The Transfiguration - Duccio di Buoninsegna

“The Lord God took Abram outside and said, ‘Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can. Just so,’ he added, ’shall your descendants be.’ Abram put his faith in the LORD, who credited it to him as an act of righteousness.” These words from Genesis chapter 15 are the opening lines of today’s first reading which describes a conversation between Abram (not yet given his religious name Abraham) and God. Then in the Gospel it is the disciples, on the mountain of transfiguration, who hear the voice of God – declaring about Jesus: “This is my chosen Son; listen to him”.

We call such moments “theophanies”, revelations of God; and there is no doubt that some people still today may have a deep religious experience of the presence of God which transforms their lives. For most of us, though, our experience of God is not so direct. We feel ourselves to be in the desert (something which is not inappropriate in Lent), far from the wellsprings of religious certainty. But that does not mean that we have given up the journey towards God. God has placed the seed of faith in our hearts and he has also given us the gift of reason to help us discover truth. As Catholics we must use both faith and reason in our search for God. This was the teaching of Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Fides et Ratio (Latin for faith and reason) promulgated on 14 September 1998. As the Church entered a third millennium the Pope wanted Christians to understand that faith and reason are not only compatible, but essential together. He said “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves (cf. Ex 33:18; Ps 27:8-9; 63:2-3; Jn 14:8; 1 Jn 3:2)”. Faith without reason, he argued, leads to superstition – treating religion like magic; on the other hand reason without faith leads to an incomplete vision of reality which can never satisfy our deepest longings.

One of my duties as a teacher in England was to offer specialized courses in Theology and Philosophy to students in their final two years of High School. These were college level courses and far from easy, but students were attracted to them because they dealt with what Pope John Paul called “the fundamental questions which pervade human life: Who am I? Where have I come from and where am I going? Why is there evil? What is there after this life?” These are questions which have been asked by every culture and in every age and I want to look at them this year for our Saint Charles Borromeo Lent course. I will be talking at 7 p.m. in the church for the next four Monday evenings (March 1, 8, 15, 22). The talks will last about thirty minutes and there will be time for some questions afterwards. Please join us as part of your personal Lenten program. This is not just an academic exercise but, as Pope John Paul said, “the answer given to these questions decides the direction which people seek to give to their lives”.

Fr. Augustine