Thoughts on the Transfiguration of Jesus

 “Coming down the mountain”

“This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased”—the words from the Father, as we contemplate the Transfiguration of Jesus on this second Sunday in Lent. This is a moment of complete affirmation and loving support for Jesus. This loving affirmation prepares Him for the future, for the way he will be called to live out all the events of his life on his journey to Jerusalem: his suffering, death, his self-gift. We will see, as we continue our Lenten journey, that He never” forgets” who He is. He will be encouraged by those affirmations, especially in those moments of trial and suffering.

For us, too, in times of trial or suffering, memories of those moments of “transfiguration” and confirmation are meant to buoy us up on our journey with Jesus as our companion. He shares our journey with us.

As Jesus comes down the mountain from this beautiful experience, he tells his friends that the “whole story” had to be lived out so that we could know/trust that God’s love and companionship will prevail in our lives as well.

Peter says, “It is good for us to be here.” The Father says, “Listen to Him.” Entering into this scene through our imagination, and joining Jesus and the disciples could offer us a joyful and loving opportunity to unite with Him in His journey, and to take to heart these words from God meant for us as well: “You are my beloved, in whom I am well pleased.”



Len Kraus, S.J.

Thoughts on celebrations

 

Celebrating Life

From: Lifesigns: Intimacy, Fecundity, and Ecstasy in Christian Perspective

Celebration is not a party on special occasions, but an ongoing awareness that every moment is special and asks to be lifted up and recognized as a blessing from on high. There is Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and the many feast days of the Saints. There are countless birthdays, anniversaries, and memorial days. And then there are days to welcome and to say farewell, to receive guests and to visit friends, to start a project and to finish it, to sew and to reap, to open a season and to close it. But even these moments do not exhaust the full meaning of celebration. Celebration lifts up, not only the happy moments, but the sad moments as well. Since ecstatic joy embraces all of life, it does not shy away from the painful moments of failure, departure, and death. In the house of love even death is celebrated, not because death is desirable or attractive, but because in the face of death life can be proclaimed as victorious.

Reflection Question: In what ways do I resist celebrating the difficult or sorrowful moments of life, and how might God invite me to see their meaning?

Thoughts on prayer

 

First Week of Lent

Matthew 6:7–15

Friends, the Gospel for today is a great moment, for in it the Son of God teaches us to pray. Our teacher is not just a guru, a spiritual sage, or a religious genius, but the Son of God. This is why the Our Father is the model of all prayer. A desire to pray is planted deep within us, the desire to speak to God and to listen to him. We can forget to pray, neglect to pray, become lazy in prayer, but we can never really lose the desire to pray. And so let us attend carefully to the first words of Jesus’s great prayer: “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” Our basic problem is getting our priorities mixed up. We seek all kinds of worldly things—money, pleasure, power, honor—all of which are unsatisfying. What we should desire, first, is God. This is precisely what the prayer to hallow the name of God is all about. It’s not that God’s name isn’t in fact hallowed, but we’re praying that we might keep it that way, that we might honor God in all things. We’re praying for a radical reorientation of our consciousness. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on joy

 

Joy is a Divine Gift

From: Lifesigns: Intimacy, Fecundity, and Ecstasy in Christian Perspective

The joy that Jesus offers his disciples is his own joy, which flows from his intimate communion with the One who sent him. It is a joy that does not separate happy days from sad days, successful moments from moments of failure, experiences of honour from experiences of dishonor, passion from resurrection. This joy is a divine gift that does not leave us during times of illness, poverty, oppression, or persecution. It is present even when the world laughs or tortures, robs or maims, fights or kills. It is truly ecstatic, always moving us away from the house of fear into the house of love, and always proclaiming that death no longer has the final say, though its noise remains loud and its devastation visible. The joy of Jesus lifts up life to be celebrated.

Reflection Question: What practices help me remain connected to Jesus' joy even in times of pain, loss, or injustice?

“Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord, and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”   - Nehemiah 8:10

Thoughts on the Chair of St. Peter

 

“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

– Jesus to St. Peter (Matthew 16:18-19) 

What is the Chair of St. Peter?   While an actual chair exists in Rome that some believe was used by St. Peter, the Chair of St. Peter represents the papacy, the unbroken succession of popes throughout the Church’s 2,000-year history. Given by Christ Himself to St. Peter in the Gospel of Matthew 16:13-18, Peter’s supreme pastoral office is passed to each of his successors as Bishop of Rome.   The feast of the Chair of St. Peter is usually celebrated on February 22. However, it’s not on the Church calendar in 2026 since it falls on a Sunday.

Today, we encourage you to read our special page dedicated to the Chair of St. Peter, where we answer questions such as: What is the role of the papacy? Who was the next pope after St. Peter? Can the pope contradict the Bible? Where is St. Peter buried? On the page, we also offer a free eBook, Praying With the Popes, to guide you in prayer through the words of St. Peter’s successors. We hope that this page and eBook will help deepen your understanding of the gift Christ gave His Church through the papacy.   In Christ,   Your EWTN Family Copyright © 2026 EWTN, Inc. 5817 Old Leeds Rd, Irondale, AL, 35210. All rights reserved

Thoughts on conversion

 

Saturday after Ash Wednesday

Luke 5:27–32

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus tells Matthew, “Follow me.” The call of Jesus addresses the mind, but it is meant to move through the mind into the body, and through the body into the whole of one’s life, into the most practical of moves and decisions. “Follow me” has the sense of “apprentice to me” or “walk as I walk; think as I think; choose as I choose.” Discipleship entails an entire reworking of the self according to the pattern and manner of Jesus. Upon hearing the address of the Lord, the tax collector, we are told, “got up and followed him.” The Greek word behind “got up” is anastas, the same word used to describe the resurrection (anastasis) of Jesus from the dead. Following Jesus is indeed a kind of resurrection from the dead, since it involves the transition from a lower form of life to a higher, from a preoccupation with the temporary goods of this world to an immersion in the goodness of God. Those who have undergone a profound conversion tend to speak of their former life as a kind of illusion, something not entirely real. Thus Paul can say, “I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me”; Thomas Merton can speak of the “false self” that has given way to the authentic self; and, perhaps most movingly, the father of the prodigal son can say, “Your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.” Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on temptations

 

This past Wednesday we began our annual Lenten journey, subjecting ourselves to the imposition of ashes and the exhortation, “Repent, and believe in the Gospel.” The Scripture readings for the First Sunday of Lent call us not only to repent of our sins but to confront the temptations that might lead us into sin. 

From the perspective of Christianity, of course, there is a crucial difference between a temptation and a sin. Sins are “unloving choices”; temptations are occasions/invitations to make a choice. That choice can wind up being either loving or unloving. If we make loving choices even while tempted to do otherwise, we grow in virtue and holiness. If we succumb to the temptation and make an unloving choice, we alienate ourselves from peace and goodness, eroding our fundamental orientation toward God and love. Sometimes when people come to confession and state that they are “struggling” with something, what they are saying is not that they have actually sinned, but that they have been tempted to do so. Often, of course, we experience that struggle as exhausting, and so it is for good reason that we pray, echoing the words of the Lord’s Prayer, “Lead me not into temptation.” Temptations aren’t sins, but they can wear us out!

We might dismiss the temptations which Jesus faced as portrayed in this Sunday’s Gospel as uniquely his own. That would be a mistake. Jesus’ temptations occur soon after Jesus has had the powerful experience at his baptism of being filled with the Spirit and knowing in a profound way that he is God’s beloved Son. It is this very sense of his identify that the tempter tries to undermine. So too with us. We know who we are, who we are called to be by God, and who we want at our best to be. In our lives, it is our identities as beloved sons and daughters of God, as faithful disciples of Christ, that the tempter seeks to call into question and undermine.

What is important about the temptations of Jesus is that they were real temptations over which he had to mull and struggle. In his case, all of his temptations could easily become occasions for discouragement. Let us pray that as we struggle with temptation in our lives, we not become discouraged, but find within them opportunities to grow in our deepest identity as those who love and serve in the manner of Jesus.

Lenten Blessings.

Fr. Frank Reale, S.J.