Come Awake

The Gospel reading for today, for the Second Sunday of Lent, is of the Transfiguration of Christ, where Christ shone in glory to Peter, James, and John, and His Sonship to God the Father was once again revealed. I love the Transfiguration. My favorite line of the reading is the words of Peter, realizing the beauty and glory of that moment, and saying, "It is good that we are here." I find myself saying that so often in my life. In those moments when you feel so fulfilled, so at peace, so content with what God has given you; how can you not just look around, breathe it all in, and say, "it is good that we are here."

Tonight, though, for the first time, I noticed some new words.

Peter and his companions

had been overcome by sleep;

but becoming fully awake,

they saw His glory.

(Luke 9:32)

Peter and his companions were asleep--definitely a recurring problem for them--falling asleep as Jesus kept His long prayer vigils. At this point, as Christ was praying, Moses and Elijah appeared and were conversing with Christ before Peter, James, and John even woke up! Look at what they were missing! Look at what was happening before them--but--they were asleep. Missing out on the glory before them.

And yet, suddenly, they were awakened. And Scripture doesn't just say "they woke up," but rather, that they became "fully awake." What does that mean? What's the difference between being "awake" and being "fully awake?" If they had just been "awake," they would have woken up, freaked out at the bright light and strange people around them, and we would have heard a much different Gospel today. Instead, they were "fully awake"--and they immediately saw the glory of the Lord before them, recognized Moses and Elijah before them, and immediately saw the Truth, Beauty of Goodness of the Transfiguration. Peter made that beautiful statement, "it is good that we are here," and even offered to build tents, that they might stay there and allow this unbelievable moment to endure. They were fully awake because their hearts were attentive to God and hopeful for what He could do in their lives--and hence, the Transfiguration was not a moment of fright, but a moment of sheer beauty.

So what are we doing? Are we living our lives asleep, blind to what is going on around us, unaware of what God is doing in our lives? Are we not asleep but just simply awake, able to see what God is doing but not able to comprehend it or accept it? Or, are we living our lives fully awake, aware of His grace and His goodness, thriving so beautifully in His will that we cannot help but exclaim at every moment of our lives, "it is good that we are here."

Wake up!

Hope for the world? Union with God.

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, when our Lord Jesus Christ was presented to God in the temple by our Blessed Mother and Saint Joseph. It is also the day we observe the World Day for Consecrated Life. Just as Mary and Joseph brought their Son to the temple to offer Him to the service of God, so too do men and women offer their entirety to the service of God and His Church through the vows of the consecrated life, choosing to mold themselves most intimately to Christ the poor, Christ the chaste, Christ the obedient.

You might hear some argue that such concepts as vowed religious life are "out of date" or "medieval" or "no longer necessary" to the modern world we live in today. With iPods and computers and connectivity and the world literally at our fingertips, why choose to live such an austere and seemingly pointless life? What those nay-sayers don't realize is that the consecrated life is exactly what the world needs. And quite frankly, the consecrated life is the secret to what has kept the Church ticking through 2000 years of joys and sufferings, of successes and hardships.

Nuns and Sisters, Friars and Brothers throughout history have done marvelous things. With lives totally devoted to the service of the Church, they have a unique availability to the matters of God. Countless Saints were religious, serving in so many apostolates: for the poor, for the elderly, for the sick, for children, for the orphaned--and the list goes on. And while this seems to be the most recognized facet of the lives of religious in history, it actually is not the crux of who they are and why they exist. The reality is that the apostolate--the work in the world--is secondary in the life of a religious person.

A consecrated person's primary obligation is union with God--a radical embrace of the life of Christ, living out fully the evangelical councils, and hence serving as eschatological signs to the world of what we should expect in Heaven. If we reduce the religious life to simply a renunciation of marriage for a greater availability to the business of the Church, we are selling the life short of what it truly is.

And so, in a world so in need of workers in the Lord's vineyard, with so many poor and sick and abandoned and lonely people needing the hand of Christ to serve them--what the world needs above all is hope. Hope that there is a reason to get out of bed each morning besides the next paycheck and the next fad. Hope that our lives have meaning and purpose beyond social status and popularity. Hope that there is a place beyond the turmoil and suffering of our fallen humanity.

And where will society find this hope? In the heart of every Christian, radically serving as an alter Christus, another Christ, on earth. And most especially, we find that hope in the heart of every person consecrated to the Lord Jesus Christ, through their unwavering fidelity to prayer, their fixation on the heart of Christ, and the sacrifice of their entire lives for the sake of the Kingdom. May God continue to anoint all religious around the world, today and everyday, that they all remain faithful to their way of life and that we all might benefit from their vocations.

"Virginity is not espousing a cause; but a person."

Father Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM Cap

Preacher to the Papal Household