Deacon Tom Writes,
“Renewal Of the Mind”
In his letter to the Ephesians St Paul instructed them: “You should put away the old self of your
former way of life, corrupted through deceitful desires, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds,
and put on the new self, created in God's
way in righteousness and holiness of
truth.” (Eph 4:22)
When Peter, James and John see Jesus in the fullness of his glory,
they, quite naturally, want to hang on to the moment. In an effort to hold on
to this moment they want to erect three tents perhaps so that Moses, Elijah,
and Jesus can stay with them for a while. But that was not to be. The vision
doesn’t last. Before you know it, it’s all over and the time comes to return to
the ordinary, routine affairs of daily life.
Hold on to the vision, Christ tells them. Keep this all to yourself
until the Son of Man has been raised from the Dead! What an impossible task! Yet
there can be no doubt that these men were deeply affected by what they saw.
Seeing Christ in the fullness of His glory affected their thinking, their
behavior, and their attitudes. Does what we hear today do the same for us?
If we so desire, the
words of our Gospel today can have a great impact on our life. We too can be
renewed in the spirit of our minds and be given a new mindset, one that will
transform every aspect of our lives, renew and enliven our inner beings,
empower us to do the difficult interior work that will allow us to grow more
spiritually mature. St. Paul describes this process, “So whoever is in Christ
is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have
come (2 Cor 5:17). It is being renewed from the inside out.
Peter, James and John were fortunate to have been given this glimpse of
the divine Jesus. We are somewhat more challenged today since we will not
experience this until our life’s end. But now that the story has been told, we
have this vision implanted in our heads AND hearts. It is a vision that beckons
us to begin the difficult, life-long work of crafting our new selves created in
God’s way, a work that will come to completion only when we become one with him
in what we refer to as, “the life to come.”
Enjoy the day!
Deacon Tom
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