Welcome to Finding God in Our Hearts. The following production Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is a weekly program of deep spiritual insight on Scripture, revealing the indwelling presence of God. Monsignor Fisher is a Catholic priest, a member of the Diocese of Dallas, and founder of the Pastoral Reflections Institute, a nonprofit in Dallas, Texas, dedicated to to enriching your spiritual journey. We appreciate your listenership and if you find this program valuable, please subscribe and share with your friends. This program is funded with kind donations by listeners just like you. Make your donation@pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com Today we celebrate the second Sunday of Lent.

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 from the book of Genesis 22nd chapter, 1st and 2nd verse, 9th verse, 10th and 13th, 15 to the 18th God put Abraham to the test. He called him Abraham. Here I am, he replied. Then God said, take your son Isaac, your only one whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah.

There you shall offer him up as a holocaust on a height that I will point out to you. When they came to the place at which God had told them, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. Then he reached out and took the knife to slaughter his son. But the Lord’s messenger called from heaven, abraham, Abraham, here I am, he answered. Do not lay a hand on the boy, said the messenger. Do not do the least thing to him.

I know now how devoted you are to God, since you did not withhold from me your own beloved son. As Abraham looked about, he spied a ram caught by its horns in the thicket. He went and took the ram and offered it up as a holocaust in place of his son. Again the Lord’s messenger called to Abraham from heaven and said, I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you acted as you did in not withholding from me, your beloved son, I will bless you abundantly and make your descendants as countless as the stars of the sky and the sands of the seashore. Your descendants shall take possession of the gates of their enemies, and in your descendants all nations of the earth shall find a blessing. All this because you obeyed my command, the Word of the Lord.

Responsorial Psalm I will walk before the Lord in the land of living I believe in when I said I am greatly afflicted. Precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his faithful ones. A reading from the New Testament. From St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, 8th chapter, 31st verse to the 34th. Brothers and sisters, if God is for us, who can be against us?

He who did not bear his own Son, but handed him over for us all, how will he not also give us everything else along with him? Who will bring a charge against God’s chosen ones? It is God who acquits us, who will condemn Christ Jesus. It is he who died, or rather was raised, who also is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. The word of the Lord. Verse before the Gospel.

From the shining cloud the Father’s voice is heard. This is my beloved Son. Listen to him. The Gospel for this Sunday is taken from St. Mark, 9, 10. Jesus took Peter, James and John and led them up a high mountain, apart by themselves.

And he was transfigured before them. And his clothes became dazzling white, such as no fuller on earth could bleach them. Elijah appeared to them along with Moses, and they were conversing with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus in reply, rabbi, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. He already knew what to say, they were so terrified.

And a cloud came, casting a shadow over them. From the cloud came a voice. This is my beloved son. Listen to him. Suddenly looking around, they no longer saw anyone but Jesus alone with them as they were coming down from the mountain. He charged them not to relate what they had seen to anyone, except when the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what rising from the dead meant. The Gospel of the Lord. The theme of this set of readings is captured in the word Listen. The opening prayer asked us to really listen, to listen to something that will change us, to open our eyes, to see, to feel, to know something. And it’s a spiritual insight, according to that opening prayer, open our eyes that we might see something, something radically new. It’s fascinating to me that we have two sets in a way of readings to work with, in terms of Scripture, revealing to us the truth of who God is, who we are, and why we’re here.

And it seems to me when you look at the first set of teachings in the Old Testament, what we’re hearing very clearly is the story of a God who reveals himself like other gods. And one of the things that he requires from us is an absolute capacity to surrender to whatever he asks us to do, to trust in him. And the way we express our trust is to do whatever he asks, no matter how difficult or how hard or how demanding. So the ultimate thing with testing Abraham, who is the first person that God called into this intimacy with him, he was asked to basically give up the one thing that had been given to him as a gift from God. And that’s the first way that God reveals himself to Abraham. I’m a God who can give you what you’ve never, ever had, that you’ve always longed for.

A son. I’ll give you that. And that gift was everything, everything to Abraham. And then for God to turn around and to ask him to sacrifice his son is so really bizarre in a sense. I mean, it’s like the son that you created, that I help you create, is something that God is willing to destroy just to show God that you are trusting him. There’s a phrase somewhere in the scripture there that implies somehow that Abraham thought, well, if I do sacrifice my son, something will come from that.

That will be maybe more than what I’m giving up. Because that’s got to be somehow in human nature, you can’t give up everything thinking that it’s going to leave you with absolutely nothing. But what I think this image is. And it comes up over and over in the Old Testament, people sacrificing their will to God’s will. It is a way of understanding your relationship with the divine power. When human beings are in need of their help, and they need to know that we really trust in them, that God needs to know that we’re there with them.

And so it’s one way of imagining your relationship with divinity. He gives us wisdom, gave us the Ten Commandments, and the relationship he wants with us is, you follow these 10 commandments, and if you don’t, you will be punished. If you do, you’ll be rewarded. So it was a very binary world. It was a world of good and evil, a world of reward and punishment. And it makes total sense to the mind.

That’s very logical and very easy to understand. And that’s where God first began to reveal himself to our minds. But there’s potential beyond that. And then we have a New Testament, a whole new vision. And you’ve got to look and understand the radical difference. Imagine in the Old Testament, the ideal was to listen to the law and to follow it.

And in place of the law and in place of all those prophets that demanded that people follow God or be destroyed. All of that was going to go away in the New Testament. That’s the hardest thing to realize. The Old Testament is old and the New Testament is new. It doesn’t mean the Old Testament isn’t loaded with wisdom. In fact, the most interesting thing about the Old Testament is There are over 300 references to exactly what the New Testament is going to be describing almost perfectly, the life of Jesus.

And so the First Testament was never the full message. It was never intended to be the full message. It was reaching human beings where they were in terms of consciousness. That’s the best you could do is get a hold of their minds and give them some kind of sense of what’s right and wrong and justice and injustice, fairness. And God always demanded a lot from those who he was going to take care of. They earned his care, and that was what saved them from a life of destruction.

It was motivation. They needed the motivation of punishment. It’s like maybe a child doesn’t understand fully the depth of why they shouldn’t play in the streets, so they’re spanked or they’re punished for playing in the street. You know, it’s about a more primitive understanding of life. And life on this planet has always been a case of human beings evolving more and more in becoming exactly who God created them to be, which is a reflection of God. So time was a very important element in this revelation story.

So it began by listening to the law and trying to follow it. So we see that image in the first reading of that whole process. But there’s a part of God in that first reading that reminds us that every time God was acting in the way that most gods acted, because the gods were always demanding sacrifice, there is this thing that this God of the Old Testament, Yahweh, does. Every now and then, he will take the stand that all the gods did. And then at the end, he goes, well, I’m not really going to do that. I just really wanted to see if you trusted me.

So then the gospel is about what’s new in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, you had to listen to the Word of God. Now, in the New Testament, the Word of God is not a written word. It’s not a spoken word. It’s an incarnate word. It’s a word made flesh.

It is a word that is living and active. It is something that can only be read with the eyes. Not just the ears, but the eyes. So Jesus comes into the world and he’s going to be the one that opens the eyes of everyone to who God really is and what the relationship that God wants with us really is. And it’s something that could have never been fathomed by people with a much lower conscious level. It had to be.

People had to grow into some potential to understand this. But he’s saying, I want to come and dwell inside of you. And when I dwell inside of you, I bring you something. It’s called the truth. And the image of the truth is light, enlightenment. I will come into the world to open your heart, your mind to what is real, to what is true.

And when you see the truth, when you are aware of changes you, it makes a shift with inside of you. It’s a spiritual event. It is not something you can do for yourselves. It’s a mystery. And so when you see this beautiful image of the transfiguration in the gospel, you see all these images that are loaded with meaning. Jesus calls just a few to give him a hint of what’s coming.

Peter, James and John. And basically what he shows them is who he is. What they see with their eyes is they see this Jesus figure who is conversing with the Old Testament images, the law. And those who demanded the law be followed, the prophets. It’s as if they’re getting together and saying, well, thanks for your work. You know, this is Jesus saying, well, thank you for the law and thank you guys for all this.

But basically I’m telling you there’s a new thing coming. And then the disciples see the new thing and when they see enlightenment flowing out of this figure, Jesus, they are completely mystified. They entered the mystical world, the world of mystics, and they encountered divinity. They encountered divinity in their life. And that didn’t happen in the Old Testament. If anybody thought that God would enter into them, they would be disintegrated in a second.

There was such a division between the goodness of divinity and the ugliness and the sin of humans. They could not ever come together. And this new vision that is placed before them is just the opposite. No, no, there is no division between a sinner and God. There’s nothing but unity and communion. And how could that possibly be?

Because human beings are not anywhere near who God is. Well, the whole notion of the incarnation, when Jesus was revealing himself as the revealer and telling the disciples, in a sense though they couldn’t it that this is their destiny, they’re going to be like Jesus. They’re going to be something that Jesus later would say, you are the light of the world. Anyone that believes in the Indwelling presence of God’s spirit inside them is a light to the world. And that interior life of God within us that Jesus manifests is also a manifestation of a God who is more a servant than a master. And Paul was so aware of this.

He was so conscious of the fact that that’s who God is, that he talks about it in this way. He says, you know, if God has died for us, if God sacrificed his son for us using Old Testament images, then how could we not trust Him? We can trust him because he gave up everything for us. And what he gave up was this thing that is so crucial for us. He gave up any sense of demanding from human beings justification for their sins. In the Old Testament, you were always required to make some kind of action that would make up for your sin.

And Jesus said, this is blinding you to the real work that I’m here to ask you to help me with. You’re not in charge of making up for your sins. I’ll do that. I’ll do that for you. Don’t worry at all about the justice issue, about your sinning. That’s taken care of.

Don’t wallow in shame and guilt and fear that you’re going to be punished. That’s just not going to help. Because what I need you to do is not to be focused on your sins in the past, but to be focused on the power that is now within you. And the most powerful way that power is manifested is when you begin to have that same disposition that Jesus revealed to these disciples, the enlightened position that you, you are like the Christ, bringing into the world an image of a God relationship that is so radically new and different that it’s still hard for people to grasp it. God is so in love with you, with me, that every one of our sins, because he knows that’s an obstacle for us to be close to him, they’re written off. He said, I paid for all of that.

Don’t even think about the fact how you’re not worthy. Just think about the fact how much God wants to give you an insight into who you are, the dignity, the value of the core that he created in you. And he wants you to find that, connect with that, and share that with other people. Good religion. Truth is contagious as our lies. And when the truth is lived in a person, it awakens the truth in another person.

When a person is lying constantly, the other people begin to think that lies work. They don’t. The only thing that works is truth. The only person that’s really valuable in the world is a person who’s living in the truth. They have all the authority. They have all the power.

Even though it seems that those who lie and cheat and steal, that they get all the power. Well, they don’t. They have power in a world of materialism and using and taking and killing. But we enter into a world of light, enlightenment, awakening people to the depth and the beauty of who God is, who we are and why we’re here. A great blessing sa the closing prayer. Father, we have such a hard time believing you truly.

Abide, live, dwell within a heart that is open to your mercy, to your incredible gift of forgiveness. Our minds are so strong, and justice is such a part of that. And we have a hard time moving to the heart that understands completely what this is about. It’s about love being the core of who we are, who you are, and what we’re supposed to bring to the world. No judgment, no division, simply a longing for all things to come to the fulfillment that you created them for. Bless us with this kind of faith.

And we ask this in Jesus name. Amen. I’m Will Ritchie and I work for Pastoral Reflections Institute. Monsignor Don has asked me to share my personal reflections on today’s homily. What strikes me is when he said the New Testament is not a written word, not a spoken word, that it was an incarnate word to be read with both our eyes and our ears. As a man searching for meaning, myself, that is, having grown up a cradle Catholic, I always knew that church was about doctrine.

2000 years of doctrine and the Scriptures. What I’ve learned from Monsignor Fisher is that there’s a third part that is very vital, and that is that indwelling presence of Christ inside of us. Why is this so important? Well, as a husband, as a father, it gives me something real to embrace, to embody the act of God coming down in the flesh through Jesus, to be a teacher for me, to internalize lessons that give meaning to the shape of 2,000 years of doctrine, lessons that make the scriptures come alive. As a parent, I want my kids to follow Christ. Oftentimes in church, they’re distracted, can’t sit still.

We’ve gone to church in the Catholic Church, we’ve gone to church and Protestant churches. And I mean, we all battle with it, don’t we, as parents? How can we get them to sit still in the pew? How can we get them to sit still in their chairs? But at night when we pray, we try to bring this idea of the indwelling presence of Christ and what we ask them to share. Not just the recitation of the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Glory Be.

We happen to share the St. Francis prayer and the Serenity Prayer as well, but we ask our children, my wife and I do it as well, to give three thankfuls, three things that they’re thankful for, and one prayer. Why do we do this? To show them that prayer is not just about recitation, but that the indwelling presence of Christ encourages us to give thanks for three things. In our day, it could be as trivial as doing well at a basketball game or getting a homework assignment back, or spending time with a cousin to be thankful for. As Christ wasn’t here just for miracles.

Christ was here to show us that gratitude each day through the Incarnate Word, not just read, but seen, lived as an example is what we also want to take into our marriages, into our lives, into our parenting, into our community. The music in our program was composed and produced by Ryan Horn for this show. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher, a listener supported program is archived and available on our website pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com and available anytime, anywhere and for free on our podcast Finding God in Our Hearts. You can search and subscribe to Finding God in Our Hearts anywhere you download your podcasts. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is funded by with kind donations by listeners just like you. You can make a one time or recurring tax deductible donation on our website pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com we thank you for your listenership and your continued support.

Without it, this program would not be possible. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is a production of the Pastoral Reflections Institute, a non profit in Dallas, Texas dedicated to enrich enriching your spiritual journey. Executive Producer Monsignor Don Fisher produced by Kyle Cross and recorded in Pastoral Reflections Institute Studios. Copyright 2020.