Staying All Prayed Up

The Second Sunday of Lent, C                                                                       March 17, 2019
Fr. Albert                                                                                St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette

Avoid sin at all costs. Fight temptation, even if it kills you. That’s the message that Lent starts with every year. It’s a little intense. Perhaps it gets you motivated. Perhaps it challenges you and frightens you at the same time. Perhaps it simply overwhelms you. Well, that’s the way it has to be, but that’s also why this weekend, the 2^nd Sunday of Lent, always gives us this profound revelation of God’s glory in the Transfiguration. It’s as if Jesus lays the out the facts, hits us with the challenge, and then turns around to lift our spirits, give us a little encouragement to face what must be done.

In the verses immediately before this passage Jesus says that his disciples have to die in order to save their souls. He lets them sit on that for 8 days before bringing them up the mountain. And then… then he doesn’t just tell them not to be afraid, he shows them how to find encouragement and strength as they wrestle with the reality of the cross. And he shows it to us too. If you’ve already failed your Lenten penance, if you were too scared to even start, if you’re worried you won’t make it all the way, then follow this example.

And what does Jesus start with? He “went up the mountain to pray.” He climbed a mountain – his prayer wasn’t just a passing after-thought, he put deliberate effort, even physical exertion into making time to pray. If you’re feeling spiritually dry or just generally pathetic, ask yourself, do you climb out of the noise and business to pray, and pray on purpose? It doesn’t have to be all night like Jesus. It doesn’t have to be long periods of time, but it can’t just be an afterthought, it must be a choice.

How, though? How should we pray? There are many ways, though again Jesus shows us one we cannot overlook. “Behold, two men were conversing with him, Moses and Elijah.” Now, I’m not saying you should expect visions and audible words, but Moses and Elijah are not just two dead guys. They represent something more: the law and the prophets. In our context, we could say they represent Church Teaching and Scripture. Jesus often prays from his heart, simply speaking to God just as we should do. Here however, we see a dialogue. God is speaking back – not directly – but through Moses & Elijah.

When you pray, especially if your prayer seems empty, it’s important to hear God in the Law and the Prophets. To make your prayer more than a one-sided conversation, more than a wish list, try reading scripture, the catechism, or reflecting on the lives of the saints.

Okay, so you pray deliberately and by engaging with the Law and the Prophets, but what to pray about? What should this dialogue discuss? They “spoke of his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem.” This “exodus” is Jesus’ suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven. In other words, they talked about Jesus’ life, his mission, his cross. It might seem obvious, but it’s worth saying, your dialogue with God in scripture and tradition should be about your life: your struggles, your hopes & dreams, your mission and vocation. When you go to the bible or catechism or to stories about saints, look for things that relate to your life as it is right now.

Not every kind of situation can be found in the bible, but many can. For this, I especially recommend the psalms. There are psalms of hope and rejoicing, psalms of praise and thanksgiving, psalms of anger and frustration, psalms of despair and confusion. Some of them even fuss at God and complain. Then there’s the saints who have as many different stories as there are saints. Problems with a child? St. Monica. Betrayed by a friend? Thomas More or John of the Cross. Bored with household chores like washing dishes? Therese of Lisieux, Theresa of Avila, Bonaventure, and many others. To read their lives, to listen to how they speak of similar situations can help your prayer quite a bit.

If you do this, if you pray deliberately and sincerely, and use scripture and tradition to guide your prayer, there will be moments of great light… times when God’s glory shines through. Sometimes it will overwhelm you with joy, sometimes it will just be a moment of comfort. Maybe you’ve experienced this, maybe you haven’t, but it does happen and it happens to ordinary people more often than you think. I promise, if you persevere in this kind of prayer, it will happen to you.

When it does happen, you, like Peter, will probably say “it is good that we are here!” You might want to stay there forever. You may want to never stop reading that particular passage or saint’s story. But it will not last. The excitement, the warmth, the obvious glory will fade.

You will have to come back down from the mountain. The temptation will be to get too attached to a particular moment of consolation, a particularly powerful moment of prayer. Of course it is good to remember these moments. It is good to go back to stories and passages that bring you comfort, but the fact is that we cannot live on that mountain. So, what are we left with? With the same words the Father speaks here: “This is my chosen Son; listen to him.”

The point of these deliberate times of prayer, the goal of climbing this mountain is not to stay on the mountain. It is to train your heart, mind, and soul to listen more closely to God who is always there. Moments of glory and consolation do not point to themselves, but to a deeper reality. The objective fact is that God is always there, always loving you, always giving you grace. But we get so caught up in the subjective experiences of ups and downs, of pleasure and pain that we convince ourselves that God changes and leaves us.

But prayer, real prayer is there to teach us to say with the psalm, “I believe that I shall see the bounty of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait for the LORD with courage; be stouthearted, and wait for the LORD.” As we shoulder the cross for another week of Lent, another week of life and trial, let these words really sink in. Keep coming back to the kind of prayer Jesus himself shows us. And never, never doubt that what you’ve already said is true, that you know in it your very guts, “The Lord is my light and my salvation.”