Sunday Reflection 2/28/21

The Readings

In the Gospel reading for the Second Sunday in Lent we read the Transfiguration story.

Transfiguration

Peter’s role in the Transfiguration jumps out at me any time I hear it. In response to seeing Jesus, Moses, and Elijah in this miraculous moment, Peter says, “This is good, we should make three tents.” (paraphrased of course).

Peter’s Response

I feel like Peter’s response strikes a chord with me because his suggestions just reasonable enough that I totally understand and relate to it, while it is just ridiculous enough to see that it is probably not the most fitting or proper response.

Why I Relate To Peter

Late in my sophomore year of college, I had begun to really strive to live my faith more wholeheartedly and for myself. This meant diving in head first to learning anything I could about our faith. I started going to Bible study not just when convinced, and I was hanging out at the Catholic Center on campus in my free time between classes. Who I spent the majority of my time with was changing too. My new friends were living truly joyful lives, and that I wanted to be around them to learn how and why.

Late nights were spent at a friends house off campus where groups of us would hang out for hours relaxing by the fire and inevitably entering into some deep, philosophical or theological conversation.

Do you ever not want a night to end? I would soak up as much as I could of those conversations until I’d just crash there in that living room. I was a regular guest on the couch at that house even though my own apartment was only a mile or so away. Like Peter, who immediate thinks to make three tents for Jesus and these two prophets, I wanted so badly to stay in that moment of learning and witnessing joyful lives that I didn’t care where I slept.

It seems to me that Peter was in the early stages of getting to know Jesus too. I can’t even imagine how amazing it would have been to see Jesus face-to-face, let alone to witness the Transfiguration. His mind and heart must have been bursting at the seams! After this one holy moment, he only wanted to stay there in the Goodness.

This is a good desire to share time with others and to dwell in joy, having no purpose or agenda other than to be with others. Yet, we cannot stay there forever.

Why Peter and I Are Wrong

As I mentioned, we cannot just sit in that good moment forever. Just before taking them to the top of the mountain, Jesus was outlining for the apostles what needed to be done. He spoke of how he was going to have to suffer and be rejected. Jesus also had just laid out for Peter, the requirements to be a disciple.

He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after three days.
He spoke this openly. Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
At this he turned around and, looking at his disciples, rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”
The Conditions of Discipleship.
He summoned the crowd with his disciples and said* to them, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.
Mark 8:31-34

There was clearly work to be done – crosses to be taken up and people to serve. It is easy to want to stay in the joyful moment and just soak up good moments, but that is a foretaste of Heaven and we are not in Heaven yet.

For now, we cannot only receive, but we are all called to go out and give of ourselves to the world.

Trying to Find Balance

So let’s ourselves in Peter’s shoes. We want to follow Jesus and spend time with him, but we aren’t always called to only stay there. We are called to pick up our crosses and to serve.

In Soul of the Apostolate, my favorite image is that of the heart and the arm. Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard says:

The heart stands for the interior, or contemplative life: the arm for the active, or exterior life.
The sacred text speaks of them as the heart and the arm, to show how the two lives can be joined together and harmonize perfectly in the same person.
The heart is mentioned first, because as an organ it is far more noble and more necessary than the arm. In the same way contemplation is much more excellent and perfect, and deserves far greater esteem than action.
The heart goes on beating day and night. Let this all-important organ stop, even for a moment, and immediate death would result. The arm, however, merely an integral part of the human body, only moves from time to time. And thus, we ought sometimes to seek a little respite from our outward works, but never on the other hand, relax our attention to spiritual things.
Soul of the Apostolate – Dom Chautard

Clearly, unless we are called to cloistered life, we cannot live entirely in contemplation; however, we cannot afford to ever be very far from it either. The arm needs its heart. There will have to be a balance of staying in the moment and going out into the world – of awe at the present and awareness of what’s to come.