Welcoming the Holy
Here we invite you to take time for yourself in personal prayer. The following spiritual reflection offers words and images which we hope will evoke for you an experience of God.
By: Sister Joan Sobala
“Jesus took with him Peter, James and John, and led them up a high mountain.” Matthew 17.1
Opening Prayer
Father of Jesus, as the journey of Lent goes on, guide me so that I can be alert to the experience of this moment. Today, Jesus is on the mountaintop, where he is transfigured – where his glory, his beauty, his divinity is revealed. In my own way, I am there with him. Let me cherish what I experience with him and his other companions. Let me come to treasure Jesus in new ways, so that this Lent will mean more to me than I hoped for. I pray with growing desire. Amen.
Reflection
To journey is an ordinary part of life. In today’s readings, Abraham journeys into an unknown future. Paul and Timothy each journey to make Jesus known more widely and deeply. And Jesus journeys toward Jerusalem, toward the cross and toward the resurrection. Jesus pauses on his journey to rest and to be offered a singularly remarkably understanding that will bolster him for all he will undergo.
On that mountaintop, for some brief moments, Peter, James and John saw Jesus differently, their perception became at one and the same time more acute and bigger. They loved the moment and wanted to capture it. To stay. But the road beckoned and there was so much more ahead.
Lent is a transfiguration time, when we can see Jesus more clearly and to grasp the meaning of our own discipleship with more clarity and greater scope – to connect our life with His. We might want to stay there, but with Jesus, we must go on.
Closing Prayer
Creator God, You gave your Son to be one with us and we are grateful for how You have allowed us to see and experience him. With him, open the way for us to come to You. Give us the energy to journey with him to the mountaintop and then continue with him to the cross, the tomb and new life. May your Spirit be our light along the way. Amen.
