August comes, the August of the 2020 Pandemic. Liturgically, wise Mother-Church keeps before us during this month the brilliance of the Paschal promise: as your Lord and Lady have been transformed and shine now as the sun, so shall it be with you. In the Word, fused forever to our humble flesh, we have that pledge.
The feasts of the Transfiguration and Assumption of Mary bring this pledge before our eyes. The brilliance of the transformed Jesus stuns Peter, James, and John. They don’t know what to make of it. They only know they don’t want it to end. But it does end. There is the agony of the Passion to go through, but they don’t understand that either. Nor do we. Yet the pledge is the same. It is an assured hope given us by God, and where the Head went the Body will follow. That’s us.
Then, as if to underline the pledge, we watch it happen to one of our own. Mary has no burial place, because there is nothing in the tomb where they placed her. The body that held the Word, the flesh that gave him the ability to suffer and die, shines with the love and faith that filled her in time/space. Perhaps it is that very love and faith, hope, and love that effects our transformation too. If so, then we can do no better than to attend to the word during this month, for it seeks to grow that same love quotient in each of us. Inch by inch, day by day, it transforms us – yes, even in the midst of the August 2020 global pandemic.
We know not what we shall be…
Live the truth in love, you said.
So in your Spirit help us to hang on in faith,
and teach our souls to sing their little song of hope.
Amen.
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