On trip to Rome, we were told that to be a true Roman you must spend at least one night in the Regina Caeli prison. I actually did prison ministry there so I guess I’m close enough.
What is it that initates us in to a society or a culture? A formal decision on our part and then an acceptance on the part of the other. How do we become citizens of heaven if we do not live there now?
We spoke last week of how Lent is a season to prepare us for renewing our baptism. Lent, in preparing for reception as well as a renewal reminds us that we must have a conformity of life to the great truth of our faith. We are renewed into the image of what we believe in. Abraham showed us that now faith can and is a real encounter with the living God who himself enters into a bond with us. God offers himself as he offered himself on the cross. What the transfiguration shows us is that we are brought into direct connection and contact with the power of Jesus’ resurrection and its power even before death. Man’s entire history is reformed. As St. Paul says our lowly body is transformed or transfigured into his glorious which is what the transfiguration shows us, a hint at the glory.
In baptism we are plunged into the water, we are thus plunged into the death of Jesus which by the same token plunges us into God. It’s the image of an iron bar thrown into a fire, the immersion and penetration. However, this means 2 things for us in Lent: one that we are to see the deep gap between us and God without him, 2nd that we are destined for a deep relationship and life with Jesus. A personal contact with Jesus as my friend, this should change my life. Baptism is received because none of us can give the gift to ourselves. Jesus shows a certain death to self in being a son.
At easter we will renounce sin and the devil, this is how the victory of Jesus in the desert that we heard last week is to be accomplished in us by how we renounce and fight against the devil. Spiritual warfare is something we don’t talk much about but we are called to fight the devil every time that the Lord calls us to himself.