Second Sunday of Lent Genesis 15:5-12,17-18 Philippians 3:17-4:1 or 3:20-4:1 Luke 9:28b-36
It is a good thing to pay more attention to prayer, fasting and almsgiving. These are the traditional Lenten practices that the Church has never abandoned but we are asked for more.
For me, the Lenten season was easier when the focus was not so relentlessly on our own decision to examine our relationship with the Lord, to repent, to improve. The value we place on community becomes tempered by our Lenten call for inner confrontation, a private life of prayer and a call to see the Lord within. By safeguarding our personal relationship to the Lord, we enable ourselves to contribute to the total Church at prayer.
Through history, believers have always felt the need to assure themselves that they truly “walk in the presence of the Lord.” This is certainly what Abram must have felt as God tested him. God himself would later be called “the God of Abraham.” Abram needed to relate to the Lord in solitude as he considered the meaning of God’s personal intervention in his life. “How am I to know…?” Abram asks. Today’s first reading tells us how God led him in this discernment.
When Peter, James and John walked away from the mountain of the Transfiguration, they had a similar need to assimilate the meaning of being a follower of Jesus. Ultimately, each of us has a need to integrate the experience of Jesus in our personal lives. Lent is a time to do that and our prayer is that God will lead us in that discernment. How are we to know that we truly walk in the way of the Lord? Lent is a time to ask the One who has the answer.
Lent is a time to remember that the Lord is our light and salvation. The fullness of our individual relationship with the Lord cannot really be expressed to others. It can be hinted at, partially revealed and partially concealed. The mystery of the human person is lost in the mystery of the Lord. It is that mystery that is most revealed at the Eucharist.
Lent is a time of inner search — a journey within to seek the Lord. Lent is an outer search — a journey within the community to seek the Lord in the various places where he may be found. There are times when we seek the Lord within and discover only desolation. There are times when we search for him in the community and find that there is no room for us in the relationships others have with him. The tension is a creative one. Lent is a time for bringing these two realities together and learning that the Lord who is within and for whom we search is found in both the community we call the Church and in the core of our own being.
Lent is a time for openness with ourselves and openness to those others who place their hope in the Lord. The mystery of the Lord is revealed within ourselves and further revealed in our relationship with others.
