Beautiful in White

    

Second Sunday of Lent

05 March 2023

 

First Reading: Gn 12:1-4a

Responsorial Psalm: Ps 33:4-5, 18-19, 20, 22

Second Reading: 2 Tm 1:8b-10

Gospel: Mt 17:1-9

 

Reflection

By: Ma. Rosalina S. Flores

 

Today's Gospel narrates the Transfiguration of Jesus, the moment up a high mountain when His face shone like the sun and His clothes became white as light, as witnessed by Peter, James, John and his brother. His disciples also saw Moses and Elijah conversing with Jesus. They even heard a voice came from the cloud that said, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to Him."

At the end of the Transfiguration event, Jesus charged His disciples to "Do not tell the vision to anyone until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead."

In line with the transfiguration, my father always tells me that I am God's daughter and I am robed in white garment. He then challenges me to keep my garment white until death by loving God and my neighbors in preparation for eternal life.

But isn't it difficult to make your spiritual garment white all the time, same with washing your white clothes? Sometimes, we need to try different detergents to find the perfect one that will make our clothes as white as new.

Good thing, Jesus has already given us the secrets to transfiguration: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, the three pillars of Lent.

In fact, immediately, after descending the mountain, Jesus has mentioned about prayer and fasting in His next encounter where at the multitude, He healed a demon-possessed boy. 'Then the disciples approached Jesus privately and said, "Why were we unable to cast him out?" Jesus said to them: "Because of your unbelief...But this kind is not cast out, except through prayer and fasting."' Following that, Jesus also taught almsgiving as He instructed Peter to pay the temple tax. "But so that we may not become an obstacle to them: go to the sea, and cast in a hook, and take the first fish that is brought up, and when you have opened its mouth, you will find a shekel. Take it and give it to them, for me and for you."

We are now on the Second Sunday of Lent, exactly 28 days before the Holy Week, may we spend well the remaining days of preparation for the much-anticipated Easter, the resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Prayer

Jesus, help us to prepare not only our garments but also our hearts in our journey to Holy Week and to eternal life. Help us to become prayerful, generous, and deny ourselves for a much better purpose. All these we ask in Your Mighty Name, Amen.