Second Sunday of Lent 24/02/2013
It is interesting to note that this Gospel account is by St. Luke even though he himself wasn’t a witness that day. With the possible exception of St. John (who according to legend lived to be nearly 100 years old), there was no other eye witness to that remarkable Confirmation to whom Luke could have appealed for its detail.
To come to realize that Jesus at prayer was really in touch with the God He called Father
and at the same time be in tune with the hugely respected tradition of Moses and Elijah was a truth that Peter, James and John couldn’t get their heads around. That said, they knew it to be true nonetheless. They didn’t know ‘how’ but they did know ‘that’.
A bit like the way the ides of a ‘cloud’ fits into the dramatic Gospel story we’ve heard this weekend. It both covered the ‘extraordinary’ of the life of Jesus as well as the ‘ordinary’ of his human life’.
The cloud scene at first frightened them, but then came assurance from the voice within ‘This is my Son, listen to Him’. The best of advice eh?