Seeing with new eyes: Reflections on the Sunday Gospel Mark 9:2-10 by Father Steven LaBaire

I am pleased to present this guest post from Father Steven LaBaire, pastor of Holy Family Parish in Worcester, MA.

In preparation for mass this Sunday:

In the ancient world, the journey up a mountain often symbolized “enlightenment” or “seeing” things in a “new” or different way from previously. In this Sunday’s gospel, Jesus takes his students (disciples) up a very high mountain. (Mark 9:2-10)

There they see Jesus in a completely different “light.” He is “transfigured” before their eyes. They begin to understand this rabbi from Nazareth as much more than just a very wise teacher. He is the one who reveals our ultimate destiny and that world beyond what our eyes can see.

Lotus Carroll The Beauty of Change Flickr Creative Commons

Lent is a season inviting us to “see” things in a new and different way; perhaps in ways we’ve never contemplated before.

How do envision your life? Do you see it as a series of goals to reach and tasks to fulfill daily? Could you look at it in a different way: an amazing pilgrimage revealing at different stages and seasons different gifts and insights?

How do you look at your death? Do you view it with dread as the cruel ending to our brief stay here on earth? Or, could you gaze upon it as a horizon beyond which is beauty and love beyond imagining?

How do you see the Church? As a centuries-old organization trying to maintain commandments and rituals? What would it be like think of the Church as a community of apprentices, striving to learn, struggling to love as Jesus taught? What would it be like to regard each apprentice as unconditionally loved, thoroughly loved…even when he or she messes up big-time, no matter whether the apprentice is young or old, a hair- dresser, an executive or a bishop?

How would things change for you, if you asked for the grace to see things in a new light? Are you open to taking a “hike” up the mountain to new insight?

The journey (each day) might become infinitely richer and beautiful.