March 1, 2026 - Second Sunday of Lent

[00:00:00] Foreign. [00:00:06] Welcome back. It's March 1st, while it's officially the second Sunday of Lent. There are almost five weeks remaining in Lent. [00:00:26] When the artist Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael, died. He left behind one final painting. [00:00:35] It was called the Transfiguration. [00:00:38] He never finished it, but many people, including Raphael himself, believed it was his finest work. [00:00:47] The painting depicts two biblical scenes. [00:00:50] the top is the Transfiguration. [00:00:53] A radiant Jesus is pictured atop Mount Tabor with Moses and Elijah on either side of him. [00:01:01] At the bottom is a boy tormented by a demonic presence, and the apostles are struggling to help him. [00:01:10] Only when the glorified Christ appears is the child healed. [00:01:16] In the painting, heaven and earth meet. [00:01:19] The top reveals the glory of heaven, while the bottom depicts the pain of our fallen world. [00:01:27] Jesus makes heaven present on earth. [00:01:31] Raphael died on Good Friday in 1520 before he could finish the painting. It was on display during his funeral Mass and now it hangs in the Vatican Museum. [00:01:51] Lets reflect on today's Gospel reading on the Transfiguration. [00:02:00] It tells me more about something that happened to the three disciples than something that happened to Jesus. [00:02:07] Peter, James and John had a prayer experience. [00:02:11] Their faith caused them to see this man with whom they had walked and fished and eaten for who he really was. [00:02:19] They could not quite put their experience into words, so they used the imagery of faces radiant as the sun, clothes dazzling, a bright cloud. [00:02:44] Such prayer experiences are very much part of our tradition. [00:02:49] Each of us has those experiences at different times in prayer, when we just feel the presence of God and we can't quite describe it in words. [00:03:01] It's very powerful and sometimes called a mystical experience. [00:03:08] Almost always we need a mountain in order to experience the Lord. [00:03:15] A place where it is quiet and still. [00:03:19] A place where there aren't many people and we can experience Him. [00:03:26] Compare this mountain experience and the Last Supper. [00:03:31] At the Last Supper, the disciples sang songs and talked and spent time together. [00:03:38] Jesus washed feet and they shared a meal and they argued a little and they left. [00:03:48] We need to experience both kinds of prayer in our tradition. [00:03:53] The supper room where we gather, sing and figuratively wash feet, and the quiet of the mountaintop, especially during Lent, Spend some quiet time with the Lord.