Second Sunday of Lent

Instructions for living a life

A poem by Mary Oliver.

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it.

This morning, I saw the Transfiguration. It lasted precisely ten minutes.When I first stirred this morning before 6 am, it was still dark outside. Too dark even to see if the Mountain was out or not. The one perk of my job at SU is that I live at the end of the 8^thfloor of Campion Hall, in a dorm suite, with windows that face west to downtown and the Olympics, east to the Cascades, and south to Mount Rainier. After turning on the coffee maker and a quick trip to the bathroom, I got back into bed for half an hour, read depressing news in the New York Times on the iPad, and then began the day.

Another peek out the window. Lovely.  The mountain was out, with a faint wash of pink on its eastern flank. Over on the eastern horizon, the saw-tooth rim of the Cascades was still visible, below threatening clouds. A faint red line, and rosy clouds above. By the time I got out of the shower and dressed, red and pink had turned to peach and salmon and ivory. At 7:12 on the dot, the sun broke the line of the cascades, and for exactly 10 minutes, I sat bathed in golden light, so beautiful and bright it was almost painful. At 7:22 the first wisps of cloud gathered and filtered that sweet light, and by 7:35 the sun had disappeared entirely, leaving only a thin golden line at the bottom of the clouds that obscured it. Mist and fog began to obscure the Mountain. When I left the campus at 9 o’clock to come here, you couldn’t see the mountain at all. This is, after all, Seattle. As Annie Dillard writes, “sometimes, the lid slides onto the pot.”

And Jesus took Peter, James and John and went up the mountain to pray. And while he was praying his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white; and they saw his glory.  And Peter said, “Lord it is good that we are here.” And while he was speaking a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they became frightened, and from the cloud came a voice that said:  This is my chosen son; listen to him”

Yesterday, I saw the Transfiguration. It lasted four hours. I’d been invited to hear confessions at the Cathedral for an event for the year of mercy. They had expected 50 people. 550 showed up.  The cold, drafty vestibule was full of people waiting. My one hour in the reconciliation room turned into four.

To tell the truth, mostly what a priest hears in confession is ordinary, because most of what we do, both good and bad, is ordinary. Ordinary things people regret doing or not doing, want to be rid of, want to change. I lied, I was impatient, I was angry; I gossiped, I was careless, I was impure. Yet in that four-hour period, half a dozen people came with immense burdens on their hearts, burdens of guilt they had been carrying for years and were exhausted from carrying. They came because they had nowhere else to go.

They told me they had heard Pope Francis’ invitation to ask for and receive the mercy of God. So many tears. Sighs of relief from the bottom of their souls as they were finally able to lay those burdens down. Faces transfigured from shame to hope. For ten minutes at least, they were bathed in golden light, so beautiful and bright it was almost painful. 

Will there be clouds on their horizons again?  Of course. Will we pass further days under gray and rainy skies? Of course. That is the nature of our life, Yet what this morning showed me, what yesterday afternoon showed me, what the good news we share here tells me is that transformation, transfiguration is possible. We have only to open our eyes, and our hearts, to experience it.

Instructions for living a life

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it.

Fr. Tom Lucas, SJ