Lent is for Living

Originally published at Vibrant Faith Articles.

It’s Transfiguration Sunday as I write this, and after reading the gospel, my pastor told a story about Mother Teresa of Calcutta. On a long train ride from Calcutta to Darjeeling, she experienced a powerful moment in prayer—she received what she described as “a call within a call.” God’s presence was so powerful. Everything changed. She left teaching and went to serve the poorest of the poor. And yet, she never felt the presence of God so palpably again. In her journals, she wrote of that absence, her own “dark night of the soul” experience, as others have described it.

Why was my pastor talking about Mother Teresa today? In today’s gospel, Peter, James, and John witness the transfiguration of Jesus. It was such an incredible experience that Peter suggests he could set up tents, so they can stay in that moment. The final line of this reading begins, “As they were coming down from the mountain…”. They couldn’t stay in that experience. And we know that even though they had a literal “mountaintop experience” they still struggled, they still huddled in the Upper Room after Jesus’ death. As my pastor pointed out, sometimes life gets in the way of staying up on that mountaintop.

I’m thinking of all of this and remembering the moments in my life when I’ve felt God’s visceral presence...
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Read more HERE at Vibrant Faith.