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Scripture Reflections for the Second Sunday of Lent

Year A, Lectionary 25

Jesus gave a glimpse of his glory and divinity to his followers at the Transfiguration. But first Jesus led them up for private time (prayer) with God and then led them back down to earth to continue their journey and work. Are we, however, letting ourselves be led like Abraham by God to a promised land we do not know but can only hope for? Can we make time for God to illuminate the path we must take?

Hate feeling lost on Sundays at church? Searching for a better explanation of the bible than what you hear from your pastor's sermon? Check out the following collection of audio, video, and text commentaries from various Christian experts for a better understanding of today's scripture that deal with: Abraham • Blessing • Call • Community • Discipleship • Elijah • Exodus • Faith • Fear • Focus • Grace • Holy • Hope • Interruption • Journey • Lent • Light • Listen • Love • Mission • Moses • Mountain • Neighbor • Peter • Prayer • Revelation • Salvation • Suffering • Theophany • Transfiguration • Transformation • Vocation • Works •

Genesis 12:1-4

“listening to one's own voice always amounts to playing it safe. Listening to God's voice, that's always an invitation to adventure.”

Bishop Robert Barron. "Listening to a Higher Voice." Word on Fire. March 8, 2020

Tags: Listen, Abraham
Psalm 33:4-5, 18-20, 22
2 Timothy 1:8-10
“Through baptism, dying and rising with Christ a person is configured to Christ crucified and resurrected. And so each individual person, each individual Christian as a member of the body of Christ, for Paul, has a certain share in the sufferings of Christ.” -Brant Pitre
Tags: Suffering, Salvation, Grace, Works
Matthew 17:1-9
“The heavenly visitors have departed but Jesus remains. Jesus alone. Jesus is the tabernacle, he is the abiding presence of God now among us, to lead us on a new and greater exodus.” -Fr. Geoffrey Plant
Tags: Transfiguration, Moses, Exodus, Elijah
“up to this point he's only shown them, in a sense, the veil of his humanity, right. They see him eat, they see him drink, they see him get tired but now he's showing them, not only is he fully man but he's also a divine person. He's the glorious son of the Father.” -Brant Pitre
Tags: Transfiguration, Moses, Revelation
“God desires nothing that comes from ignorance but is constantly educating us so that we might grow in that love that builds a true family” -Fr. Oscar Pratt
Tags: Mountain
“Sometimes just when we think that things are going well or turning around...we encounter a crevice or a canyon that comes between us and our goals and our dreams. And sometimes it even comes between us and what we think God wants us to do. Sometimes it makes no sense and it's really hard and yet we can't avoid the mountains.” -Laurie Jurecki
Tags: Community, Fear, Mountain

“The tragedy is Peter denies Christ having seen the transfiguration. Our failure to live out the divine teachings is similarly tragic.”

Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns. "Second Sunday of Lent." Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns. March 5, 2023

Tags: Transfiguration

“we cannot, and indeed shouldn’t, simply stay, avoiding the realities of our daily struggles. But what might those struggles look like once we’ve climbed the mountain, and given ourselves time to rest in God?”

Fr. Robert Gay. "Consecrated in Prayer." Torch. March 5, 2020

Tags: Prayer, Transfiguration

“Good things must pass away so that the everlasting joy can be received”

Fr. David Rocks. "Good That We Are Here." Torch. March 8, 2017

Tags: Transfiguration, Hope

“If we listen to Jesus, we will learn that we must spend time apart in prayer in the company of God and the saints; but we also learn from Jesus that we must come down from the mountain too.”

Fr. Simon Gaine. "Down from the Mountain." Torch. March 16, 2014

Tags: Mountain, Prayer, Lent

“I digress from more traditional discussions of the Transfiguration, not to diminish or dismiss them, but to add to them a sense of the sacredness and importance of Jesus’ mountain venue when He gave his disciples and believers a glimpse of His divinity, and a sense of the sacredness of our earth and creation.”

Marj Humphrey. "Second Sunday of Lent." Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns. March 16, 2014

Tags: Transfiguration, Mountain

“Lent, with its emphasis on prayer, almsgiving and self-denial, provides a great opportunity for us to pause in the midst of busy lives and reflect on this change of season which mirrors the changing stages of our own lives.”

Fr. Leo Edgar. "A Revelation on the Mountain." Torch. February 17, 2008

Tags: Mountain, Transfiguration

“The tragic things in the story of Jesus (above all, the Cross) and the joyful things in that story (above all, the Resurrection) go together”

Fr. John Orme Mills. "Growing into the Light." Torch. February 20, 2005

Tags: Journey, Transfiguration

“Are not my daily transformations the degrees by which I turn my face towards Jesus? The degrees by which I'm being changed into his likeness? The way in which I increase my depth and capacity to receive love itself? The degrees of holiness made possible by my attentiveness to the little things and faithfulness to my vocation over time?”

Trish McCarthy. "The Transfiguration: for a purpose and a promise." Australian Women Preach. March 5, 2023

Tags: Transfiguration, Mission

“these moments where that divinity shines forth through humanity come forth a lot more frequently and a lot more near to us than we might realize”

Fr. Juan P. Ruiz. "Have no Fear When God shines forth through Man." Juan Point at a Time. March 5, 2023

Tags: Transfiguration

Richard Rohr. "Life Coming to a Focus." Center for Action and Contemplation. March 7, 2020

Tags: Transfiguration, Focus

“How do we have access to the glory of Jesus Christ? We have access through our love for him. Christianity is about falling in love with Jesus.”

Bishop Robert Barron. "The Mystery of Light." Word on Fire. February 20, 2005

Tags: Light, Transfiguration, Holy

“Christians, this world we believe is real but not ultimately real. It's beautiful and good and true but it's not ultimately beautiful, good and true. In fact, it's a kind of symbol of a world that is much richer, more perfect, more intensely real.”

Bishop Robert Barron. "That Mysterious Light." Word on Fire. February 24, 2002

Tags: Mountain, Light, Transfiguration, Holy
Overall Readings
“Sometimes a theophany is just a sense of deep peace that everything is okay in the universe. Or a sense of inexplicable joy. Maybe it's a sense of joy even knowing that everything is not okay in the universe. But it's a deep sense of peace and joy.” -Fr. Mark E. Thibodeaux, SJ
Tags: Theophany
“What is God telling you? If he's asking you to give up something, even when it is not bad in itself, listen to him. For God will not tell you to let go of something if he does not have something better ahead for you.” -Fr. Emmanuel Ochigbo
Tags: Call, Interruption, Listen
“We, the people of God, are also invited into the rhythm of the Paschal journey which first begins with our receiving blessings to then become blessings ourselves...and then we encounter the cry of the poor, the lonely, and the oppressed...we continue to walk into the land that God shows us, as eternally present pilgrims, as a gift to others.” -Jung Eun Sophia Park, SNJM
Tags: Call, Journey, Abraham, Blessing
“He is our example of being called, being loved and responding with courage. The more we listen to Jesus and pattern our lives after his commitment the more we transform into people of love and hope.” -Lauren M. Schwer
Tags: Peter, Hope, Love
“we become fixated on the things that we gave up rather than the point of why we do them. Because the point is to free ourselves, to realize that there's nothing, there's no food, no drink, no material good, nothing that will truly satisfy what it means to be human except for God.” -Fr. David Fisher
Tags: Faith, Call, Discipleship
“In order to go up God's mountain, we've got to listen and wait for Jesus to give us marching instructions” -Monsignor Raymond East
Tags: Mountain, Transfiguration, Listen, Transformation

“Real experiences of God transform us: they make us different. Maybe different by a hair or maybe different by a radical conversion of life. But different.”

Mary Ortwein. "God on the Mountain, God in the Valley." A Catholic Moment. March 4, 2023

Tags: Abraham, Mountain, Transformation

“if Lent is a time when we remember our sinfulness, and through our penance recognise our need for God’s mercy, we do so not despairing of our salvation, but always aware of the triumph over sin and death which Christ’s Resurrection reveals”

Fr. Gregory Pearson. "Our Transfiguration." Torch. March 1, 2023

Tags: Lent, Transfiguration

“When vocation is understood as an act of God’s grace, then fidelity to ones vocation becomes a sign of constant positive response, value of, and appreciation of God’s love”

Fr. Lawrence Obilor. "Meeting God on a New Location." A Catholic Moment. March 8, 2020

Tags: Transformation, Vocation, Transfiguration

“This is our challenge during this Lenten season: to embrace our unity with God and all people to bring about justice, peace, forgiveness and love to the world around us. Then shall all the communities of the earth find blessing in us.”

Sr. Pat Conroy, MM. "Second Sunday of Lent." Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns. March 8, 2020

Tags: Journey

“Whenever and wherever human beings suffer, it is the moral integrity of those around them that enables them to see Jesus amid the suffering”

Alfonso Buzzo. "Second Sunday of Lent." Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns. March 12, 2017

Tags: Neighbor

“If we sacrifice some of our comforts, and endure our struggles for Christ, in thanksgiving for Him sacrificing Himself for us – through that, He will give us the strength to do so, transforming us”

Joseph LaCombe. "Be Transformed." A Catholic Moment. March 11, 2017

Tags: Transfiguration, Transformation, Lent

“We may not hear God speaking to us directly from heaven, or see Jesus standing right in front of us telling us what to do, but the Holy Spirit speaks to us deeply inside of our heart, our mind and our soul. The nagging feeling we can’t get rid of. The challenge is to listen and do something about it.”

Laura Kazlas. "The Transfiguration of The Lord." A Catholic Moment. March 16, 2014

Tags: Transfiguration, Vocation

“On any journey, if you’re not sure what your destination is, chances are you’ll never get there; so as pilgrims on the Christian journey, we need this glimpse of our heavenly destination to help us get there”

Fr. Benjamin Earl. "Not a Time for Glory?." Torch. March 20, 2011

Tags: Transfiguration

“Maybe like Peter we sometimes want to cling on to the good bits, not lose the ‘highs’. But life can’t always be on the heights. As we follow in the footsteps of the Beloved Son, our journey of faith will often demand of us the constancy of Abraham.”

Fr. Fabian Radcliffe. "Abraham and the Transfiguration." Torch. February 24, 2002

Tags: Transfiguration, Abraham, Journey

“there are kind of two types of people in the world. Some who suck air out of a room, others that breathe life into a room.”

Bishop Robert Barron. "A Friend of the Lord Jesus." Word on Fire. March 5, 2023

Tags: Call, Prayer

“What is prayer?...One way to characterize it, it's attentive listening to God.”

Bishop Robert Barron. "Listen!." Word on Fire. March 12, 2017

Tags: Listen
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