Second Sunday of Lent

Father Leo Hausmann
Homily from the Televised Mass, NewsCenter1
Second Sunday of Lent, February 25, 2024

The Old Testament reading from the Book of Genesis recalls the story of how God put Abraham to the test by telling him to sacrifice his son Isaac. It’s interesting how God told this to Abraham. He said, “Take your son, your only one, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah.” 

God points out that this is his only son and how he loves him. Abraham did not need to be told that. He already realized Isaac was his only son and the only means for God to fulfill His promise to Abraham for descendants as numerous as the sands of the seashore, or the stars of the sky. But we and the millions and millions of people from Abraham’s time down to our own need to know that. 

One of the reasons we need to know that is because this story foreshadows what God would do for the world thousands of years after the time of Abraham and Isaac. God the Father would not only ask His only Son, who he loves beyond all imagining, to offer himself as a sacrifice on the Cross, but in the case of Jesus, the Father willed that the sacrifice would be carried out. 

Thousands of years before Jesus was born into time, in the story of Abraham and Isaac, God the Father is crying out from eternity the words we heard in the Gospel, “This is My Beloved Son. Listen to Him!”

In the Gospel today, Jesus took Peter, James and John with him to the top of the mountain where he was transfigured before their eyes. Jesus’ divine nature was revealed to them in a very powerful way that connected Him to the great leaders and prophets of the Old Testament, as well as the promise of God of a savior. 

These representatives of the law and the Prophets — Moses and Elijah — foreshadowed Jesus, who is the culmination of the law and the Prophets. You may recall what Jesus said about the Law and the Prophets when he gave the two great Commandments of Love: Love God above all things and your neighbor as yourself. 

He added, “The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” 

Jesus told Peter, James and John not to tell anyone of the vision until after His Resurrection from the dead. This means the vision was given to bolster the faith of the disciples shaken by his death and to help them understand the meaning of Jesus’ passion and death on the Cross. 

The Transfiguration connects the Cross with the Law and the prophets, of which all are totally rooted in the Commandment of Love. 

Jesus lived and died what he preached to the disciples. “No one can have greater love than to lay down his life for his friends,” he said.

So let us return to what God the Father said from the cloud that overshadowed the Transfiguration, “This is My Beloved Son. Listen to Him!” 

That is, listen, learn, and then imitate Him with our own lives rooted in love. 

In other words, let the sacrificial love of the cross shine forth in our own lives by living the great commandments of love.

I have to say that our Beloved Bishop Peter, was a great example for us in living out the law of love in our own lives. He was loving, gentle, and a shepherd in the true sense. 

When he was asked by Pope Francis to be bishop of the Diocese of Rapid City, he did not hesitate to fully commit himself to be our shepherd. Preaching the Good News of the Gospel, administering the sacraments and attending to the financial and organizational needs of the diocese and our parishes was a labor of love. 

The institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper was the last thing Jesus did before beginning His passion and death on the Cross. 

Those two events being situated to each other in time connects them in love. Jesus gives himself to us totally in the Eucharist — body, blood, soul and divinity — just like he gave himself totally on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins. Both in the Eucharist and with the Cross he holds nothing of Himself back.

I see a similarity in how Bishop Peter spent the last days of his life. When it became apparent that he was dying from cancer and entering hospice care, he wrote a letter to the people of our diocese. He ended the letter this way: “Let us pray that many graces flow from God to our diocese as I await God’s will. I offer all my sufferings for a true Eucharistic Revival in our diocese.” 

Like Jesus, the Good Shepherd, our shepherd connected his own suffering to the Eucharist, that the people of our diocese might come to know the love of Jesus in the Eucharist and be, themselves, transformed by it.