Invitation to personal transformation (Mt 17:1-9)

Lent is the time to be able to accept Christ on the cross when we want to have the joy of the resurrection.

It happens that someone is a role model, an example, of an encouragement in life. We admire him. We forget to realize that even these people have their difficulties, failures, personal defeats. A young lady wants to be a model, but she dreams of it in a pastry shop over a plate of desserts and whipped cream. The words of the doctor he heard during the last visit to the office – more movement, less irritation, and stress – the man realizes when he hears that his friend has just died with the same diagnosis and was not fifty years old.
We do not perceive Lent only by the purple liturgical color, that the glory is not sung at mass, and that more is said about the suffering and martyrdom of Christ. It is right that we perceive Lent as a time when Jesus himself invites us to a personal transformation of life.

Let us recall this serious matter of personal transformation with the event when: “Jesus took Peter, James and his brother John with him and led them up a high mountain into solitude” (Mt 17:1-9).

The event of the transfiguration of the Lord has its place in Lent. Jesus and his disciples are on their way to Jerusalem. He himself knows that capture, torture and death await him. The apostles will witness all this. He wants to prepare for these events these three disciples, with whom he has a plan, who will become the first spreaders of the faith, pillars among the other disciples. On the mountain, they experience the event when Jesus talks about what awaits him with Moses and Elijah. They feel great when Peter wants to build three stalls. He does not know what awaits him and does not know future things, and he does not yet understand why all this. The apostles change their minds when they hear a voice from the cloud: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to him” (Mt 17:5). Then they realize the fact. They fall on their faces, which is the expression of the Jews towards God, and they are afraid. They heard the voice of God the Father and realize that Jesus is the Son of God. The fear will pass only with the words of the Teacher Jesus, so that they should not be afraid and on the way back they will receive an order: “Tell no one about this vision until the Son of Man rises from the dead” (Mt 17,9). Only later, after the resurrection of Jesus and the descent of the Holy Spirit, do the apostles realize the significance and magnitude of the experience, to which the apostle Peter returns with the words: “For we did not follow invented fables when we introduced you to the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we ourselves were eyewitnesses witnesses of his glory. He received honor and glory from God the Father, when a voice came to him from the glorious glory: “This is my Son, my beloved, in whom I am well pleased.” And we heard this voice; it sounded from heaven while we were with him on the holy mountain” (2 Peter 16-18). Only later, after the resurrection of Jesus and the descent of the Holy Spirit, do the apostles realize the significance and magnitude of the experience, to which the apostle Peter returns with the words: “For we did not follow invented fables when we introduced you to the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we ourselves were eyewitnesses witnesses of his glory. He received honor and glory from God the Father, when a voice came to him from the glorious glory: “This is my Son, my beloved, in whom I am well pleased.” And we heard this voice; it sounded from heaven while we were with him on the holy mountain” (2 Peter 16-18). Only later, after the resurrection of Jesus and the descent of the Holy Spirit, do the apostles realize the significance and magnitude of the experience, to which the apostle Peter returns with the words: “For we did not follow invented fables when we introduced you to the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we ourselves were eyewitnesses witnesses of his glory. He received honor and glory from God the Father, when a voice came to him from the glorious glory: “This is my Son, my beloved, in whom I am well pleased.” And we heard this voice; it sounded from heaven while we were with him on the holy mountain” (2 Peter 16-18). He received honor and glory from God the Father, when a voice came to him from the glorious glory: “This is my Son, my beloved, in whom I am well pleased.” And we heard this voice; it sounded from heaven while we were with him on the holy mountain” (2 Peter 16-18). He received honor and glory from God the Father, when a voice came to him from the glorious glory: “This is my Son, my beloved, in whom I am well pleased.” And we heard this voice; it sounded from heaven while we were with him on the holy mountain” (2 Peter 16-18).

The event on the mountain had a personal impact on the lives of the apostles. Working with the Holy Spirit, the apostles change their attitude toward Jesus. We were not direct participants in the transfiguration of the Lord, but the testimony of the apostles is a call even today to everyone who believed Jesus’ words. Jesus suffered and died for each of us. Lent is a time to draw as much as possible from the apostles’ experience of the Lord’s transformation for our life of faith.
We are to ascend our mountain of transformation. The ascent to God can take place when we enter into our reality, into the depth of our life. Spirituality from below does not see the path to God as a one-way street on which we get closer and closer to Christ. Rather, we can compare the path to God in our life to various detours, wandering in an unknown region, to various disappointments, including ourselves. We do not often open ourselves to God with our virtues, but rather with our weaknesses, our poverty, and even our sin.
In the Scriptures, we see not only perfect personalities, and perfect people as an example of faith, but especially those who recognized and experienced serious offenses against God, and only then turned to him, cried out to him, and with God’s help found God.
In Egypt, Abraham disowned his wife, Sarah, referring to her as a sister to benefit from it. Therefore, Abimelech, king of Gerar, had her abducted to his harem. God Himself intervenes in a dream and Abraham, the father of faith is freed from his lie (cf. Gn 12:1-20). Abraham no longer lies and faithfully fulfills the will of God.
We know about Moses – the leader of the nation, that he was a murderer at first. Subsequently, he has to survive his misery so that he can fulfill the will of God after meeting God in the burning bush.
Thirdly, David, the exemplary king of Israel, the prototype of other kings. He is very guilty when he sins sins with Uriah’s wife. Only when sin has been punished is David pleasing to God.
We know from the Old Testament that many had to go through the difficult paths of their guilt and sins, their helplessness, to put their hope only in God, and thus they could be transformed by God into a model of faith and obedience to him.
In the New Testament, we see the transformation of Simon Peter, when at first Peter wants to prevent Jesus from going to Jerusalem, where Jesus is to die. Jesus even calls Peter Satan and commands him:
“Get out of my way, Satan! You offend me because you have no sense of God’s things, only human things” (Mt 16:23). Peter has to live through the personal experience that he cannot vouch for himself, he even denies Jesus (cf. Mt 26:75). It is correct that the Gospel does not embellish Peter’s denial. Jesus did not come to call the righteous, but sinners. And it was on these that he founded his Church. He commissioned Peter to lead and manage the Church. Peter recognized that Jesus did not call him a rock for himself, but for others. Peter knows from his experience that the rock is not him, but only faith, which he must cling to remain faithful to Christ in temptations.
The greatest apostle St. Paul also has to go through the mountain of transfiguration. For Paul, it is an event at the gate of Damascus. As he lies on the ground, he realizes his helplessness.
We can also recognize from these examples that we will experience God only when we climb our mountain of transformation and recognize our powerlessness without God in our lives. Only then will we acquire a feeling for what is called grace? Even aft? er, we have experienced him, God allows us trials that are meant to protect us, even if we often don’t want to understand them. Sv. In the Letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes about himself for our instruction: “A thorn was given to me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, who strikes me on the face so that I do not exalt myself” (2 Cor 12:7). Paul preaches the Gospel even though and guidance he suffers. This is how we come to believe that God’s power works in us all the more strongly, the greater the weakness in us. We recognize God in our weaknesses, as St. Paul: “For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor 12:10), (cf. from the book A. Grün, Spirituality from Below, Carmelites 1996).
God has a plan for each of us. It is up to us to be open to his voicecomeour hope is only faith in his divinity, so that we can climb our mountain of transformation.
It is also prepared for us to see an open gate so that through faith we can look into heaven and not be afraid of the cross with which we buy our eternity. After the storms of life come days of calm and after the clouds come to the sun.
Physicist Davy had the words engraved on his tombstone: I have hope. They are words that speak the truth. Our hope is God. Only in God do we have our hope. Only he will not disappoint us. Jesus teaches us to remember that our hope is only faith in his divinity. In that spirit, let’s overcome all our wrong and bad ideas about God and learn his words. Therefore, people often lose faith because they turn away from God and face eternal destruction because they have bad ideas about God.
There is shocking ignorance even among Christians. Let’s ask about the definition of sin, the main sins, what is satisfaction, what should be said at the beginning of confession, what is important during Lent, and so on, and we will get answers that we don’t even need to watch the show “Even the wise make mistakes”.
Many of those around us who are non-believers or matric Christians expect us not to be so silent about our faith. We realize that our examples attract. If we personallthat even care about salvation, we must also care about the salvation of our dearest and those with whom we live. We are not a community of perfect and perfect people, but of those who are not indifferent to how we live. Lent is a time to know and be able to do more for the salvation of your soul and the souls of your brothers and sisters.
Only once in eternity will we learn who helped us in the crises of faith and life with silent sacrifices, and prayers, bearing their crosses in silguidancepersonallunderstand them,ence, and devotion to the will of God. What about us?
Can we not engage in such activity and help others to find, discover and give the right response to the invitation of God to climb his mountain of transformation?

We don’t want to dream like a candy store girl. When we know how to accept the advice of the doctors of the body, the more we want to accept the calls of the doctor of doctors – Jesus regarding our salvation. Fasting will pass, but it will not return. It’s time to start today. During this Holy Mass, continue praying for the necessary graces.