Second Sunday of Lent – Cycle C
Reflecting on Luke 9: 28b-36
Lord, it is good for us to be here. Not on Mount Tabor—an exceedingly scary mountain during the muddy season, by the way—but here, in our own cities, and in our own skin. The Mount of Transfiguration is the perfect place to visit every year on the second Sunday of Lent. It’s good for us to remember Jesus, transfigured in Light, and his heavenly companions, Moses and Elijah.
It’s also good to consider those most intimate of his male disciples, Peter, James, and John, whom he often singled out to accompany him on transformative events. They saw him raise Jairus’ daughter (Mark 5: 37-43) from death to life. That soul-shattering experience must have transfigured them in ways not recorded in the gospels. And it was those three again who were with him in the Garden, during his agonized prayer, and when the soldiers came to arrest him (Mk. 14:33).
With the flash of the soldier’s swords, did they remember the flash of Light on Tabor? Did they see Jesus transfigured then, as he was led away? Or was it they who were transfigured, not at that terrifying moment, but a mere three days later, when the transfigured women—forever changed and forever remembered as the first witnesses of the resurrection—came running from the Empty Tomb?
It’s good for us to be HERE, with all our stuff. We need transfiguring so badly. We need our laziness transfigured into a fiery energy for good. We need our unhealthy habits transfigured into light-filled habits of returning phone calls, checking in on lonely neighbors, and returning to warm engagement with our families.
It’s finally Lent. Let your LIGHT shine.
What changes are you already making this Lent?
Kathy McGovern ©2025