Second Sunday of Lent: What does the Word of God tell us this Sunday?

“His face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light.”

The Lenten way continues to change. Last week, we were walking in the desert. And now, this week, we climb a mountain. No one said the path of faith would be easy. But we were also not warned that this level of athleticism would be necessary. Is the spiritual path as difficult as the descriptions make them look? Let's hope so! If in our Christian life we are doing well, that means that we are seriously exercising our spiritual muscle.

Many of us, have to admit it, most of the time, we are not in a spiritual walk. We are, rather, spiritually parked: there in the bench where we always sit and trapped in the same old habits of sin. We are greedy, lazy, selfish and judgmental, etc. And, of course, dishonest, because we rarely admit that we are greedy, lazy, etc. Even in the confessional we are not honest; since we do not confess everything, our bad habits can seem so tedious to even mention it. But, anyway, they are an obstacle to our spiritual life, because they prevent us from embracing the exuberant fullness of God's love, which should be urgently expressed at every moment of history.

Being spiritually parked, "we do not walk, nor run in faith," so we do not grow in faith either. Instead, many of us only fill ourselves with sacraments and accumulate hours of prayer. Yes, we can gain something with pious practice, but that is not the same as achieving spiritual strength. Strength comes when religious practice translates into "grace in action." To get somewhere, obviously, we have to move. So easy to understand, not always so easy to do it.