Mary M. McGlone

John’s Gospel gives us two accounts in which Jesus becomes present in the midst of a group of his disciples, appearances neither Mark nor Matthew even mention and which Luke presents as a single incident. 

The readings for Easter Sunday seem to be a letdown from the no-holds-barred celebration of the Vigil that took us from creation through Christ’s resurrection, punctuated with the new fire, bells and all those alleluias. 

The beginning and the end of Jesus’ life are the times most prominently portrayed in Christian art. While we may not think about it often, each depiction, all the nativity scenes, sets of Stations of the Cross and images of the Last Supper have great power to communicate an implicit theology, one that, like our hymns, subtly forms our spirituality and thus our way of living our faith.

When the Gospel of John contrasts walking in the day to walking at night, we know it refers to more than getting home before curfew. What may surprise us in today’s readings is that the story of the raising of Lazarus is designed to lead us to examine our own faith as disciples. 

Doesn’t it seem strange that the man who was transformed in today’s Gospel passage said nary a word until after he was healed? He didn’t ask Jesus for a cure nor did he tell his tale of being relegated to begging as the odd-one-out in a world he had never seen. In the beginning, he was just there, the object of other people’s judgment. He was just there for Jesus to see.

Doesn’t it seem strange that the man who was transformed in today’s Gospel passage said nary a word until after he was healed? He didn’t ask Jesus for a cure nor did he tell his tale of being relegated to begging as the odd-one-out in a world he had never seen. In the beginning, he was just there, the object of other people’s judgment. He was just there for Jesus to see.

Behold!” That’s a key word in today’s story of the Transfiguration. It means more than “Look!” or “OMG!” It’s more like “Take a very good look, and then look again, because there is more here than you can grasp.”  

Our Lent starts with stories that take us from the garden to the desert — symbolically as well as geographically. We begin with Adam and Eve in God’s good garden.

One day God told Moses to assemble the entire community of Israel for an important message. So Moses did as he was told and God said: “Be holy, for I, the Lord, your God, am holy.” What on earth did that mean?

Our attitude toward the law depends on the reasons we see for it and on our feelings for those who have formulated it.