is discriminated against, and by seeing the one who has been made invisible and unheard and looked down upon as a human being.

By seeing them, acknowledging them, raising them up, we proclaim the core message of the Gospel: that God made you, sees you, knows you and deeply and passionately loves you, just as you are!

Blessings,
​Fr. Tim