My name is Don and I’ve been a Catholic priest now for over 50 years. And during that time I keep going back to the same readings over and over again, only to discover that they contain something I never understood was there before. It gives me new enthusiasm and excitement for the message that keeps revealing itself. And I pray that the message that I’m sending you will be valuable and if you find it so, please share these podcasts with your friends. Thank you. Good morning.

Before we begin our program, reflecting on this second Sunday of Lent, I’d like to dedicate this program to an individual. His name is Joseph Mangan, and his grandson is a good friend of mine. I’ve known him for so many years, Joe Hogan. And he’s asked me to do this in honor of his grandfather who came from Ireland, ended up in Brooklyn and became an amazing figure in the family. He had a great faith and one of the things that he would say to anyone that was having a problem, he would always say, say one Hail Mary, the rest is in the hands of God and his mother. So that was such an influence on his family that actually on his gravestone that is engraved for him.

So, Joseph, this program is in your honor and we appreciate your family, appreciate so much what you’ve been and continue to be for him. So let’s look at the readings for this second Sunday in Lent, and we start with the opening prayer. O God, who have commanded us to listen to your beloved Son, be pleased, we pray to nourish us inwardly by your word, that with spiritual sight made pure, we may rejoice to behold your glory through our Lord Jesus Christ, your son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen. A reading first from the Old Testament, from the book of Genesis 15, 12th verse. In the 17th, 18th verse, the Lord God took Abram outside and said, look up at the sky and count the stars if you can.

Just so he added, shall your descendants be. Adam put his faith in the Lord who created it to him as an act of righteousness. He then said to him, I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land as a possession. Our Lord God. He asked, how am I to know that I shall possess it? He answered him, bring me three year old heifer, a three year old she goat, a three year old ram, a turtledove and a young pigeon.

Abram brought him all these, split them in two and placed each half opposite the other. But the birds he did not cut up. Birds of prey swooped down on the carcasses, but Abram stayed with them. As the sun was about to set, a trance fell upon Abram and a deep, terrifying darkness enveloped him. When the sun had set and it was dark, there appeared a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces. It was on that occasion that the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, to your descendants, I give this land from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates, the Word of the Lord Responsorial Psalm the Lord is my light and my salvation.

The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom should I fear? The Lord is my life’s refuge. Of whom should I be afraid? The Lord is my light and my salvation. Hear, O Lord, the sound of my call.

Have pity on me, and answer me on you. My heart speaks, and my glance seeks. The Lord is my light and my salvation. Your presence, O Lord, I seek. Hide not your face from me. Do not in anger repel your servant.

You are my helper. Cast me not off. The Lord is my light and my salvation. I believe that I shall see the bounty of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord with courage. Be stout hearted and wait for the Lord.

The Lord is my light and my salvation. A Reading from the New Testament from St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians 3:17, verse 4 Join with others in being imitators of me, brothers and sisters, and observe those who thus conduct themselves according to the model you have in us. For many, as I have often told you, and now tell you, even with tears, conduct themselves as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction their God is their stomach their glory is their shame. Their minds are occupied with earthly things.

But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we also await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body, by the power that enables him also to bring all things into subjection to himself. Therefore my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for my joy and my crown in this way stand firm in the Lord, the Word of the Lord the verse before the Gospel from the shining cloud the Father’s voice is heard. This is my beloved Son. Hear him. The gospel for this second Sunday in Lent is taken from St.

Luke 9:28 36 Jesus took Peter, John, and James and went up the mountain to pray. While he was praying, his face changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white. And behold, two men were conversing with him, Moses and Elijah who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem. Peter and his companions had been overcome by sleep, but becoming fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him. As they were about to part from him, Peter said to Jesus, master, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents.

One for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. But he did not know what he was saying. While he was still speaking, a cloud came and cast a shadow over them, and they became frightened when they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, this is my chosen Son. Listen to him. After the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone.

They fell silent and did not at that time tell anyone what they had seen. The Gospel of the Lord Last Sunday, we listened to the image in the Gospel, and it was all about Jesus the man, the human, facing the reality of his work to reveal to the human race who he is and who his Father is in him, went through temptations. His human nature was resisting what it was that he was going to be called to do. And each time the devil tempted him, he. He showed something in him that was no match at all for the temptations that were placed before him. He knew in his heart who he was and what he was there for.

It’s a beautiful image of who we’re called to be, someone who knows who we are and what we’re here for. And so, traditionally, the second Sunday of Lent, which we have today to contemplate, is the transfiguration. Jesus taking his disciples, not all of them, but three. Peter, James, and John, who he must have thought were able to deal with what he was about to show them, took them to a place where he manifested who he was. He was light, an incredible light, which to me is all about the work of God through Jesus, of enlightening us as to who we are. But let’s look at these full set of readings, because that’s what always is there to enhance our understanding of the core Gospel that’s presented.

And so what I’d like to do is talk for a minute about the whole salvation history, which I love talking about, because when I was growing up as a Catholic, we never ever heard homilies on the Old Testament. Rarely we did. There’d be certain feasts where it was common to hear a story from the Old Testament, especially during Holy Week. But generally the preaching was always on the Gospels and the epistles. But since Vatican 2, 55 years ago or so, it was changed, and it was that. Now we preach every Sunday on the Old Testament.

So the fact that I’ve had 50 years of that has opened my heart to the way in which the two are so intricately entwined. You can’t really understand the New Testament without the Old Testament. And one of the things that’s interesting about what we learn from the Old Testament is it’s not just filled with theology, who God is, but it’s loaded with anthropological truth, who human beings are and how we’ve evolved. So I want to start with that image. You know, the story of Adam and Eve, obviously. And Adam and Eve revealed something about human nature that we’re not really that comfortable being in a place of effortless existence.

It’s interesting to me that when Adam and Eve were in that garden and everything was perfect and there was no struggle and everything, it seems that there was something inside of them, gnawing at them that wanted something more. And when they were tempted to try something on their own that wasn’t literally being offered to them at that time by God, they chose it. And they were easily, easily seduced. And it’s interesting that we’re most open to seduction if the person who’s seducing us knows that what he’s asking us to do, we really wanted to. And so the devil knew that human beings like an autonomy. They don’t want to be just cared for.

They want to be engaged in their work. They want to produce something on their own. You know, I’ve always felt that story was misunderstood when it sounded like God was so upset with them that he cast them out to punish them. But when you look at this story deeply, it’s clear that they left because they resisted the life that God had given them there. When they left, God sewed clothes together and sent them to the earth and said, it’s going to be difficult. It’s going to be a hard, hard, difficult process to live that life on that planet.

But if that’s what you choose, go and do it. And that period of time from the Adam and Eve story until, let’s say, the call of Abraham, is interesting in the scriptures, because that period of time, which some claim was maybe a thousand years, maybe it was more, but there’s almost nothing told to us about that, except for two things. One, that that the first children of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, were so competitive that one Cain killed his brother Abel. And when you think about that, you know, here’s the first two human beings born on the Earth, and. And what are they? One’s a murderer, you know, and so it says something about human nature, right?

And then you go on. And the next major thing in that period of time was when God looked at the creation that he had made and he said he saw nothing but darkness in their hearts. And he said, I want to destroy all of them. I want to start over again. I made a mistake. I should never have created human beings.

What is that then? A story about the longing in God that human beings not be corrupt, that they not harm one another, that they live a different kind of life than, let’s say, their lowest animal nature. And so that story is so beautiful, the story of Noah, because what it is, it’s God looking at human beings at their worst and saying, you know what? There is something I can see in someone which is in everyone, a spark, something about goodness in them that he wants to build upon. So there’s something in human nature that is designed to be selfless and self giving and nurturing, like the God who created us. And living on this planet is part of our process of entering into that work and believing in it and doing it.

So we have then at that point in this story is that God is going to give the human race a second chance, so to speak. And so we have the call of Abraham. His name was Abram before he was changed to Abraham. And what’s interesting about this story, and it’s so like something in the gospel that I want to point out, is I want you to listen to the story again with your imagination and see that there’s. This is the human race, Abraham or Abram, being invited to go on a journey, not knowing where it is, but somehow being told that if you take this journey with me, if you allow me into your life to be a guide to you, I’m going to take you to a place, a land flowing with milk and honey. And it’s going to be a place that is going to nurture you and feed you and give you life and teach you things.

And when he’s saying all that, it’s so beautiful because he’s saying it in a way to Abram, asking Abram to trust him to do this. He doesn’t explain how long it’s going to take or where it is. You just say, come with me on this journey. That’s such a beautiful image of who God is in your life and mine. He’s awakened in our consciousness at some point in our life when we’re in. In a place of thinking, what am I here for?

What am I supposed to be doing? What is life for. And he’s there to give us this purpose and this direction. And the thing is so interesting about the covenant that he makes is that when you listen to it carefully, there’s two things that he promises to Abram. One is posterity. You know, in the Old Testament, in particular, the first five books of the Bible, the Torah, nothing in there talks about life after death.

And so some scholars would say, well, that’s because in the beginning, God was not so much interested in people reaching a goal outside of this life, but he was really interested in teaching them how to live in this world. Whatever the reason, there isn’t anything in the Old Testament about life after death. So if one was going to have a sense of continuing in terms of their, their value in the world, they would have posterity. They would continue to live through their sons. And Abram and Sarah did not have a son. And so God promises a son, which is insane when you think both of them are 90 years old.

But he makes a promise that doesn’t make sense to our logic. And when he promises that, he’s saying that means you. I want you in this land of milk and honey. I want you to know that you are having an impact that is long term. There’s something about your life and my life that we think is just about us. But we are part of an evolutionary process of human beings.

And when we do our part, it is connected to other people. And when you grow intellectually and emotionally and when you’re enlightened with the truth, it has a contagious impact. So what I love about this promise of Abram is it’s a promise to every human being. I want to make you effective, not just get through this world and get to the other side. That I promise you, if you do what I say. That’s an oversimplification to say the least.

But if you do the work of evolving, growing and changing, you’ll have an impact on the world. And what the world will be because of you is more nurturing. So the promise is the land. In those days, the land was life. You lived off the land. And so the image that he used was he took animals of the land and laid them out as this ritual and cut them in half.

And then what was happening is that in this ritual, Abram was being told that if you follow me, if you follow me, make this covenant with me. This life giving environment which I’m going to place you, is always going to be there. But if you don’t, they will be destroyed. You won’t have that nurturing quality to the world. And so the image is that you slice these animals in half. And.

And when God passes through, as a light passes through this image of these split animals, what he’s saying is, if you break this covenant, this will be what happens. It’s like the light is showing how important this covenant is to keep. If you don’t keep it, then life is destroyed. The life that God has given you is lost. So the covenant made with us through Abram is I will make your life effective. And you will be a nurturing source for the life of the people around you.

I promise I’ll do that. And he’s saying that because he knows that’s what we really need, that’s what we want. But when that happened, he was terrified. He went into a deep, deep darkness. And that’s what I want to talk about. What is it when we’re told that with God inside of us, if we surrender to him, we will be so effective.

Why is that frightening? Why don’t we just say, of course. I’d love that. So look at the same image in the Gospel. Because what you see there is Jesus taking his disciples to see who Jesus really is. And he is the word that has come into the world, the truth.

And when you open your heart to it, you are enlightened and you evolve and you change. And when the disciples saw Jesus there with Moses and Elijah, that was the rules and the laws and the people who judged you and condemned you if you didn’t follow him. What was happening is that was the transfer of old to New Testament. No longer is God going to work with us by giving us rules and laws and punishing us. No, he’s going to do it by enlightening us. But when the disciples saw that and realized it, they were first confused.

But then a cloud overcame them. And they were in this place of fear and fright. And what that means that there’s something in us that resists this incredible promise. That if we surrender our wills, our thoughts, if we give it all over to God, that we will be transformed. So this season of Lent is always a time of reflection. Where is the resistance in us to this wonderful promise of God?

And it’s all about that human, darker side where we say, I’m in charge of myself and I will run my life as I am able to do. And I’ll take great pleasure in having achieved it. We don’t achieve it on our own. That’s the key to the promise that God has made to us. Accept our weaknesses, accept our need for him and allow him to enter into us and get past the fear and the confusion that that creates is the key of this whole wonderful season that asks us to reflect on this great resistance and to let it drop and let the light in. Amen.

The Closing Prayer Father, your wisdom, your plan for us, is so clearly revealed when we take time to listen attentively to salvation history, to know that this story is our story. So bless us with real openness to what we can be shown. And then when we see it and we open our heart to it, as the human race has done throughout history, we see the benefits, the joy and the life that flows into us. So bless us with a open heart to not depending on ourselves solely, but to depend upon ourselves with you, in you, for you. And we ask this in Jesus name. Amen.

I’d like to remind you that the program you just listened to is available on our website pastoreflectionsinstitute.com as well as on our podcast. Go to Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast and subscribe to Finding God in Ourselves. It’s free to listen to anywhere, anytime and the music in our program was composed and produced by Ryan Harner for this show. This ministry also needs your support, so make a one time or recurring tax deductible donation on our website. Thank you so much for your listenership and your continued support. Without it, this program would not be possible.

Pastoral Reflections with Father Don Fisher, Catholic Priest of the Diocese of Dallas, is a production of the Pastoral reflections institute. Copyright 2022.