Angels and Stars

Sunday | Lent | 2nd | C
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Vancouver, March 17, 2019
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Our lives involve planning or looking ahead. And often these plans require great detail. Already we are looking ahead and in preparation for First Communions. The Sacramental preparation of what Communion means and Confession. Perhaps, a wedding with all the excitement, arrangements, hoping everything goes well. Then, of course, we look ahead to the end of the school year and Summer plans -- our vacations here, or a trip flying distances to travel or reach relatives. We make plans--  as we look ahead.
 
A significant part of looking ahead is hope – that everything unfolds as planned -- and we trust-- especially when this involves a promise. I trust you will keep your promise. The more the promise seems unlikely, the more trust becomes difficult, let alone to speak of HOPE. Especially when we are dealing with broken promises. We start to lose trust. Humanly speaking it’s difficult to regain trust when a promise is broken. This really requires forgiveness. But then, our experiences can also teach us that we need to trust more…

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When I was driving through southern France with a Brother one summer an incident occurred; we were on a rural road in the countryside  -- we still had about three hours of driving. We were in an old combi. I was the passenger sitting in front of a broken window frame with cold window coming through, while the Brother was driving. The car began to have serious engine problems chugging on the road as if choking, and so the Brother said, “Let’s pray to the archangel, Michael, that he will get us back to the monastery.”
 
But as the engine was sounding worse I thought: this car needs a mechanic. Angels are not going to carry this combi back to the monastery. We’re never going to make it. The pious Brother continued his prayers quite faithfully and I prayed with him as he requested with hope and trust we would finally make it to the monastery.
 
When we stopped to get some gas I used the opportunity to call the monastery to say if we’re not there by midnight – we’re stranded somewhere on the road so come and look for us. It was still the late-afternoon. We hopped back into combi and the Brother continued his prayers. He seemed quite convinced we would reach our destination. And the car engine still sounded like it was choking, while he faithfully and trustfully prayed to the angels. Arch angels, our guardian angels… Well, the next thing I knew we were in front of the monastery. There, the Brothers were waiting for us saying they we just about to go look for us. God certainly had a lesson to teach me, and that was the value of prayer, of hope and of trust.
 
Abram who leaves Ur as God had instructed and arrives in Canaan. And God gives Canaan to Abram and his descendants. There is only one problem. Abram doesn’t have any children. And so, this is where God asks Abram to trust him to put his hope in God’s promise. And the promises of Christ expressed in Philippians go much further than earthly promises. Yes, we like things we can see, taste, smell, hear, touch, they are real because they belong to the senses.
 
But St. Paul speaks of another reality: a supernatural reality that we can hope for in faith, the promises of Christ: St. Paul shifts our focus from “earthly things” as valuable and meaningful as they are but with Christ, the direction of our thoughts become truly heavenly,
 
Our citizenship is in heaven. He will transform our body to one of glory and St. Paul adds, to stand firm.
 
These are the promises we are given: a transformed body that Christ offers us. This is our hope. And similarly, we find in St. Luke’s Gospel, this extraordinary scene of the transfiguration. Notice how these three readings move from the earthly, namely Abram’s references to his land and descendance, to the spiritual where St. Paul speaks of our transformed bodies,
 
And now in the Gospel, we have the powerful scene of the Transfiguration-- Christ transformed. Peter, John and James climb the mountain with Jesus to pray. The way St. Luke writes the Gospel shows us how natural it was for Jesus to find a place to pray. And accompanied by Peter, James, and John his inner circle of the twelve disciples. These three will each have a unique role to play in the evangelisation. James who is martyred early in the persecution of Christians, Peter who leads the Church in Rome, and John who writes the fourth Gospel. Unlike Abram who had a very earthly vision, Christ teaches his disciples this life as the time to prepare ourselves -- for the world to come. Little did the disciples know what they were going to be seeing on the Mount Tabor. Jesus’ appearance and his clothes are transformed to “dazzling white”: And with Jesus the disciples saw Moses and Elijah. These two figures are also associated with a mountain, Mt. Sinai, Moses who received the Law, the 10 Commandments, and Elijah, who is a prophet received his prophetic messages at Mt. Sinai.
 
The law of Moses, the prophecies of Elijah, and Jesus who has come to fulfil of them perfectly. Jesus is dazzling white because white signifies spiritual beings, as on a mountain, ascending to the heights of heaven. Whiteness is a sign of spiritual entities such as the angels. The dazzling white also means light and Jesus Himself is Light from Light. Here on the mountain he prays and this prayer is Communion with the Father. The transfiguration leads us to a heavenly direction from our earthly thoughts, and Jesus is the fulfillment of the promise made to Abram, and Jesus’ followers, descendants, like the stars. The descendants like stars are each one of us whom Jesus has saved, in our dazzling white garment of Baptism, and the candles of our Baptism, Light, that unite us with Christ.
 
By God’s promise, and our hope in this promise, we receive eternal salvation -- as our inheritance. This is true inheritance. These divine mysteries that the Transfiguration reveal to us place us before God and the fulfilment of His promises which is far more than Abram could have expected: co-heirs of eternal life.
 
Let us ask the blessed Mother of Our Saviour to help us grow in understanding and faith. Amen.