Second Sunday of Lent - Reflecting on the Readings: Transfiguration and Transformation

Franciscan Action Network


Father of light,
in you is found no shadow of change
but only the fullness of life and limitless truth.


Open our hearts to the voice of your Word
and free us from the original darkness that shadows our vision.
Restore our sight that we may look upon your Son
who calls us to repentance and a change of heart,
for he lives and reigns with you for ever and ever. Amen.


[Opening Prayer for the Second Sunday of Lent]




The readings for the Second Sunday of Lent offer both promises and challenges. God promises
Abram that “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you”; even more, Abram himself
“will be a blessing” and “all the communities of the earth shall find blessing in” him (Gn 12:2-3).

The Second Letter to Timothy reminds us to “[b]ear your share
of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from
God” (1:8). Just as Abram‟s greatness flowed from God‟s
initiative, so our salvation and call to holiness comes not from
“our works but according to his own design and the grace
bestowed on us in Christ Jesus before time began” (1:9). The
psalmist unites promise and challenge in acknowledging that,
while death and famine endure, God delivers and preserves (cf.
Ps 33:19); indeed, “of the kindness of the LORD the earth is
full” (33:5). In their experience of Christ‟s transfiguration,
Peter, James, and John glimpse the glory of God and learn that
their mission on earth is not to enshrine these glimpses but to
listen to Christ‟s promptings at each moment in order to
respond to ever-changing needs.

These readings accompany and guide us as we consider the unfolding challenge of climate
change. Although it is difficult to determine the relationship between climate change and
particular natural disasters, we can expect to see more such incidents as the climate continues to
change. In more industrialized nations, environmental changes challenge physical, service, and
legal infrastructures; the 2007 and 2009 floods in the United Kingdom, for example, prompted
that nation‟s largest peacetime mobilization of troops to address the impacts. In the disparity
between the earthquake effects in Chile and Haiti in 2010, we see that nations with less
developed infrastructures will suffer more direct loss of life and livelihood. Diverse challenges will require diverse responses and the engagement of all members of society.4

As we consider these changes in the created world, we see less a transfiguration into glory and
more a transformation of devastation. The promise of God‟s Word endures. God “loves justice
and right” (Ps 33:5) and looks “upon those who fear him” (22:18) and listen to his Son. Jesus
instructs us, “Rise, and do not be afraid” (Mt 17:7). In this season of repentance, may we
recognize the call to come down from the mountain of false security in a culture of material
wealth, to bear our “share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God” (2
Tm 1:8) in conforming our lives to the life-giving sacrifice of Christ, and to seek ways that this nation might be a blessing to “all the communities of the earth” (Gn 12:3).

Crucified Creation: Transfiguration and Transformation Today

The blessing of my role in FAN has transfigured past experiences in the light of Franciscanhearted care for creation. In 2008, I met several Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia while volunteering at Nyumbani Children‟s Home in Kenya. I also developed relationships with Kenyan staff members and learned about their family backgrounds in rural agricultural areas. I heard about the “long rains” and the “short rains” that mark annual seasons. Again and again, in separate conversations, Kenyans noted that “sometimes the long rains aren‟t so long, and sometimes the short rains don‟t happen at all.” Climate change became real for me.

Franciscan Mission Service missioners Kristen Zielinski-Nalen and Nora Pfeiffer share similar
experiences from their time in Bolivia. Kristen returned to the U.S. in 2010 and now ministers
with Holy Name Province (OFM) at St. Anthony of Padua parish in Camden, NJ. She recalls that
migrant settlers in urban areas who retain plots of land in their home villages would travel on the
weekends to cultivate crops. They would return to the city with sweet potatoes that were two to
three inches long; pointing to the head of a shovel, they recalled “it used to rain, and we would get sweet potatoes this big.”
Nora Pfeiffer arrived in Bolivia in 2010. “If you doubt that the
climate is changing, just come visit me and talk with just about
anybody here,” writes Nora. “Everyone tells me that the weather
didn‟t used to be like „this‟ and it‟s really changed a lot in the past
10 to 20 years especially.” Nora visited a French civil engineer
and doctor “who has been living in the valley south of the city of
Cochabamba for more than 30 years.” He has built a well and
irrigation system in response to drought.
In the U.S., Glenn Juday, Professor of Forest Ecology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and
contributor to the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change, observes changes in the lives of various
creature neighbors. Juday now refers to the Boreal Forest as a region rather than a forest, because
a majority of trees show signs of slow death due to leaf scorching and growth in pest species
from higher temperatures. Thawing permafrost undermines transportation and building
infrastructure, and additional greenhouse gases are released from this thawing and spontaneous
burning of the tundra. Melting glaciers in Alaska lead to sea level rise and loss of habitat for
animals such as seals; fish wasting disease correlates to rising water temperature in Yukon River.
Such cases in turn affect subsistence communities whose lives have depended on local natural
resources for thousands of years.
The subsistence community of Shishmaref has lived on the
coast of Northwest Alaska for more than 4,000 years. The
community has determined that persistent erosion due to
rising sea levels forces them to relocate to the mainland.
Their 2002 Strategic Plan to help preserve the community‟s
way of life and culture is under revision as changes persist.
Another 186 Alaskan communities are similarly affected. Responding in Action
View FAN‟s “Creativity for Creation” webcast to explore how the Franciscan tradition can
contribute to caring for creation, especially as the climate changes:
www.franciscanaction.org/creativityforcreation
Watch Fr. Jacek Orzechowski, OFM (Holy Name Province) participate in the Polar Bear Plunge:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56EK-eTd72k
Take the St. Francis Pledge to Care for Creation and the Poor to pray, learn, assess, act, and
advocate in response to climate change:
www.catholicclimatecovenant.org
Follow the Action Steps in the weekly themes at Lent 4.5 to reduce your negative impacts on
relationships in creation and benefit from the positive impacts of Christian simplicity:
www.lent45.org