The Reward of having Faith, Hope & Love is having Love forever!
Homily preached August 6, 2023
by Monsignor Michael Deering
If you grew up in the Catholic Church, you probably have some memories
of trying to memorize your prayers for your parents or your teachers.
I can still remember practicing my prayers on Wednesday afternoons as I walked along several blocks from my public gradeschool to the local Catholic gradeschool for weekly PSR (Religion) class.
Some of the many prayers that I had to know in order to be able to make my First Holy Communion in 2nd Grade were the three little prayers called:
the Act of Faith, the Act of Hope and the Act of Love.
These 3 Prayers were designed to help us focus on what the Church calls
the Three Theological Virtues … the Virtues of Faith, Hope and Love.
A Virtue is a good habit of the mind or will, that God gives us to guide us to Him.
Yes, on the day of our Baptism, God poured the Gifts of Faith, Hope and Love
into our souls to guide us and guard us on our journey through life to Him.
And having received them, God wants us to use them and to grow them.
We prayed our Prayers to help us to do that. Here they are:
An Act of Faith is our agreement with what God has revealed.
A simple “Act of Faith” would be the prayer, “My God, I believe in you and all that your Church teaches, because you have said it and your word is true. Amen.”
An Act of Hope is our confident expectation of one day possessing what God has promised.
A simple “Act of Hope” would be the prayer, “My God, I hope in You, to receive grace and glory, because of Your promises, Your mercy and Your power.”
An Act of Love is our declaration of love for God and for others.
A simple “Act of Love” would be the prayer, “My God, I love you above all things and I love myself and others for the love of You.”
So,
Faith empowers us to accept the word of God and to believe in His authority.
Hope empowers us to have confidence in God’s promise of Eternal Life.
Love empowers us to love God, and to love our neighbors for the love of God.
It unites us most perfectly to God.
In today’s Gospel account of the Transfiguration, there are three main characters,
Moses, Elijah and Jesus, and they represent ... the three Theological Virtues.
Moses was the giver of the Law ... God’s Ten Commandments ...
so Moses represents how God calls people to Himself in Faith.
Elijah was the first of a long line of prophets who guided the people
away from worshipping false Gods to believe in the promises of the one true God
so Elijah represents how God calls people to Himself in Hope.
Jesus is God ... He is Love Itself ... a perfect and complete Love ...
that He would demonstrate with His death on the Cross ...
so Jesus represents how God calls people to Himself in Love.
Yes, in the miracle of the Transfiguration, we see displayed the 3 Theological Virtues, the 3 ways God that calls us to Himself ... in Faith, in Hope and in Love.
But then we notice in the Gospel that both Moses (representing Faith) and Elijah (representing Hope) disappear ... and only Jesus (representing Love) remains.
This points to a great truth!
You see, when we finally get to Heaven and come into the Beatific vision,
there will no longer be a need for Faith or Hope because:
We’ll be in the presence of who we believed in ... God ... and
We’ll be in the presence of what we hoped for ... being with God in Heaven!
Yes, our Three Prayers & the Theological Virtues bring us Eternal Happiness.
The very reason Our Lord chose to reveal His transfigured glory to the Apostles was to strengthen their Faith and Hope to carry them through the upcoming scandal of the cross, where the Son of God would suffer and die a horrible death.
Yes, Jesus wanted to strengthen their Faith and renew their Hope ...
that the day would come when they would share His glory in Heaven!
Jesus knew that they would soon see His lifeless body... and so He wanted to give them a good image to hold onto, one that would give them hope for the future.
And the image that Jesus provided was that of His glorified resurrected body!
It was just a momentary glimpse, but it was enough that they would remember.
Listen again to what was just proclaimed in our Second Reading ...
the words St. Peter’s wrote in his Second Letter about the Transfiguration ...
“We had been eyewitnesses of his majesty.
For he (Jesus)received honor and glory from God the Father
when that unique declaration came to him from the majestic glory.
‘This is my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased,’
We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven
while we were with him on the holy mountain.
Peter wrote this letter some 30 years after
he was with Jesus, James and John on the mountain.
And not only did he remember what he saw ... he remembered what he heard!
Yes, The Supernatural Transfiguration of Jesus did two things:
it clearly revealed that Jesus was God’s beloved Son ...
and it showed what the human body would one day look like in glory.
These are 2 things ... we should never forget!
Which is why the Church reminds us of this twice a year ...
on the 2nd Sunday in Lent and
on the 6th of August ...
40 days before the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross on September 14th.
Just as those 3 Apostles experienced some dark and difficult days in their lives ...
we too will experience some dark and difficult days ...
days of sadness and challenge.
So the image we need to hold onto is that of the Transfiguration of Jesus ... which assures us that death is not the end of the story ... life is ... if we end up with Jesus.
That’s one reason why back in the Jubilee year 2000 ...
Pope St. John Paul the Great incorporated “The Transfiguration of Jesus” as one of the new Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary. the 4th Luminous Mystery.
Remembering and meditating on “the Transfiguration of Jesus”
will help carry us through this life and safely into Eternal Life.
As we go about our day let’s remember the words St. Peter spoke in our Gospel,
“It is good that we are here.” Where was he? He was there with Jesus, the Saints and the Apostles. So it was indeed good to be in that company. Let’s do our best to practice the Theological Virtues of Faith, Hope and Love,
by having faith in God ... hoping to be with God ... and loving God …
knowing that one-day we will be left with just one virtue, when like the Apostles,
we too will be left standing there with Jesus ... who is Love Itself!
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