Honest, open debate

March 14, 2019

188. There are certain environmental issues where it is not easy to achieve a broad consensus. Here I would state once more that the Church does not presume to settle scientific questions or to replace politics. But I am concerned to encourage an honest and open debate so that particular interests or ideologies will not prejudice the common good.

Source : Laudato Si'

Fr. Bernard Kirlin

St. Mary Magdalen Church

What would you like to be?

Years ago a painter went through towns in the Midwest looking for people to portray. In one town he came across the town derelict. The man was dirty, unkempt, wearing raggedy clothes, generally not making a good appearance. The artist decided to paint his portrait anyway, and the derelict agreed to let him do so. So, he posed in a chair, sitting as upright and dignified as he could. The artist painted away and, in the end, showed the portrait to the town derelict. The picture showed a man who was clean shaven, clear-eyed, groomed and dressed respectably. The derelict took one look at his portrait and loudly exclaimed, “That ain’t me!” The artist replied, “But it is the you that could be.”

On this 2nd Sunday of Lent, the Gospel recounts the Transfiguration of the Lord Jesus. It celebrates what Jesus would become—the glorified Lord who was to be the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. For Jesus to become the Lord of glory as envisioned in the Transfiguration, He would have to gloriously sacrifice His life on Calvary Hill and so enter into the divine glory on the day of His Resurrection. The Apostles Peter, James, and John were given a preview of Jesus glorified. But they would not really comprehend the meaning of the Transfiguration until Jesus had risen from the dead.

God the Father wants all of us to follow in Jesus’ footsteps and have our own transfiguration. For this, we have to heed the instruction St. Paul gives in today’s 2nd Reading. There he tells us what we must remember and how we must act. First of all we must remember that “citizenship is in heaven, from where we also await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will change our lowly body to conform with His glorified body.” If we fixate only on our life here and do not keep at least one eye on heaven, we will miss the Savior who comes to make us ready to enter into glory.

In fact, says St. Paul, we will make ourselves enemies of the Cross of Christ by leading shameful lives. Instead, we are called to be like Abraham in the 1st Reading. He “put his faith in the Lord who credited to him as an act of righteousness.” This simply means that putting our faith in God and trusting that whatever He asks of us is always the right thing to do and makes us right with God. When we put our trust in those ‘earthly ways’ of acting, such as the seven deadly sins—pride, anger, sloth, greed, gluttony, envy, and lust, our glory is perverted and becomes our shame.

These 40 days of Lent are a God-given opportunity for us to renew our baptismal promises to reject evil and live our Christian faith. Hopefully, each one of us has already decided what vice or habit we want God to help us eradicate from our spiritual lives. If not, we still have time to pick something we know we need to work on so that we can become the person God has always wanted us to be.

If we allow the grace of God to transform us, then God will see what He has always wanted to see in each of us—His own dear child, freed of the ravages of sin, who has become ready to enter with Jesus into the glory of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Fr. Bernard Kirlin
Pastor