St. Martin of Tours / Veterans’ Day
“The salvation of the just comes from the Lord.”
St. Martin of Tours is a fitting saint to intercede for veterans today. He himself was a soldier and served his country faithfully. After a time, he asked for and received release from military service. He had become a catechumen, and said to his superiors, “I have served you as a soldier; now let me serve Christ. Give the bounty to those who are going to fight. But I am a soldier of Christ and it is not lawful for me to fight.” Having received his release, he became a monk and served God faithfully. As a soldier of Christianity now, he fought valiantly against paganism and appealed for mercy to those accused of heresy. He was made a bishop, albeit reluctantly, and served faithfully in that post. He was a man of whom the psalmist says today, “The salvation of the just comes from the Lord.”
On this Veterans Day, we honor and pray for veterans of our armed forces who have given of themselves in order to protect our country and its freedoms. We pray especially for those who have died in battle, as well as for those who have been injured physically or mentally during their military service. We pray in thanksgiving for all of our freedoms, gained at a price, and pray that those freedoms will always be part of our way of life.
I received this prayer for Veterans Day. As I pray it, think of someone you know who may be a veteran, or perhaps is currently serving in the armed forces. Maybe that veteran is even you. If you don’t have anyone particular to pray for, ask God to hear this prayer on behalf of a veteran who has no one to pray for them. So let us pray:
We ask for blessings on all those who have served their country in the armed forces.
We ask for healing for the veterans who have been wounded, in body and soul, in conflicts around the globe.
We pray especially for the young men and women, in the thousands,
Who are coming home from Iraq with injured bodies and traumatized spirits.
Bring solace to them, O Lord; may we pray for them when they cannot pray.
Have mercy on all our veterans from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq,
Bring peace to their hearts and peace to the regions they fought in.
Bless all the soldiers who served in non-combative posts;
May their calling to service continue in their lives in many positive ways.
Give us all the creative vision to see a world which, grown weary with fighting,
Moves to affirming the life of every human being and so moves beyond war.
Hear our prayer, O Prince of Peace, hear our prayer.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
St. Martin of Tours, pray for us.
Sphere: Related ContentElection Day Vespers
Reading: James 3:13-18
I love the letter of St. James. It’s a letter of practical faith, and many of its passages give us a strong reality check to be sure that we are practicing our faith as the Lord intends. Today’s reading gives us a little gem of discernment. We might ask ourselves, how can we distinguish true, holy wisdom from the so-called “wisdom” of this world? And St. James is very clear. Is that wisdom laden with bitter jealousy and selfish ambition? Well, if it is, then it’s probably earthly and definitely worthless. But is it full of spiritual fruits: is it “first of all pure, then peaceable, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits, without inconstancy or insincerity?” Well, if it’s this kind of wisdom, then it’s right, then it’s holy wisdom from above.
Whenever we have an election, I am struck by how much bitter jealousy and selfish ambition creep in. Debates aren’t so much about sharing the candidates’ ideas of how to make our society better, but instead about tearing each other apart, muckraking and backbiting. They’re full of bitter jealousy and selfish ambition. Maybe it’s even impossible for a Christian to run for public office if this is where they need to go in campaigning. This year, all the candidates have engaged in this shameful behavior, and quite frankly, it makes me sad.
But, then again, that’s why we are here tonight, right? We are here because it’s up to us to bring about a society that is “first of all pure, then peaceable, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits, without inconstancy or insincerity.” Our politicians are only going to do that kind of thing if we insist on it, and as baptized believers, it is up to us to insist on a society built strongly upon spirit-filled and spirit-led virtues.
It’s important that we realize that as our country comes to a decision tonight, we still have a long way to go. It might be tempting to cast our vote and then feel like we’ve done what we’re called to do and can wash our hands of anything that happens. But our Church does not give us permission to do this. Our Church refuses to let us say “hey don’t blame me, I didn’t vote for him (or her).” Instead, we are called to be agents for change in our time and place by praying for our elected officials, even if they weren’t the ones we voted for, and by witnessing to our values so that they might do the right thing for our society.
We want to have a society where the most vulnerable are always taken care of. We absolutely want a nation that respects life at all ages and all stages, and we have to insist on that as a matter of utmost importance. We want to be a people that is mindful of the poor, that advocates for the marginalized, that cares for God’s creation. We want the whole package of justice and peace, and not one of the candidates running for office today can promise us that. Not packaged as they are, at any rate. And so it is up to us to continue to demand from them the right choices.
We have to be able to write to our nation’s leaders: presidents, congressmen, senators and everyone else. We have some brochures available on the table outside today. They are written by our diocese and provide instructions on how you can do that. What if we made it our new year’s resolution to write a politician once a month and insist that they vote to end abortion and euthanasia and protect life at all ages and stages every time it comes up for a vote, and not just when it’s politically convenient? What if we wrote also asking for an end to the death penalty in a nation that should be able to do a better job of protecting its citizens without using that horrible option? What if we insisted in our letters that they defend the poor every time they have the occasion to do so, knowing that our God loves the poor in a special way? What if we wrote and told them that care for God’s creation isn’t just a political fad, but a commandment of our God?
What would happen if we would all write a letter to one elected official just once a month, asking them to vote as the Church teaches, and promising to pray for them in their work? Could we not then be contributing to a society that is “first of all pure, then peaceable, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits, without inconstancy or insincerity?” I sure think we could make a huge difference that way. Because however things turn out tonight, we are still going to have a long way to go before we have before us a nation that follows the Gospel of Life and our God’s call to protect the poor. And we cannot, must not wash our hands of things and say we’ve done what we could just because we voted. We have to be faithful citizens not just today, but in all the days ahead. May God bless our country and bless us all in our vocation of building the Kingdom of God.
Sphere: Related ContentTwenty-seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time: Respect Life Sunday
How wonderful are the words we hear in today’s Gospel! “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” This raises important questions for us: how deep is our faith? What have we accomplished by faith? What has our witness to the faith looked like? On this Respect Life Sunday, we are particularly confronted with the issues of life and how we have given witness to the sanctity of life from conception to natural death.
The basis for the movement to respect life, brothers and sisters, is the fifth commandment: You shall not kill (Ex 20:13). The Catechism is very specific: “Scripture specifies the prohibition contained in the fifth commandment: ‘Do not slay the innocent and the righteous.’ The deliberate murder of an innocent person is gravely contrary to the dignity of the human being, to the golden rule, and to the holiness of the Creator. The law forbidding it is universally valid: it obliges each and everyone, always and everywhere.” (CCC 2261) And that would seem simple enough, don’t you think? God said not to kill another human being, and so refraining from doing so reverences his gift of life and obeys his commandment.
But life isn’t that simple. Life is a complex issue involving a right to life, a quality of life, a reverence for life, and sanctity of life. Jesus himself stirs up the waters of complexity with his own take on the commandment. In Matthew’s Gospel, he tells us: “You have heard that it was said to the men of old, “You shall not kill: and whoever kills shall be liable to judgment.” But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment.” (Mt 5:21-22)
Our Savior’s instruction on life calls us to make an examination of conscience. We may proclaim ourselves as exemplary witnesses to the sanctity of life because we have never murdered anyone nor participated in an abortion. And those are good starts. But if we let it stop there, then the words of Jesus that I just quoted are our condemnation. The church teaches that true respect for life revolves around faithfulness to the spirit of the fifth commandment. The Catechism tells us, “Every human life, from the moment of conception until death, is sacred because the human person has been willed for its own sake in the image and likeness of the living and holy God.” (CCC 2319)
And so we must all ask ourselves, brothers and sisters in Christ, are there lives that we have not treated as sacred? Have we harbored anger in our hearts against our brothers and sisters? What have we done to fight poverty, hunger and homelessness? Have we insisted that those who govern us treat war as morally repugnant, only to be used in the most severe cases and as a last resort? Have we engaged in stereotypes or harbored thoughts based on racism and prejudice? Have we insisted that legislators ban the production of human fetuses to be used as biological material? Have we been horrified that a nation with our resources still regularly executes its citizens in a futile effort to stop the spread of crime? Have we done everything in our power to be certain that no young woman should ever have to think of abortion as her only choice when facing hard times? Have we given adequate care to elder members of our family and our society so that they would not face their final days in loneliness, nor come to an early death for the sake of convenience? Have we avoided scandal so as to prevent others from being led to evil? Have we earnestly petitioned our legislators to make adequate health care available for all people?
Because every one of these issues is a life issue, brothers and sisters, and we who would be known to be respecters of life are on for every single one of them, bar none. The Church’s teaching on the right to life is not something that we can approach like we’re in a cafeteria. We must accept and reverence and live the whole of the teaching, or be held liable for every breach of it. If we are not part of the solution, we are part of the problem. On this day of prayer for the sanctity of life, our prayer must perhaps be first for ourselves that we might live the Church’s teaching with absolute integrity in every moment of our lives.
Our God has known us and formed us from our mother’s womb, from that very first moment of conception. Our God will be with us and will sustain us until our dying breath. In life and in death, we belong to the Lord … Every part of our lives belongs to the Lord. Our call is a clear one. We must constantly and consistently bear witness to the sanctity of life at every stage. We must be people who lead the world to a whole new reality, in the presence of the One who has made all things new. We have heard the Lord’s teaching and the teaching of the Church in union with the Holy Spirit. Now we must respond as our Psalmist urges us: “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”
Sphere: Related Content32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time: We never see the widow
The thing is, we never see the widow.
There are widows in both the first reading and today’s Gospel and neither story describes the widow. We don’t know what she’s wearing, if she’s tall or short, nothing at all about how she looked or anything. That’s pretty typical of most Scripture passages; we don’t know much of that about many of the characters we come across in the readings. But somehow, in these readings, especially in the Gospel, the lack of notice seems a bit more culpable than typical Scripture glossing-over of details.
We just never see the widow.
In the Gospel story, if Jesus didn’t see the widow, well, nobody would have. They would certainly have noticed the rich people who put in large sums. The collection boxes were designed that way. As they dropped in their many large coins, the donation would have made quite a loud clanking as they worked their way to the bottom of the box. Many times, people would time their deposit so that they could get the most attention possible. But a poor widow dropping in two small coins would never have gotten anyone’s attention. Except that Jesus saw her.
Jesus saw the widow and noticed her meager contribution. But in seeing the widow, Jesus knew all about her. He saw the lack of status that she had as a widow. Women in that society had no status at all unless they had a male figure to take care of them. A father, brother or husband meant that a woman would be taken care of and protected. But a widow would have given up her father and male family members to get married. And, at the death of her husband, she would have lost that protection also. Widows in that society were in a very bad way.
Jesus also saw the widow’s contribution. It was a very small contribution, equivalent to about one sixty-fourth of a denarius. A denarius was a day’s wage. A contribution that small was so insignificant that it would hardly have been noticed among the large contributions made by the rich people. But Jesus knew that the two small coins were perhaps all the poor widow had in the world. Any status or protection she would have as a widow would have come through the money she had. In giving the two small coins, she was probably giving everything she had. Jesus knew that for her, giving those two small coins was a way of giving up any control she had, and now the only person she could rely on is God. We never hear what happens to her, but her act of faith does not go unnoticed.
The situation is much the same in today’s first reading. Elijah the prophet is fleeing from his enemy, King Ahab. Ahab wanted to take Elijah’s life, and he is on the run. Here we see the powerful prophet completely at the mercy of those who seek him, and he has no one to whom to turn. Except for a poor widow. In Elijah’s day, even a widow was expected to show hospitality to a guest, even at the cost of all she may have. That was the custom. So Elijah asks for a drink and receives one. Then he asks for a cake, and the widow protests that the little bit of flour and oil was all she had for herself and her son, and she was planning on the two of them dying after having consumed it that day. But, ever attentive to the demands of hospitality, she does indeed make him the cake. And the prophet’s promise that the flour would not run out nor the flask of oil run dry is beautifully fulfilled for a year. Unlike the widow in the Gospel, we see that this widow is taken care of by God, and perhaps we can assume that God took care of the Gospel widow as well.
Because God does see the widow.
God sees the widow for the creation that she is. God knows her plight and hears her cry. Through the ministry and generosity of widows, God cares for prophets on the run and provides for the upkeep of a Temple. Through that same generosity, God provides a rich example not just of generous giving - although that’s there too - but of giving up control in order to experience the life, and care, and salvation that comes from God. The widow gives up what she has and she is cared for. When she is oppressed by unscrupulous Scribes who take her house for their own benefit, her cries are heard. God sees the widow.
And if God sees the widow, then we had better see her too.
But, we don’t. We miss the widow in our midst time and time again.
There are many people represented by the widow in these stories. The Psalmist gives us a look at all those who went unnoticed in his time. He sings that God secures justice for the oppressed, feeds the hungry, sets captives free, gives sight to the blind, raises up those bowed down, loves the just, protects strangers, and sustains the fatherless and the widow. God sees all of these people.
The widows in our time are all those who society forgets. The single mother. The homeless man. The forgotten elderly in nursing homes. The children of the poor. The unborn who are aborted every day. The terminally ill. The immigrant woman who comes in to clean the office when you’re headed home for the day. The mentally ill. Those on death row. Members of our armed forces fighting in far-away lands.
We never see any of these people. But God does.
Once again, we are coming to the end of our liturgical year. And so we must continue the kind of liturgical soul-searching that I’ve encouraged us to engage in these last few weeks. We need to take a look back at our lives this year and identify those we may not have seen the way God does. Maybe they are some of the strangers that I mentioned already. But maybe there are people closer to us that we have not noticed. Members of our family, neighbors, co-workers. Who are the people we have not noticed because we have been so wrapped up in ourselves? Who are the people we have forgotten because we are afraid that stopping to help them will leave us poorer? Who are those we have neglected because of selfishness or lack of concern? Who are the ones we have not seen?
What about our relationship with God? Has it reflected the action of the widows in today’s Liturgy of the Word which showed that letting go of everything we have gives us the opportunity to let God care for us and give us what we truly need? Or has our selfishness kept us bound up and attached to the things in our lives and in our world which have no permanence? Have we given up the Kingdom of God only to purchase a way of life that does not lead us to our Creator? Have we desperately held on to status, wealth and passing pleasures or have we let go and experienced the freedom that gives us the true security of God’s love and care for us?
There is a paradox in today’s readings, brothers and sisters. We are definitely called to start seeing the widows and all those who are forgotten among us. We are certainly called to care for them, because we are the instruments God uses to take care of those who need his protection. But, we are also called to be more like the widow. We are called to give from our need and not from our abundance. We are called to let go of everything we think we have in order to catch hold of the One who longs to gather us back to himself. The only real freedom we will ever have is when we give up every security we think we have in order to gain the care of our God who is always faithful.
Our hope has to be that our participation in the Eucharist this year has led us to a place where we are close enough to our God that we would see the widow. May we see the widow, and all the forgotten among us, and respond to their needs. May we see the widow’s example and give out of our comfort level in order that God, who is never outdone in generosity, can work his grace in our lives. May we see the widow because God does, and may we know the grace that was poured out on the widow in Elijah’s story, whose flour jar did not go empty and whose flask of oil did not run dry.
Sphere: Related ContentSt. Martin of Tours and Veterans Day
Today’s readings | Today’s feast
“Blessed is the one who fears the Lord.”
St. Martin of Tours is a fitting saint to intercede for veterans today. He himself was a soldier and served his country faithfully. After a time, he asked for and received release from military service. He had become a catechumen, and said to his superiors, “I have served you as a soldier; now let me serve Christ. Give the bounty to those who are going to fight. But I am a soldier of Christ and it is not lawful for me to fight.” Having received his release, he became a monk and served God faithfully. As a soldier of Christianity now, he fought valiantly against paganism and appealed for mercy to those accused of heresy. He was made a bishop, albeit reluctantly, and served faithfully in that post. He was a man of whom the psalmist says today, “Blessed is the one who fears the Lord.”
On this Veterans Day, we honor and pray for veterans of our armed forces who have given of themselves in order to protect our country and its freedoms. We pray especially for those who have died in battle, as well as for those who have been injured physically or mentally during their military service. We pray in thanksgiving for all of our freedoms, gained at a price, and pray that those freedoms will always be part of our way of life.
I received this prayer for Veterans Day. As I pray it, think of someone you know who may be a veteran, or perhaps is currently serving in the armed forces. Maybe that veteran is even you. If you don’t have anyone particular to pray for, ask God to hear this prayer on behalf of a veteran who has no one to pray for them. So let us pray:
We ask for blessings on all those who have served their country in the armed forces.
We ask for healing for the veterans who have been wounded, in body and soul, in conflicts around the globe.
We pray especially for the young men and women, in the thousands,
Who are coming home from Iraq with injured bodies and traumatized spirits.
Bring solace to them, O Lord; may we pray for them when they cannot pray.Have mercy on all our veterans from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq,
Bring peace to their hearts and peace to the regions they fought in.
Bless all the soldiers who served in non-combative posts;
May their calling to service continue in their lives in many positive ways.Give us all the creative vision to see a world which, grown weary with fighting,
Moves to affirming the life of every human being and so moves beyond war.
Hear our prayer, O Prince of Peace, hear our prayer.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
St. Martin of Tours, pray for us.
Sphere: Related ContentAnniversary of 9/11 Memorial Mass
Readings: James 4:1-10 | Psalm 23 | Matthew 5:2-24
Tragedy has a way of freezing time for us, of creating a kind of horrible snapshot that we’ll never forget, no matter how hard we try. Growing up, people always used to say that they’d always remember where they were when John F. Kennedy was shot. Since I was still in the womb, that’s not something I could identify with! But I’ll always remember where I was when the space shuttle Challenger exploded. And, like all of you, I’ll never forget the day the twin towers crashed to the ground.
I was in my third week of seminary, and getting ready to start my day. The first class of the day was one I had taken back in my college days, so I got to start my day a little later. I went to my computer to read the news headlines and saw something like “Plane crashes into World Trade Center.” I tried to click on the link to read the story, but the internet was clogged and I couldn’t get to it. So I turned on the news and saw the whole horrible thing. I watched in horror and grief as the second tower crashed to the ground, and then I caught up with my classmates who were getting ready for the second class and told them what I’d seen. Needless to say, we didn’t have that second class either.
But the snapshot I’ll always remember was going home that weekend and attending a prayer service at my home parish. It was a Friday evening, and the church was packed, and I mean packed . We sat before the Blessed Sacrament and prayed for peace and strength and comfort. It was a whole church full of people seeking to make sense of it all. And my home parish was not alone, of course. Attendance at churches all over America was off the charts in those days following the nightmare.
But five years have gone by and things have changed. The nightmare isn’t so fresh in our minds any more. If we didn’t know anybody killed in the twin towers, we may have moved on, content to leave the clean up to the city of New York and the working out of the consequences to the government. If one of our children or relatives is not overseas fighting the war on terrorism, this whole event may not be on our radar screen from day to day. We’re sympathetic to those who mourn the loss of their loved ones, but unless we have to get on an airplane and travel somewhere, the issue is not all that real to us, I fear.
Yet, as today’s scriptures tell us, the issue is right there in front of us. Each of us is on the front lines of the war against terrorism, war and hate right in our own hearts. We don’t have to travel abroad to seek out the enemy, because the enemy of enemies confronts us every day. Saint James makes it perfectly clear that the war is inside us when he says:
Where do the wars and where do the conflicts among you come from?
Is it not from your passions that make war within your members?
You covet but do not possess.
You kill and envy but you cannot obtain;
you fight and you wage war.
The Church teaches us that the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” is first of all violated when we hate and bear grudges. This teaching comes from what Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel:
“You have heard that it was said to your ancestors,
You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment.
But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother
will be liable to judgment,
and whoever says to his brother, ‘Raqa’
will be answerable to the Sandedrin,
and whoever says ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna.
Anger and name-calling are indeed slippery slopes that can send us crashing right down into murder and war, or at least inciting that in others. For the Christian disciple, taking up the cross means leaving behind our grudges, jealousies, and bitterness so that we can embrace every person God puts in our midst with the love he has for that person. No other attitude is acceptable in any way, and may indeed be sinful.
Purple is the color of reconciliation, and it’s for that reason that we have purple vestments today. What we need to hear from today’s scriptures is that we must put the events of 9/11 back on our radar screen. We need to do that by looking at what can be the darkest and scariest place of all, right into the depths of our own hearts. When we do this, we receive the promise that James writes about, “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” God longs to help us root out the war that rages in our own hearts. He deeply desires that his people should experience the peace that only he can give. With great abandon, he wants to embrace us all and help us to come to healing, peace and grace.
Too much blood has been shed in the days around and since 9/11, brothers and sisters in Christ. Thousands died in the towers, including many rescue workers. Many have become sick and died since from the affects of cleaning up the mess that was left. Hundreds have died on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq since that day. We cannot dishonor their memories by letting the snapshot of 9/11 fade into distant memory. We owe them more than the selfishness of letting them and their comrades work to protect us.
What can we do? We have to start with us. We have to heed these words of Scripture calling us to repentance, because peace is built one heart at a time. We have to pray for peace in every place, because we are all interconnected, and strife in one area of the world affects us all in some way eventually. And we have to remember those who died and who have since given their lives, because they are part of our communion of faithful departed. Above all, if we have come to the altar today with something against one of our brothers or sisters, we need to leave our gift here, and go out and be reconciled to them. As Jesus tells us today, only then can we offer our gift. And only then can we receive the great gift of God’s peace and comfort and healing. If we could all do that in some way, we have to believe that the snapshot that would be created - one free of horror and death and pain - would be a snapshot that was truly worth remembering.
Sphere: Related ContentEternal rest grant unto them, O Lord,
And let perpetual light shine upon them.May the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.
The Transfiguration of the Lord: Listen to him.
"This is my beloved Son. Listen to him."
This feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord can be a puzzling one for us to understand. It's an event we've heard about in Gospel readings, but it's not something that we've ever seen. So it's hard, I think, for us to figure out. If that's true of us, we shouldn't feel too bad: it's clear that Peter, James and John, disciples who were clearly in Jesus' "inner circle" didn't get it either. In fact, they were so frightened by it that they hardly knew what to say. God's glory can be frightening like that sometimes. As they walked down the mountain, all they could talk about was what Jesus meant by rising from the dead. Thankfully, though, we have the help of the Church's developed theology which those chosen three did not have at their disposal. So we can delve into the mystery of this Transfiguration, and in it perhaps, be transfigured ourselves.
The Transfiguration is a sign for us of three things: it's a sign of who Jesus really is, a sign of what would happen in the paschal mystery, and a sign of what is to be for those who believe.
First, then, it is a sign of who Jesus really is. We get three very beautiful clues to Jesus' true identity here. First, there is the transfiguration, or change, itself. Jesus is transfigured, and his clothes become dazzling white. He literally shines with the Glory of God. This reminded the people of Jesus' time of the way Moses' face was said to shine after he came down from the mountain where he conversed with God. It also reminds us of the way the figure who was "one like a son of man" shone in today's first reading. The transfiguration tells us that Jesus is no ordinary man, that the divinity the had from the beginning but set aside at his Incarnation, that divinity was ready to burst forth from him at any moment. It did in today's Gospel, and Peter, James and John were witnesses of it. The second clue is the appearance of Moses and Elijah with Jesus. This appearance linked Jesus with Israel's past, Moses representing the Law and Elijah the Prophets. His conversation with Moses and Elijah underscore that Jesus' ministry in the world was part of God's plan for our salvation. The third clue is the voice of God. "This is my beloved Son. Listen to him." If there had been any doubt, it had to be gone by now. Rarely does God speak in such a direct manner to his creation, but he did it here. Jesus was his beloved Son, and Peter, James and John - and all of us too - would do well to listen to him.
Now all of this was important, because in Mark's Gospel, from here on out, the story is all about the cross. Jesus was going to suffer and die a terrible, tortuous and ignoble death. But that kind of suffering wasn't punishment, or a sign of God's disfavor. Indeed, it was a sign that Jesus is God's beloved Son. Though he will suffer for a time, God always intended to raise him up. And so, if we, we who are God's beloved children, if we have to suffer for a time, we too can know of God's favor. We too can know that God always intended our salvation, all the way back to the time of Moses and the prophets. Jesus' true identity is a source of joy for all of us that we are beloved and that those who listen to his beloved Son will inherit the glory that bursts forth from Jesus on the mountain.
Second, the Transfiguration is a sign of what would happen in the Paschal Mystery. As I've said, from here on out, the message of Mark's Gospel will always refer to the cross of Christ. The incredible event of Jesus' Transfiguration foreshadows the glory of the Resurrection. It's a peek at what Jesus would look like after he rose from the dead. You may remember that the first witnesses of the Resurrection had a hard time recognizing Jesus. That may be because he was transfigured by the Resurrection, and so today's event is perhaps a taste of what that would be like. Yes, Jesus would have to suffer and die, but his Resurrection and Ascension would be glorious, and would open the possibility of glory to all of us as well.
Third, the Transfiguration is a sign of what waits for us who believe. The glory that we see in Jesus today is the glory that waits for all of us. We have hope of the Resurrection, we have hope of an eternal home in heaven. The transfiguration shows us that this hope is ours, if we but listen to the one who is God's beloved Son. Sure, we come to that as those who don't deserve that kind of glory. We are in need of our own kinds of transfigurations. We are in need of our sins being transfigured into faithfulness, of our failures being transfigured into joys, of our death being transfigured into everlasting life. All of those transfigurations are accomplished in us when we but listen to God's beloved Son.
It is important that we realize that, just as Peter, James and John had to come down from the mountain in today's Gospel, so we too must come down the mountain of this celebration of our faith, into our daily lives, and transfigure our world into the true image of Jesus Christ. We must transfigure the violence, hatred, and injustice that is so prevalent in our world into true peace, inclusion, love and justice that is the image of God, the glory that longs to burst forth from us and every part of our world.
Today's feast will forever be linked with a horrible event that stands in sharp contrast to this message. On August 6th in 1945, our country dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing over 100,000 people that day and in the days and years that followed, as they suffered and died from diseases that were the effect of exposure to radiation. This horrible event unfortunately ushered us into the nuclear age, one in which nations with nuclear capability have the power to destroy the world many times over. This sad day commemorates a bright light that was anything but God's glory, a day in which our world was transfigured, but in all the wrong ways.
Our world has long been saddened by that horrible, devastating event. Ever since, people in every nation have implored their governments to never repeat that day of death. Ever since, popes and bishops have sought to remind us that this kind of destruction is not God's will for us. Our beloved Pope John Paul II, of blessed memory, said in 1981:
"To remember the past is to commit oneself to the future.
To remember Hiroshima is to abhor nuclear war.
To remember Hiroshima is to commit oneself to peace."
He also reminds us that nuclear devastation is not a foregone conclusion to our world:
"In the face of the man-made calamity that every war is, one must affirm and reaffirm, again and again, that the waging of war is not inevitable or unchangeable. Humanity is not destined to self-destruction. Clashes of ideologies, aspirations and needs can and must be settled and resolved by means other than war and violence."
In this day of advanced and horrible weapons, every war has the frightening possibility of transfiguring our world in horrible and irrevocable ways. We must make peace our constant prayer. For those of you whose sons and daughters are off fighting for freedom in other lands, please don't hear this as a condemnation of what they do. Please do hear it as a call to prayer, that our world can be transfigured into a place where they don't have to do that, never again.
In Hiroshima there is a Peace Memorial with a statue of Sadako, a teenage girl who suffered leukemia as a result of the bomb. After she got sick she tried to fold a thousand paper cranes because she believed she would be cured of her disease if she did. She folded more than 800 before she died. Her friends completed the project. About her
cranes Sadako wrote, "I will write Peace on your wings and you will fly all over the world." Folded cranes have become a symbol and wish for peace and an end to nuclear weapons.
Sadako's wish is one way to transfigure our broken world for peace. We who are disciples are called to actively seek ways to transfigure our world through faith, hope and love. As we come to the Eucharist today, let us all reflect on those transfigurations that need to happen in us, as well as those transfigurations that need to happen through us, transfigurations that God longs to work in our world, transfigurations that will make this world brightly shine with the image and glory of God.
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