Sermon by Father Alex McAllister SDS        Index

Second Sunday of Lent, Year A—2005 Homily

The story of the Transfiguration is common to all three Synoptic Gospels and today we have Matthew’s account of that extraordinary moment on Mount Tabor when the close inner group of Apostles got a glimpse of Jesus’ true glory.

It was a wonderful occasion, but also quite confusing for Peter, James and John. It was something entirely beyond their experience and they found it hard to make sense of it and this is probably why Jesus instructs them to tell no one about it until after the resurrection.

Today in our mass we invite those children who are preparing for their First Confession and First Communion to come forward and be enrolled formally in the preparation programme. They have already begun the classes but it is important that we present them to you, the congregation, for acceptance.

The sacraments of First Communion and First Confession will be special moments in their lives, important rites of passage. We hope our children will have good memories of these occasions and that they will be profound religious experiences for them; religious experiences which will move them significantly forward on their spiritual journey.

I don’t know about you but I have just a very hazy memory of my First Communion, and that is only about getting the photographs taken. But I do have an extremely clear memory of my First Confession, though perhaps for the wrong reasons—it was very dark in the confessional and the priest was very severe.

I met him many years later and I couldn’t believe it was the same man. He seemed so very kind and gentle—but to me then, at the age of seven, he came over as very severe and strict and gloomy.

This experience of my first confession has made me as a priest resolve to be always welcoming when hearing Confessions and as far as I can to try to make it a positive experience for the penitent.

It is especially important that our children’s formative experiences of confession and communion are good and positive so that they have a sound basis on which to build their spiritual life. The priest plays an important role in all this but perhaps an even more important role is played by the parents.

Children always took to their parents behaviour as examples to follow, or maybe sometimes to reject. They are always very quick to notice our little hypocrisies and inconsistencies. Whichever way it goes they really do notice what their parents do and don’t do. And this is particularly so in matters of religion.

I think it is very important for us to set a good example especially in these areas of Confession and Communion. Maybe we haven’t ourselves always had a good experience of Confession, or even of Church. Maybe a particular priest was unkind to us or we got too lazy to make the effort anymore. If this is the case then let me suggest that now is a good time to start afresh.

Even if the priest was having a bad day, or even if we disagree with some reactionary Cardinal talking on the TV, or even if a lot of other things get us down when we come to mass—it could be too noisy or too quiet, or it could be we don’t like one kind of music or another—whatever it is that holds us back, today is a good day to start afresh.

Today is a good day to stop blaming others and starting to take responsibility for our own religious life. Today is a good opportunity to decide to be a real example to our children.

Today is simply a good day. So on this day let us do something good for God, something good for our children, and something good for our ourselves.

What happened to those Apostles on Mount Tabor was something really wonderful even though they couldn’t make much sense of it. But in the weeks and months afterwards Jesus helped them to understand what it really meant.

He helped them to understand that it meant that he was truly the Son of God and that closeness to him is more important than anything else, and this closeness can transcend all our other human experiences.

We might never get the opportunity to go up Mount Tabor to see God’s glory as those Apostles did. But we have other profound religious experiences in our lives, other moments when we have felt the hand of God upon us.

I am certain that every single person here has experienced such a blessed moment, perhaps in prayer, perhaps of exhilaration on the top of a mountain or at the bottom of a sea when you have seen the wonders of creation, perhaps it was a glimpse of the stars through a telescope, or an experience of deep love and peace and acceptance by another. Such a blessed moment could have been at the deathbed of a loved one, or at the birth of a child, or a profound experience of forgiveness.

Maybe our day-to-day routine isn’t very inspiring; maybe we don’t always feel nourished by our experience of Church. But those special moments of deep communion with God remain in our memories and make everything worthwhile.

We know we cannot stay on the Mountain of God for very long, we know that, for now, our work is here on earth. We are very much aware that, whatever the highs and lows of our spiritual life, the important things are what we do on an average day.

If we give time to God when we are not inspired, if we pray even though we are busy, if we sit through the mass despite the distractions, it is these things that will matter in the long run.

The Transfiguration was a wonderful experience for those Apostles. It did not last very long but after it those Apostles knew they were in the presence of the Son of the Living God. This is knowledge we have too.