My dear parishioners and visitors;
“This is my beloved Son, listen to him”(Mk 9: 7)
Time flies! We are now in the 2nd Sunday of Lent, a beautiful time for conversion. Every day, I hope, all of us firmly turn our lives neither into ourselves nor to things of this earth, but only to God privately in prayer and publicly at mass, by helping those in need and by fasting from everything that separates us from Him.
This week I would like to ask all of us to look at how we speak and to relate to one another with our words. St. Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians, urges us to use our gift of speaking to praise God and to edify one another: “let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for edifying, as fits the occasion, that it may impart grace to those who hear” (Eph.4:29).
The gospel story for this Sunday is about Transfiguration. We listen and pray with this story every year on the 2nd Sunday of Lent. The three Gospel-writers: Mathew, Mark and Luke, recorded this special event. This is a great epiphany-story, clearly showing us the mystery of the Blessed Trinity, the divine nature of Jesus and the way to a glorious transfiguration by accepting and following Jesus’ journey of passion and death. Jesus’ way of the Cross will take and lead us, his faithful followers, to the glory of the resurrection.
Peter, James and John were chosen and taken up to the high mountain to see and to experience this glorious moment of the divine life and learn to take Jesus’ journey to Calvary as theirs so that one day they may be with Him in glory.
The simple but clear lessons from this story for us are that “no cross, no crown” or “no pain, no gain” and
Jesus’ transfiguration will be ours, if we faithfully “listen to Him”. (Mk 9: 7).
Have a blessed week.
Fr. Peter Hoan Nguyen.