HOMILY FOR THE SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT

Fr Billy Swan

Dear friends. Every year, the Gospel for the Second Sunday of Lent, is always the story of the Transfiguration where Jesus was transfigured in the presence of Peter, James and John. In that mysterious experience, the three Apostles caught a glimpse of who Jesus really was as divine, as someone who was more than thought imagined him to be. He allowed them to see his glory and the intense presence of God within him that radiated from him like a dazzling and beautiful light.

For Peter, James and John, it was an experience when they were enraptured by beauty as Peter exclaimed ‘It is wonderful for us to be here’. Today, I would like to share with you a few thoughts on beauty, something about which we do not hear often enough. Dostoevsky once said that only beauty can save the world and he was right. As the body cannot live without food, water and oxygen so the soul cannot live without goodness, truth and beauty. Here I would like to reflect on three aspects of beauty: first the nature of beauty; second where beauty is to be found and third, the beauty of Christ.

First, the nature of beauty. Think of the last time you saw a beautiful sunset or a night sky full of stars. Think of when you last heard a beautiful piece of music that moved you. Think of when you last saw beauty in another human being. Notice what happens when the soul meets beauty: it rejoices and delights in it because it immediately recognises something of God for which our souls are made.

Another feature of beauty is that we do not absorb it, rather beauty absorbs us. We do not possess it, beauty possess us. Beauty lifts us out of ourselves and makes us look forward. Even if we are suffering, beauty has the power to help us look beyond pain to hope and to joy in the future.

So where then is beauty to be found? Where can our souls find it to feed on it? A few suggestions. Behold and contemplate the beauty of creation. Don’t just look at it and look away again but behold it, look into it. Because when we do, we behold what God has made, we see the shapes of things, their colours and how they all unite together. We see the loveliness that shines through what God has made in a way that makes us wonder: ‘Who made all this? Who is responsible for this beauty?’. For when we see beauty in creation, we come to delight in it. By delighting in it we come to love it and loving it we come to worship the author and source of all beauty who is God.

Another place to see beauty is in one another, in the human person. Here I am not talking about popular beauty of glossy magazines and so on but the beauty of soul which is far more important. On the day we were baptised, God placed in all of us his own presence and his own beauty. He promised us that He would never take away the gift of his own beauty that He placed in us. Like diamonds that become dirty or buried in mud, so too can our beauty become hidden in the dirt of sin that obscures it. But it is always there. We hear much today about cyber-bullying and the tragedy of people who are bullied. To bully someone is not just a sin, it is terribly ugly which is the opposite of beauty. Bullies also tell their victims lies: ‘you are ugly, you are worthless, you are less than others’. This of course is totally untrue. There is beauty in everyone, and even if it remains hidden, it is there.

Jesus Christ came to restore the beauty within each of us and in our world. He came down to immerse himself in the mud to lift the diamond of our beauty out of that mud. But in order to do this, he himself had to immerse himself in the mud and the dirt and by doing so, ended up on a cross. He absorbed all the ugliness of the world on to himself so that we might receive our beauty back. For as we hear in the first reading on Good Friday: ‘Without beauty, without majesty we saw him. A thing despised and rejected by men’ (Is. 53:2). This was the same man who only a few weeks previously in our Gospel today, whose ‘face shone light the sun and whose clothes became as white as light’.

At the Transfiguration, Peter, James and John had the privilege of seeing Jesus’ beauty shine from him in all its splendour. It absorbed them into its light, so much so that Peter wanted to stay there forever and to make the moment last. Who could blame him? For at that moment, they saw in fullness what they had glimpsed in his company: the beauty of his goodness, the beauty of his love, the beauty of truth, the beauty of forgiveness, the beauty of his mercy. In sum, they saw the overwhelming and blinding beauty of God. However, it was a beauty that did not stand alone. Like the beauty of a bright star against a dark sky, Jesus’ beauty shone out from the darkness of nails, blood, betrayal, ugliness and murder. It is the story of what happens when the most beautiful thing, which is perfect love, enters into our world and absorbs ugliness onto himself in order to give beauty back.

We have never seen anything more beautiful than the life of Jesus Christ. Everything that is beautiful in this world, in creation or in people, was made through him, leads to him and leads us to worship him. How could our response to such beauty ever be boring or lukewarm?

I conclude with the words of Leon Bloy who once said that the only real failure in this life is not to become saint. Saints are beautiful because they shine with the same light and beauty of God. Real saints are not those who do the most good ,but those who realise they are sinners who have received the beauty of God’s grace and holiness. And because they know this, they let that beauty shine from them. This is the beauty of Christ that saves them and helps saves the world.

Lent is a time to rediscover the importance of beauty, to let Christ clean the mud off our diamonds so that they can sparkle again. Turn away from the ugliness of sin. Love beauty, seek it, desire it. Behold it in creation, in others and in yourself. See the beauty in Christ whose life shines with the beauty that saves us and that leads us to our final home.

With our final home in mind, I finish with a prayer that is taken from the entrance procession for funerals when the remains are being received into the Church. For the deceased person, the priest prays on behalf of the community:

‘May you ever behold your redeemer face to face  and ever stand before him enraptured by the beauty of Truth itself and, placed in the ranks of the blessed, may you delight in the vision of God for ever and ever. Amen.’