Today’s Thoughts: I am thinking this morning of a story I heard a few years ago about a father and his teenage son. They, like many fathers and sons, had their difficulties. They disagreed on many things, such as homework, curfew, the family car, friends and so on. Unfortunately, their disagreements often ended in shouting matches.
One day the wife and mother of the two said “enough, for sake of this family you two men need to find a way to live together peacefully!” After a few days the father proposed that he and his son go on a camping trip to a mountain about two hundred miles away. Even though the son was unsure and suspicious of his father’s suggestion agreed to go. So, the two men set off for a week’s camping trip. They hiked through the woods, rafted on a river, climbed the mountain, slept out under the starlight sky and above all talked, and talked and talked. When their week was finished, they returned home with a different perspective on life and each other. They didn’t see each other just as the strict dominating father and the rebellious teen age son. This didn’t mean that they no longer had their difference but when they did disagree one of them would always say, “remember the mountain!” In our Gospel Peter, James and John are given the opportunity to see and hear Jesus differently, not just through the eyes and ears of the world but also through the eyes and ears of faith. What they see and hear in some ways changes their perspective of him and their journey of faith. Abraham spends time on a mountain and gets the opportunity to see his relationship with God a little differently. Abraham finds out that his God is not like the Canaanites gods, demanding human sacrifice. Abraham’s God is about a relationship, about life. We cannot look at this story in Genesis as a story of God testing Abraham by asking that he sacrifice his son. It is a story about an opportunity for Abraham to see things differently. The God of Abraham is not a god needing human sacrifice but a God of life. Abraham and his journey of faith is not transfigured he is transformed. Like Abraham, Peter, James and John, are gifted with God's presence. It is a presence that is also transforming. They encounter the breath of God's covenant and the essence of Jesus divine nature. They want to hang on to both but quickly learn that they cannot. It is an encounter to be remembered, an encounter that they can take with them as they return to the life they live. It becomes for them an encounter of hope. Even though they must return to their everyday life, to the struggles, difficulties, the challenges, even though they must go back down the mountain and continue their journey to the next mountain, Calvary, they have this memory that will keep alive the hope they need no matter what they encounter. Peter, James and John are not transfigured they are transformed. Perhaps, Abraham, Peter, James and John after their encounters of the mountain often said to themselves in the midst of their journey through life – “remember the mountain!” Our mountain top experience each week if the Eucharist. It is not a transfiguration but a transubstantiation. The substance changed but not the appearance. It is our mountain top, it is our moment to see and hear God not through the eyes and ears of the world, but through the eyes and ears of faith! It is our moment to be transformed. It is a moment to place in our memory so that amid the struggles, challenges and difficulties of life we have a memory that helps us to keep moving forward, to keep our faith alive. We have a memory to draw upon as our moment to “remember the mountain!” Have a holy and blessed Sunday everyone!
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Fr. Paul R. Fagan, C.P. "Preacher on the Run"Just a few thoughts to help you on your journey through life...let me know from time to time what you think... Archives
April 2024
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