Thoughts from the Second Floor Front
II Sunday of Lent
March 1, 2026
Lent is all about transformation - the movement from excessive concern about self toward beneficent action for others. This weekend the Church gives us two of the most dramatic stories in Scripture: the sacrifice of Isaac and the Transfiguration of Jesus. First Abraham and Isaac.
When I was a boy, I would regularly accompany my father on errands, usually on a Saturday. I’m going to Sears, said he, want to come along? Off we would go. However, my dad was not one to just go to Sears. What he failed to share with me, and my other siblings, on these jaunts that the trip to Sears was only one stop. Three to four hours later “the trip” would end. The afternoon was shot, and I fell for it every time. I just wanted to know where we were going and when we would return.
Today in Genesis we hear God call Abram and tell him to go. God did not say where just go, to the place that I will show you. This is why Abraham is called the Father of our Faith.
The father of Existential Philosophy, Soren Kierkegaard, used the Abraham/Isaac story as the basis for his book Fear and Trembling. In this work, the philosopher ponders the tension between ethics and religion. The tension is heightened because the stakes, Isaac’s life and the promise made by God to Abraham, are very high. While both may approach ethical and religious decisions differently, the author of Genesis and Kierkegaard share somewhat similar positions concerning faith. Faith involves a time of darkness, a personal struggle and a loving trust. These are three elements in any one’s life of faith with which he or she must contend at some time. Our experience of those entities in our faith life may not be as dramatic or iconic as Abraham and Isaac but they are just as real. Bending our will to God’s will is not achieved without struggle and prayer. In this season of Lent we would do well to think on Kierkegaard’s insight into prayer: “The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.” The change, the transformation is what Lent is all about.
This II Sunday in Lent brings us the gift of the Transfiguration narrative from Mark’s gospel account. Mark inserts the Transfiguration in his account six days after the first prediction of the passion. The Transfiguration scene then serves as a counter balance to the prophecy of an ignominious death which is ultimately transcended by the glory revealed to the inner circle of Apostles, Peter, James and John.
As in our own spiritual lives there are those three elements of faith with which Abraham wrestles. It is in the relationship with God that the time of darkness, struggle and loving trust comes to the fore. By extension, it is also in human relationships that the same three phenomena are experienced. Think of any relationship that you have. If they are important you have, without a doubt, experienced struggle, darkness and love. If that is true on a human level, between family members, spouses, and friends, why is it not so much more so in our relationship with the Divine?
We continue on our Lenten journey called to transform our lives and be transformed, which can ultimately happen only through Grace.
Faithfully,
Msgr. Diamond