Homily Thoughts - 2-Lent C

   I don't do much travelling, but last year at this time, I was in Germany in service to the Air Force.  On the Second Sunday of Lent, I had my one and only 'weekend off', which I used to travel to Paris which was only a couple hours away by the 300km/h bullet train.

   I had never been to Paris, although I had always hoped to get there at some point.  I took French back in high school, now twenty-five years prior, and I was pretty good at it.  I hadn't necessarily practiced my French much in the past years, but when I learned it, I was a young person, whose brain was still plastic enough to acquire not just a syntactical and analytical understanding of the language, but an idiomatic and 'natural' grasp... I was able to "think" in French back in the day... all I need to do as an older person is now have enough vocabulary to be functional in this new (old) environment.

  And so, I got a couple of 24 hour passes on the metro, a cheap hotel room by the Gard du Nord (the north train station), and Paris was mine until Sunday night at 9pm.

Notre Dame de Paris (photo by me)

  My most desired target was Notre Dame de Paris, in the spiritual center of town, on the Isle de la Cite, in the midst of the Seine.  After dumping my bags at the hotel (which was a story in itself... it was in a rather creepy neighborhood), and a couple minutes of interpreting the metro maps, I jumped on a train and eventually came out of the ground and saw the ancient cathedral.  Coming upon the Cathedral for the first time is sort of like the first time going to Wrigley Field or St. Peter's Square or any other famous place only previously seen on TV or in pictures.  The weight of the history and mystery of the place kind of hits you, and you realize that of all the places in the world you could be, you are there... at this iconic place at this iconic time.  So on Saturday, I simply went inside and milled around as all the tourists do.  I was able to catch the daily Mass, which I believe was at noon.  It was in French, of course, but it was the Mass.  You could hear people responding to the prayers in French and English and Latin and some other languages, and then there was also the constant din of the tourists who were circling the arcades and transepts around the main body of the church.  After Mass, I considered how Thomas Aquinas probably said Mass at this altar... or at least in this or that alcove.  I considered the horror of the Enthronement of the Goddess of Reason upon the altar during the Revolution.  I took some time to offer the office (from my cell phone) before the Blessed Sacrament one of the chapels in the back of the Church.

  That night, there was to be a Lenten concert of sacred music, which I came back for, and then I headed to the Tower for dinner on the Seine before calling it a night.  Mass the next day was at 11-ish, I think, and it was the "International Mass", which was celebrated by an African priest-student at one of the universities.  He celebrated in French... and I had practiced my French responses very carefully and was ready to offer any of the concelebrant's parts of any of the the Eucharistic Prayers in the local tongue.  As the "international" Mass, though, the sacristan insisted that I take one of the post-institutional prayers in English to edify the visitors (?), and provided me with a photocopied page of the old, familiar sacramentary (the old edition!) of EP-III.  So, the brute-tongue of English was heard resounding through the great French Cathedral with my unmistakable Central Illinois accent on that memorable morn.





Pilgrim's "Passport" for the pilgrimage
of St. James (source: Wiki)

   Spiritual travels have long been a feature of Christian devotion... pilgrimages we call them.  One would try to go on pilgrimage to the Holy Land if they had the means and the spiritual devotion.  Many go to Rome to see St. Peter's and the other early Christian sites.  Others travel to Lourdes or Fatima or Ars, still others to more local destinations...  some travel the roads from France to Santiago in Spain for the feast of St. James every July.  In Germany I saw the thousand-year-old Cathedrals at Mainz and Cologne.  In the States we have the Basilica Shrine in DC, the Cathedral of St. Louis, and other destinations as well.  When we travel to these destinations, we do so out of both spiritual and tourist motives, looking to see something we haven't seen... to appreciate the faith of a time and place heretofore unknown... at its most basic, to encounter God in a new and special way during the efforts of our travels.  This is part of the incarnational aspect of our Christian faith... that God uses places and times and people and events for special purposes.  Life among these revealed signs of God's love is nothing less than a continual journey of discovery.

   And so, this second Sunday in Lent, Jesus leads us on a journey-- a pilgrimage of faith, to experience something new and different.  He presents himself in all of his glory to Peter, James, and John... and the Gospel narrative invites us along to see and experience the event as well.  Pope St. Leo the Great assures us in the Office of Readings that this prefigurement of the Lord's glory is intended to be a consolation against the backdrop of the crucifixion we are about to 'witness' as we continue more deeply into the journey of Lent.  Indeed, it is a waypoint to help us remember what our fasting and prayer and almsgiving is all about--not an end to itself, but like the cross, a seed planted in anticipation of a future glory.
   Now Peter, reliably, doesn't get it.  Seeing the glory of God revealed in Jesus, he proclaims to the Lord that he intends to memorialize that place.  He proposes to put up three huts... one for you (Jesus), one for Moses, and one for Elijah.  Maybe this could be a place where an enterprising apostle could set up a fourth booth to charge admission?  Instead, a cloud envelops him, showing us his spiritual blindness, and calling him and us back into Jesus' intended message.
   While pilgrimage is an important icon for our spiritual struggles, and while churches and destinations are important symbols in our spiritual lives, unlike so many other expressions of religious faith, Christianity is ultimately not centered on places or things or even ideas.  Christianity is focused on the person of Christ... "this is my beloved Son, listen to him!"  This is not to deny that incarnational aspect of our faith that enjoys a good pilgrimage, but it recognizes that this world, when raised beyond what we can merely see, reveals the glory of God which calls us beyond time and place and space into relationship with him alone.
   And so, what we commemorate in the Transfiguration, what we recall each Sunday as we gather at the altar is not just one or another miraculous event or memorable episode in the life and history of Christ, but the intimacy and immediacy of his glory when we meet him in person.  On that altar, we encounter no one less than the God of all creation, who wishes to draw us into his life and glory.  This is who we meet, whether at the Pope's altar in Rome, in our parish church, at Notre Dame Cathedral, in a foreign mission, at a prison or in a hospital or on the hood of a Jeep in some war zone or in a funeral parlor.  Christ is present.  It is not the places that are holy, but his divine presence that metamorphoses us as we stand in a particular time and space made holy by that presence.  Even when God's glory is not plainly visible, perhaps being hidden away under sacramental signs that our senses fail to recognize, his presence still beckons unto the glory of the world to come.
   For my own life and ministry, this realization is no less true.  I celebrated Mass this Second Sunday of Lent today in a quiet, rural chapel before a group of religious sisters, rather than in the glory of that great French cathedral or in my own parish church.  His glory might have seemed somewhat more hidden today, but his presence was unmistakeably there.  I am drawn to thinking of others who find themselves in new or difficult situations this year as they hear this Gospel... a particular family caring for its father in a hospital in St. Louis this weekend after a health crisis which has changed their lives forever.  May they recall how the Lord has loved them and protected them in the past and recognize Christ's enduring presence now.  I am also thinking of a brother priest whose mother died today.  May he and his family remember their mother with love and thanksgiving before God, embracing Christ's continued and newly-revealed glory with them today.
   We all are in different places and different times this Second Sunday of Lent, but it is no less sacred, no less precious in the eyes of our suffering, glorified Lord, who lies just beyond our sight, accompanying us on our earthly pilgrimages.  The sufferings of this world are no comparison to the glory that awaits.  The Transfiguration reminds us of not only the glory of our Lord, but also of his presence and immediacy in the humble and everyday as continue up to Jerusalem, taking up our crosses to follow him.