“Go forth.” Those are the Lord’s first words to Abram, later known as Abraham, the father of Islam, Judaism and Christianity, in this Sunday’s first reading. In our responsorial psalm we hear the psalmist’s litany speaking for all of God’s people: “We place our trust in you.” Seems like a pattern to me. In our reading from the New Testament Paul encourages us to persevere and “share in hardship.” Finally, Saint Matthew’s Gospel story of the Transfiguration of Christ is a revelation of the highest order.
I’ve written before on how we often forget the whole picture that the Liturgy of the Word offers us. If you’re like me, we tend to—maybe—only pay attention to the Gospel, our Lord’s words, but this weekend I think it is a great lesson to take the readings as a whole. The Lord seems to be telling us through his inspired writers that the journey of Lent is exactly that, a journey.
Lent is portable, and I don’t mean like the awkward (and awful) times we find ourselves ordering fish at the steakhouse on Friday, but portable in the sense that we must walk this journey with its ups, downs, twists and turns. The days we make the right choice, the weeks we’ve made the wrong choices, or the moments we just forgot are all part of the journey.
First, we are called by the Lord. Secondly, we must trust in the Lord. Third, we must persevere in hardship. And, finally, we will have something revealed to us and be in the Lord’s presence. Let us pray for one another that we can help and encourage each other along the way. Happy Lenting.
I’ll be seeing you,
Elliot