Patrick Comerford
We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar. Tomorrow is the Second Sunday before Lent (23 February 2025), and Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent are now less than two weeks away (5 March 2025).
The Six Nations championship resumes this weekend with wall-to-wall rugby, and later this afternoon I hope to find appropriate places to watch the matches between Ireland and Wales (14:15) and England and Scotland (16:45). Before this day begins, however, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Mark 9: 2-13 (NRSVA):
2 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, 3 and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. 4 And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. 5 Then Peter said to Jesus, ‘Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’ 6 He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. 7 Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!’ 8 Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.
9 As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. 10 So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead could mean. 11 Then they asked him, ‘Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?’ 12 He said to them, ‘Elijah is indeed coming first to restore all things. How then is it written about the Son of Man, that he is to go through many sufferings and be treated with contempt? 13 But I tell you that Elijah has come, and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written about him.’
Today’s Reflection:
In today’s Gospel reading (Mark 9: 2-13), we hear Saint Mark’s account of the Transfiguration. We are going to hear Saint Luke’s account of the Transfiguration (Luke 9: 28-36) eight days from now (the Sunday before Lent, 2 March 2025).
The Synoptic accounts of the Transfiguration are very similar in wording. So, what is different between Saint Mark’s account of the Transfiguration and the accounts in the other two Synoptic Gospels?
Mark, like Matthew, tells us these events take place ‘six days later’, although Luke says they take place ‘eight days later’. All three accounts tell us that Christ’s robes become dazzling white, but Mark alone tells us they are a white ‘such as no one on earth could bleach them’ (verse 3). Mark also tells us the three disciples were ‘terrified.’
In a lecture in Cambridge many years ago [2011], the late Metropolitan Kallistos [Ware], the pre-eminent Orthodox theologian in England, spoke of the Transfiguration as a disclosure not only of what God is but of what we are. The Transfiguration looks back to the beginning, but also looks forward to the end, to the final glory of Christ’s second coming, because through the incarnation Christ raises our human nature to a new level, opens new possibilities.
The Incarnation is a new beginning for the human race, and in the Transfiguration we see not only our human nature at the beginning, but as it can be in and through Christ at the end, he told us.
But with the Transfiguration comes the invitation to bear the cross with Christ, the challenge put to the disciples in yesterday’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist (Mark 8: 34 to 9: 1, 21 February, 2025). Peter, James and John are with Christ on Mount Tabor, and they are with him in Gethsemane. We must understand the Passion of Christ and the Transfiguration in the light of each other, not as two separate mysteries, but aspects of the one single mystery. Mount Tabor and Mount Calvary go together; and glory and suffering go together.
If we are to become part of the Transfiguration, we cannot leave our cross behind. If we are to bring the secular, fallen world into the glory of Christ, that has to be through self-emptying (κένωσις, kenosis), cross-bearing and suffering. There is no answer to secularism that does not take account of the Cross, as well as taking account of the Transfiguration and the Resurrection.
The Revd Dr Kenneth Leech (1939-2015) once said: ‘Transfiguration can and does occur ‘just around the corner,’ occurs in the midst of perplexity, imperfection, and disastrous misunderstanding.’
We all need to go through our own Transfiguration moments, and in a series of interviews in the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield, ten years ago [16 January 2015] with the historian, photographer and filmmaker David Moore, I spoke about my own ‘self-defining moment’, and the scenic route I took to ordination and priesthood.
An interview in the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield, in 2015 with David Moore, speaking about my own ‘self-defining moment’
Today’s Prayers (Saturday 22 February 2025):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), has been ‘The Struggle for Indigenous Land Rights in Brazil.’ This theme was introduced last Sunday with a Programme Update by the Revd Dr Rodrigo Espiúca dos Anjos Siqueira, Coordinator of the Department of Advocacy, Human, Environmental and Territorial Rights of the Anglican Diocese of Brasília. Pastor of Espírito Santo Parish, Novo Gama, Goiás.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 22 February 2025) invites us to pray:
Lord, we pray for your blessing on The Revd Dr Rodrigo’s ministry as a vicar and as a lawyer, as he seeks to boldly proclaim your justice in Brasília and beyond.
The Collect:
Almighty God,
who alone can bring order
to the unruly wills and passions of sinful humanity:
give your people grace
so to love what you command
and to desire what you promise,
that, among the many changes of this world,
our hearts may surely there be fixed
where true joys are to be found;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Merciful Father,
who gave Jesus Christ to be for us the bread of life,
that those who come to him should never hunger:
draw us to the Lord in faith and love,
that we may eat and drink with him
at his table in the kingdom,
where he is alive and reigns, now and for ever.
Additional Collect:
Eternal God,
whose Son went among the crowds
and brought healing with his touch:
help us to show his love,
in your Church as we gather together,
and by our lives as they are transformed
into the image of Christ our Lord.
Collect on the Eve of the Second Sunday before Lent:
Almighty God,
you have created the heavens and the earth
and made us in your own image:
teach us to discern your hand in all your works
and your likeness in all your children;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who with you and the Holy Spirit reigns supreme over all things,
now and for ever.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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