Glimpses of Glory

Dear Friend,

When I was growing up in Atlanta my father would sometimes take my younger brother and me to his office on Saturday morning. It was located in an eight-story building and we’d get all excited because these were times to discover the magical world of my father’s workplace. Xerox machines, adding machines, elevators!

On one of these Saturday mornings my brother and I slipped away and found the door to the stairwell to the roof. At the top, the door was open and out we went.  Wow! What a view, what a feeling of power and also danger. What if we fell off?

This memory is always triggered by this Sunday’s readings where our Lenten journey takes us to mountain heights of intense drama, exhilaration, and extreme vulnerability. These episodes raise questions about who’s keeping an eye on things and who can be trusted. Moreover, they point to Calvary. Jesus tells his disciples in so many words that they won’t understand the Transfiguration until much later.

Ellen F. Davis contends that the harrowing story of the sacrifice of Isaac is included in the sacred scriptures not to convince readers to believe in the God of Abraham, but “to help people who already believe make sense of their most difficult experience, when God seems to take back everything they have ever received at God’s hand…when their world turns upside down.” 

The way to Easter is indeed marked by great tests linked to vulnerability and trust.  My own world turned upside down when my father died. It opened a long road of learning real trust. In the meantime, brief glimpses of glory give us clues to what the great mosaic looks like that God is making of our lives and of our fractured and broken histories. 

Gratefully,

Fr. Dan ofm