Weekly HOMILY for March 8, 2009: Transformation in Jesus Christ

2nd Sunday of Lent, Cycle B
Our Lady of Grace
March 8, 2009


Transformation in Jesus Christ
By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato


A Prince Transformed

There is a story about a handsome Prince who had a crooked back.

This disability was something that the Prince struggled with. One day his father, the King, had the best sculptor in the land carve a statue of the prince.

But the statue portrayed the prince with a straight back and not a crooked back. The King placed the statue in the Prince’s private garden and whenever the Prince gazed at it, his heart would quicken.

Months passed, and people began to say: “Do you notice, the prince’s back doesn’t seem as crooked as it was.” When the Prince overheard this, he was enthused.

He began spending hours studying the statue and then, one day, a remarkable thing happened. The Prince stretched high overhead, and realized that he was standing straight, just like the statue.

Jesus Transformed

The story is a fable and unfortunately, our physical disabilities are not usually healed so easily.

But the story is really teaching a spiritual, not a physical lesson, viz., that he Prince was transformed by gazing at and studying the statue.

The statue portrayed him as he could become. In a similar way, today’s Gospel says that Jesus is “transfigured” in front of the apostles.

In other words, Jesus’ figure or appearance is changed – transformed. He is seen for all that he is – not just any other person, but as one with a special, even unique relationship with the Father.

Jesus is seen as the Son of God and the voice from the heavens confirms this.

My thought is that Jesus’ transfiguration – or transformation – calls us to be transformed – to become what we are created to be.


Our Transformation: How

How is this possible for us?

What do we have to do for this transformation to happen? The story of the Prince looking at the statue of himself as he could be may help us with this.

We are called to look at and listen to Jesus. Jesus is the full and clear image of God and of the kind of person God calls us to become.

So, in Jesus, we see a person who lives with an inner, prayerful communion with God – his and our Father. We see a person whose actions and words match and flow from that union.

We see him caring for the needy and then listen to him saying that “Whatever we do for the least of our brothers and sisters we do for him.” We listen to him calling us to respond from a center within ourselves, a center where we are one with the Father, and respond positively, constructively, and caringly, and not out of vengeance.

So, we are to look at and listen to Jesus – much as the prince in the story looks at the statue of how he wanted to be. This is why reading Sacred Scripture, especially the Gospels, is so central to our Catholic spirituality.

We are encouraged to make reading and reflecting on Sacred Scripture the center of our prayer. It leads us to a fuller communion with the Lord and that in turn helps us to grow and become more and more like Jesus.

And thus our transformation into who we were meant to be comes about.


Our Transformation: Expectations

What should we expect this process of transformation to be like?

First, we need to expect that it will take time. Our transformation will be like the Prince’s in the fable.

It will be developmental, incremental, perhaps even imperceptible. I have read that every seven years, every cell in our body is replaced. That happens slowly, without our even noticing it.

Our spiritual growth or transformation is much the same and this requires that we stick to it, day by day, and be patient and persevering.

In fact, that is why we begin each Mass with a Penitential Rite or prayer. We get in touch with the number one area where we need to grow and bring that to the Lord for his forgiveness and strength.

And, by the way, I recommend that we select just one thing and keep bringing that to the Lord day after day, week after week, month after month. I know that I don’t change easily, and I believe that is true for all of us.

It takes time for us to grow spiritually. It takes time for us to become more of the kind of person that God creates us to be and we need, as I said, patience and perseverance.


Transformation and Lent

So, transformation – that is the keyword for today, this Second Sunday of Lent.

And it is so for obvious reasons. This is the possibility that the Season of Lent holds out to us and a process in which we are already engaged!