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2nd Sunday of Lent Year A - 16/3/2014 - Gospel: Mt 17: 1-9
The Divine Wonder
We want to see things under the microscope lenses with the scientific minds, to understand it, to see how it works and be able to explain how things had been evolved. Our ancestors believed many things were myths but we can now explain it clearly. We struggle understand many things now but in the near future our children may have no trouble in analysing it. Today we understand our world better, travel faster and enjoy instant motion transmitted images more accurately. Advancement in technology and achievements in science tells us that they have answers for many things but not everything. For instant science can't trace back what I dreamt this time last year and won't be able to predict what I will say in a week's time, not about my faith in the divine wonders.

Life is a mystery and so is our faith in Jesus which is even a bigger mystery. The Transfiguration of the Lord is mystery. It involved the presence of the Patriarch Moses and Elijah and the mysterious voice from on high and the phenomena of the rays of light shining on the face of Jesus. They were all mysteries that the disciples of Jesus once grappled with wonder and awe. The mystery was hard for some minds to accept that it was an actual event that happened to Jesus and his three apostles. If denying the existence of the Transfiguration is one of the solutions then accepting it is also a solution and it is a better one. When you are denied an existence of something you soon forget about it and move on with life. We now have answers for things of the pass simply because the ancient world accepted it without understanding it. The evangelists believed in the Transfiguration. Today some accept it and others deny it.

Those who deny that the Transfiguration has never existed they deny not just the event but deny the faith of the apostles which is something impossible to do. I can disown my own faith but I can't disown somebody else's faith. Their faith is of their own. People can use force to suppress it or restricted its activities but they can't deny it on their behalf. All Christian martyrs had experienced this kind of restriction. Their opponents could only destroy their physical lives but not of their faith in Jesus. Denying the existence of the Transfiguration means denying what the apostles saw and their feelings. It is impossible to deny somebody else's feelings. You would run into another risk, another myth that is how to explain what made, not one, but all three apostles who saw and heard the mysterious voice from on high.

Those who accept that the Transfiguration was true then they accept the faith of the apostles. They accept that the voice from on high was true and they accept the appearance of the Patriarch was true and it entails that there is life after death which is mysterious to them. The voice from on high confirmed the presence of God the Father who revealed that Jesus is the Son of God. The apostles were trembling and felt to the ground because the shining beauty and God's glory were too much for them to bear. The experience on the mountain was beyond their understanding and it stayed with them for the rest of their lives.


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