Faith Transforms Life

Raphael's Transfiguration

As we journey through life, perhaps wondering if we're going in the right direction, perhaps  perplexed at times, the challenge is to let Jesus be our lighthouse, our guidepost. Lent is a time to affirm our faith in the good news that Jesus is alive. And because he lives, we live.

The word of God takes us back almost 4,000 years to a man named Abraham, a model of complete trust in God, a faith-filled human being. Abraham’s call is a watershed in the history of our salvation. God puts Abraham to the test: sacrifice your only son, Isaac. Now we may wonder: what kind of God would ask such a thing? But Abraham responds that he will do whatever God asks. And God spares Isaac and assures Abraham of prosperity and progeny.

In the Gospel according to Mark, the disciples experienced the transfiguration of Jesus; they saw the unique and awesome presence of God in Jesus of Nazareth. And as the scriptures describe this experience, Jesus’s face became as “dazzling as the sun,” his clothes as “white as light,” an allusion to the white cloth given us at baptism. The disciples suddenly saw a vision of the “glorious” Jesus, beyond the flesh and blood in their everyday life.

God's ultimate aim is to transform us into the likeness of the “glorious” Jesus. This transformation has already begun through the waters of baptism in which we have become “new creatures,” the adopted sons and daughters of God our Father, men and women of faith in God, called to live a life worthy of our status.

Many of you know of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. She said in so many ways that holiness is not a luxury for the few; holiness is meant for all. A so-called “untouchable” was alone and dying on a sidewalk. Mother Teresa went over to him, put her hands together as in prayer and bowed to him with a Hindu greeting: Namaste. She saw the image of God veiled in this emaciated man. And, his dying words were: I lived with animals and now I die with the angels.

Yes, to see God in people is to live a holy life, a life of faith in God. Jesus lived by faith, completely trusting his Father's unconditional love. That faith made Jesus a transformative person, ushering in the kingdom of God. And that faith was tested to the breaking point on the cross. Jesus died murmuring, “Father, into your hands I entrust my spirit.” And in the mystery of death, God transfigured Jesus into a new kind of spiritual embodiment.

Jesus calls us, his co-workers, to become transformative people as well. We have to work to transform unfairness and prejudice into fairness and tolerance; to transform hate into peace, indifference into compassion, sorrow into joy and despair into hope. Yes, we have to work to transform self-centeredness into other-centeredness, so that God can transfigure us, as he did Jesus.