St. Patarick's Day

It is the Second Sunday of Lent, but also St. Patrick's Day so we are celebrating with a special Happy Hour in the evening and our Provincial will be officially installing Sister Sally Rude as our new Community Director. I have lived with Sally when we were both in the West Pine community and I know how good she is for community life, hospitality, and openness to all. Since then, she has had terrific international experiences and brings all this to us now.
The Gospel for this Sunday is Luke's account of the Transfiguration of the Lord. I love the fact that Jesus invited his special friends, Peter, James and John, to go up the mountain with him to pray. And off they went not knowing that God would use this moment to transfigure Jesus in their presence and that they would hear the words, "This is my chosen Son; listen to him." Let us listen to Jesus today.

The reflection by Sister Miriam Pollard in Give Us This Day, begins by saying that "the Transfiguration story is the story of our own journey into the nature we were created to explore and inhabit. Into what the Eastern Church calls our deification. Bus wait, this is not to be a quiet, uneventful march into the sunset.
We who are to be melded into the divine and human life of the Eternal Son will pass through that cleft in the rock through which his glory shines--just as He did, by sharing in the contradiction, pain, and abandonment that he is about to claim as his own...."

Paul's transfiguration resulted in joy, inner peace, gratitude and praise amidst his trials and tribulations. He always was able to bounce back and keep his freedom in the Spirit. I suspect St. Patrick also had these same attitudes and modes of acting. Let us pray that we may all be transfigured with Jesus.