Gospel Non-Violence Lent Week 2

Climb the Mountain

Be Transformed

  

Mount Tabor for most Christians is a Holy mountain - "the mount of Transfiguration"

“transfigure us, O Lord… transfigure us O Lord”

   

We follow Jesus with Peter, James and John up the mountain of transfiguration.  It is good for us too to experience mystical moments with Jesus.  To recognize the ‘Beloved’ sent by the Father in the people and events of our lives.  And to ‘listen to him’.   (Luke 9:28b - 36)

Who are the people and what are the events of our lives today?  As I listen I hear the many angry voices; migrants, wars, divisions in our society, of our youth, racism, senseless shooting violent words and actions surround us.  As I listen to the Word of God and the Voice of Jesus this week I am challenged to let my words and actions transform hearts and minds. 

As we reflect as a national community this week , we join in pledging  to … choose Gospel non-violence as our way of being in all situations at all times.

Jesus, Peter, James and John came down from the mountain Jesus instructed them not to tell what they had seen to anyone until the ‘Son of Man had risen from the dead’.

We might ask ourselves, is this a moment in which Jesus rises from the dead today, NOW?  Is this a time of Resurrection? A time of Transformation? A time to make all things New?

Let our words, our actions and our political will join with so many who cry out: Never Again will such violence happen in our land.

See https://paxchristiusa.org/resources/vow-of-nonviolence/

Dear God,

Help me to serve your reign of peace
by serving the global grassroots movement of nonviolence
for the coming of your reign of peace here on earth.

Make me an instrument of your peace,
that I might do my small part to help abolish
war, poverty, hunger, executions, nuclear weapons,
systemic injustice and environmental destruction,
to make your nonviolent reign of peace more palpable everywhere.

But more, help me when I’m discouraged,
when I think there’s no hope,
when I give up on others and give up on myself,
when I sense the dread of despair and apathy sneaking up on me.
Raise me up, keep me going, use me for your work for justice and peace,
and most of all, keep me faithful to the lifelong journey of justice and peace.

Let my entire life be a struggle for justice and peace,
one long campaign for a new world of nonviolence.
Let my life bear tremendous good fruit for others,
and inspire others to join that struggle.
Give me good cheer, a good heart,
a sense of humor, a spirit of peace and love,
and that revolutionary patience needed
for the lifelong long-haul work of peacemaking.

Help me like the saints and prophets of old
to live a full life in your service of justice and peace
that I may join them one day in that place
where the nonviolent revolution has come true and is permanent,
that together, we might all praise you and your boundless peace.

Amen.   - John Dear, ‘Radical Prayers On Peace, Love & Nonviolence