Lesson from Fr. Paulus | Lesson: The Secret to Fulfilment Is Listening to Christ

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in St Matthew's Gospel, God the Father speaks from heaven only twice. First in this passage of the Transfiguration, and the second in the passage when Jesus is baptized.

Both times he says essentially the same thing. Which is just to emphasize how important it is. He says that Jesus is his beloved Son, and we should listen to him.

Listening to Christ means getting to know him and following his lead. When parents instruct their children to listen, they want the kids both to hear and to heed what they are saying. God the Father does the same thing.

Jesus Christ is God's own Son, sent by the Father to be our guide to fulfilment, to the meaning and happiness we all long for. Christ alone is the answer, the secret to a life lived to the full.

He is not just one great philosopher in our history. He is not just a wise teacher. Jesus is the fulfilment of the long history of salvation that God traced throughout the Old Testament, represented in the Transfiguration by the appearance of Moses and Elijah.

He is God made man, whose glory is way beyond anything we can imagine. Peter, James, and John got a glimpse of it, and it terrified them, and they were no strangers to miraculous occurrences. Jesus' face shone like the sun - try to imagine that! His clothes became as white as light - picture that!

Jesus is our glorious Saviour - he came to change our lives, to "save us and call us to a holy life," as St. Paul wrote in the Second Reading. All we need to do is "listen to him," to turn our gaze to him, to follow him, and we too will be transfigured.

Abraham and Paul Escape Their Comfort Zones

My dear brothers and sisters, we must be realistic. Listening to Jesus, hearing, and heeding his voice in our life, is not always comfortable. Abraham discovered this, as we heard in the First Reading.

He was living happily and prosperously in the fertile land of Mesopotamia when God spoke to his heart. God invited him to leave behind his extended family, his business, his homeland, his security, his financial stability, his friends - everything, in fact. And he didn't even tell him where he was going. He just said, "Go to a land I will show you." But God had a plan for his life, a plan that would bring blessings to Abraham himself, and bring blessings to others through him.

Abraham listened. He didn't write off God's call to his heart, and he didn't ignore it. He stepped out of his comfort zone and put his trust in God. We can only imagine the turbulence it caused at first between him and his wife, and how awkward he must have felt trying to explain his decision to friends and colleagues.

St. Paul had a similar experience. He was on the fast track to success in the Jewish establishment when Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus and invited him to take a different path. And it was not an easy path.

That's why he writes to Timothy in the Second Reading, "Bear your share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God." Paul's share of hardship included multiple shipwrecks, imprisonments, calumnies, beatings, whippings, and, finally, martyrdom by having his head cut off.

Listening to Jesus, hearing and heeding his call, means accepting our share of hardship for the gospel. But it's well worth it. Otherwise, why would the Father have told us to do it?

"Taking Up" Something for Lent

Pope John Paul II said, in commenting on this Gospel passage, "Life changes when the heart has been 'conquered' by Christ" (JPII, Angelus, 24 February 2002).

We all love Christ, that's why we are here. But we are also here because we feel a need for our lives to change - we know we have not reached the spiritual maturity and peace of heart that we were created for. Our hearts need to be more fully conquered by Christ. But Christ is too respectful to conquer our hearts against our will.

Today the Father is inviting us to let ourselves be conquered anew by Jesus Christ. How? By spending more time in heartfelt prayer, by delving into the marvelous teachings of the Church, by steeping ourselves in the living waters of the Gospels and the rest of Holy Scripture, by accompanying Christ himself truly present in the Eucharist, by serving Christ in our needy neighbours, and most of all, by doing his will each day with faith, hope, and love, no matter the cost.

Most of us have probably given up something for Lent. That's good - it reminds us that we must govern our natural inclinations if we want to root sin out of our lives and become spiritually mature.

But maybe we also need to take up something for Lent. It is good to weed a garden, but it is equally necessary to water and fertilize, if we want the plants to grow. We still have most of Lent ahead of us. Let's take up something that will help us listen better to Jesus.

Christ is going to give himself to us again today in this Mass. Let's not leave without giving him something in return - a specific promise to become better listeners.