Transfiguration of the Lord

Transfiguration of the Lord 

  Good morning everyone, I am so happy to welcome you all for today’s Holy Mass. Dear friends, every time we come to Church, we get closer to God Almighty through prayer and every time we come to Church, because of our sincere prayer, our appearance will begin to change and we will become more spiritual and will begin to reflect Christ in our every day activities. Every time we come to Church, we hear God saying, “you are my beloved child and with you I am so happy” Once a mother saw his son being bad and asked him to pray to God so that god could change him. After his prayer the mother looked at him and said, ‘did you pray to God to make you good’ the boy said, ‘no, I prayed for you so that God can give you enough strength to put up with me. Once a man said, "When I play, I play harder. When I work, I work harder and when I pray, I fall a sleep".  The German mystic Meister Echhart once said that you should bother less of what you have to do and think more about what you are to Being. If your being is good, then your doing will shine brightly. Once a rich man was building a tavern a small town and a group of believers from a local church were worried and thus they planned an all- night prayer meeting to ask god to intervene. Then a shocking thing happened. Lighting struck the building and destroyed it completely. The rich man sued the church saying, “because of their prayer, my building was struck by lighting” and the Christian said, ‘No, not because of our prayers”. Then the judge finally looked at them both and said, “No matter how this case is going to come out, one thing is sure and clear. The owner of the building believes in prayer and the church people don’t”  Once some people looked at Mother Theresa and said, “Mother, when you pray what do you say to God?” Mother said, ‘I don’t say anything. I just listen”. Then they asked, ‘what does God say to you as you listen?” She again looked at them and smiled and said, “He doesn’t talk either”. He listens. Prayer means communion, being with God. It is being one with God. It is having a holy experience.  Prayer helps to identify good from evil. It helps us to say, “no” to sin and Satan. For example, last weekend gospel, as Jesus was finishing His forty days and forty nights of prayer and fasting, He was tempted by Satan. We saw how He said No, to Satan and yes to the love of God. It is because of His prayer, everything happened. As we deeply enter into prayer life, we will know how to say no to temptations and evil and says to the love of God. And in today’s gospel, Jesus goes to a mountain with His three disciples and while He was praying to His father God, another important change happened in Him and around Him. His appearance began to change. He becomes full of light and because of that change, His clothes became dazzling white. There the disciples witnessed How Moses and Elijah came to Christ and they were talking to Him. Then they hear a voice from heaven saying to them, ‘this is my beloved Son with whom I am so happy, listen to Him and him alone”. We often hear how the Muslims pray five times a day, the Hindus pray three times a day and the Budhist praying as often as they can and what about Christians, followers of Christ....Our whole life is a prayer. As St. Paul says, "When we do everything for the glory of God, then our whole life becomes a prayer". Even today so many spiritual leaders, mystics and holy people as they entered deeply in prayer, begin to experience altered state of conciousness. It is one of the qualities of prayer. A person who spends time in prayer knows how to separate good from evil and he begins to experience the oneness of body and soul and thus his appearance will change, his surrounding will change. People who are with him will know that he is a man of prayer and though they do not spend time in prayer or doing diving things, they too experience god in their daily lives. Conclusion: Dear friends, as we celebrate the season of lent, we are called to get closer to god, and we are called to know that we belong to God. Yes, the Lenten observances of prayer, fasting and works of charity help us to do so. So let us pray without ceasing for us and for others. Amen.