2^nd Sunday of Lent [C], 2010

Isn’t life supposed to get easier somewhere along the line? Do you remember when you were a kid, how you struggled to learn how to ride a two-wheeler? (Al) What a feeling to soar down the road all by yourself on a bike—just like the big kids! But did life get easier with all that freedom? Hardly. Now there were errands to run, newspapers to deliver, and Scout meetings and basketball practices to get ourselves to.

And wasn’t life supposed to get easier when we got to high school? We were freed from multiplication tables, but sentenced to algebra; our victory over spelling was short-lived when Shakespeare came along. And no 12-year-old is ever really prepared for the trauma that comes with the excitement of turning 13.

But life would be so great when we get to college! Out from under mom and dad’s thumb, able to make our own decisions, out on our own. The only problem was—we were on our own! Now we were responsible for the courses, for getting our work done, for our lives!

We couldn’t get out of college fast enough and on to our first jobs, to marriage, to settling down with families of our own. Life became more fulfilling, challenging, and maybe happy—but easier? Hardly.

Then once the kids settled into lives of their own and we had the house to ourselves, life would finally ease up—but now we had to deal with too much house, too much time on our hands (and maybe too much time with each other!), with arthritis, and still too much worrying about the kids.

And weren’t you under the impression that the world would become a great place when communism collapsed? The Cold War was over and we won, right? But now it seems that we have to face even more overwhelming problems like health care, and affordable housing, and the violence in our culture, and suicide bombers and terrorism that we never even dreamed of twenty years ago.

Life’s journey changes direction often, but it never gets all that much easier. Peter doesn’t seem to get that in today’s gospel (as he didn’t get a lot of things). The Transfiguration is a turning point in the Gospel. From Mt. Tabor Jesus goes to Jerusalem and the climactic events of Holy Week. But Peter thinks it’s all over but the celebrating. He and his two fishing friends have heard God affirm Jesus as His own. In Jesus they have witnessed the fulfillment of the ancient prophecies. And now they have been privileged to see the glory of his divinity.

So Peter says, “Let’s put up three monuments to you and celebrate!” Jesus’ reaction is a stony silence. He knows that the real work lies ahead. There is glory ahead, to be sure. But it doesn’t come with the wave of a magic wand. It will be anything but easy. It will be hard work and change and then death.

The word transfiguration means a change in form or appearance, as Peter, James and John saw in Jesus on the mountain. Biologists call it metamorphosis—describing for example the change which occurs when a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. As children we might have curiously watched the process of a caterpillar turning into a chrysalis and then bursting into a beautiful Monarch butterfly. But transfiguration in us humans is even much more curious.

The spiritual writer, Fr. Anthony de Mello tells the story of such a metamorphosis in the prayer life of an old man: “I was a revolutionary when I was young, and all my prayer to God was: Lord, give me the grace to change the world. As I approached middle age and realized that half my life was gone without changing a single soul, I changed my prayer to: Lord, give me the grace to change all those who come into contact with me; just my family and friends and I will be satisfied. Now that I am old and my days are numbered, I have begun to see how foolish I have been. My one prayer now is: Lord, give me the grace to change myself. If I had prayed for this right from the start, I should not have wasted my life.”

That is the hardest transfiguration of all, isn’t it—allowing myself to be changed by the grace of God, living His will and not my own?

Life may not get easier, as Peter would soon learn; but Jesus is with us on every step of the way, showing us how to do it, how to live it fully. Peter, James and John could never have predicted where their lives would go. But there is one thing we can predict: that it will end with the glory of the Easter victory. May these precious days of Lent transfigure us so that we will see what Peter saw—the glory and the possibility.