Second Sunday of Lent

How important is awareness!  A sight or experience or word can pass straight over one person’s head and the same thing, for someone else, can be a life-changing experience.

In both the encounters with God in today’s readings - Abram’s in Genesis and the transfiguration of Jesus in Luke, a little bit of heaven dips down into their human lives, and both men are changed.  In both stories, the encounter is half clouded or half in dream, yet the conviction is none the less real.  Not quite so real, or lasting, at any rate, for Peter, John and James who witnessed it.  Subsequent events show they did not take in what was talked about, “Jesus' passing which he was to accomplish in Jerusalem.”

Does a little bit of heaven dip down into our lives?  All the time! All the time!  With every real celebration of the Mass, with every breaking open of the word, with every kindness shown, in the beauties of nature, in music or literature that touches us deeply, in all goodness and beauty.  Perhaps our awareness is not always as sharp as it might be.

Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians is not as unrelated as it might at first appear.  He writes: “Take as your models everybody who is already doing this" – that is, "following my rule of life.”  That gave me pause for thought.  First, I tried to think of people I would regard as models.  Then, much more nervously, I felt compelled to ask myself was I a model, and if not, why not. I suppose most of us would have to acknowledge that we are a mixed bag!

Can we ask ourselves, and perhaps – if we’re game – ask our closest friends, “Am I becoming nicer, better, holier, as I get older?”   Would any of us dare to answer yes to those questions?  Yet we should be able to, without pride but with deep gratitude.  We have Augustine’s warning in our rule that “pride ambushes even good works in order to destroy them.” But there must be a middle way, a warm awareness that God is working in our lives, that heaven does dip down into our lives too and transforms us.

We might work at our awareness: share our insights, giving and taking in equal measure, using the opportunities that present, such as Lectio Divina, and the Lenten Group -  actively looking for beauty, in nature and in people.  All of these things are a reflection of God, partly shrouded in dream or cloud, but a little bit of heaven dipping down into our lives, nevertheless.