Sunday, March 8, is the Second Sunday of Lent (Year B, Cycle I).

Parish

EPriest.com offers “Best Practices” for parishes.

Two years ago, EPriest.com reported on the lessons one parish learned from holding adoration through the night. Devotees of St. Pio of Pietrelcina reported on their All Night Vigil every First Friday of the month, from 9 p.m. on Friday to 6 a.m. on Saturday at Our Lady of Peace in New York.

They used a schedule developed by Franciscan Father Archangel Sica: It offers confession, Mass, exposition, Rosaries and other prayers. The parish reports that an average of 75 people went to confession during each vigil.

The schedule the parish uses and information about supplementary materials and steps for starting such a vigil are all available at the EPriest website.

Family

Could you use some help keeping your Lenten resolutions? We put ours in the hallway between the kids’ bedrooms. We write them on black construction paper using white chalk, giving one page per person. That way, we walk past the reminders every time we walk down that hall.

Media

Sunday’s first reading is about Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac, making this an excellent week to review the whole story of Abraham. Perhaps you could watch the movie Abraham (1994, from The Bible Collection). This film, though long at 187 minutes, made a big impression on us — though it may not have the same impact for everyone. It stars Richard Harris and has been well reviewed as a film. We found its portrayal of Abraham spiritually beneficial, in the way St. Paul recommended the story of Abraham. Abraham is no great hero in the film — it’s his faith that saves him. He simply believed that God would do what he said, despite the evidence his human mind struggled with, and his faith made all the difference.

Readings

Genesis 22:1-2, 9-13, 15-18; Psalm 116:10, 15, 16-19; Romans 8:31-34; Mark 9:2-10

EPriest.com offers free homily packs for priests.

Our Take

Today’s readings describe the direct and startling way God sees us through and prepares us for the times of crisis in our lives.

1. First Reading. From Abraham and Isaac, we learn that crises sometimes come from God. He strikes at what’s most sacred to us because he wants to be the most sacred thing in our lives. We tend to put other values in the place that God should have. Very often, they are good things: family, friends, our reputation, our health, our comfort. But God wants us to give up whatever we have put in his place. This is always a painful process. God can seem to ask too much, as when he asks Abraham to sacrifice the very thing he considers fundamental to God’s promise: his son.

But God asks for radical trust. And there are moments of crisis when he asks more directly than at others. If God asked of you what he asked of Abraham — to sacrifice something that you consider most central to your identity, even to your religious identity — what would you do?

What's your Isaac?

2. The second reading reminds us that God has himself borne the sufferings he asks of us. God did what Abraham was willing to do but was spared from doing: He sacrificed his only Son. That crisis is in the past, and it has left a well of grace we can go to in our own times of trial. Now, whatever we lose in life, we always have Christ. And that's more than enough: “If God is for us, who can be against us? … It is God who acquits us, who will condemn? Christ Jesus … is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.”

3. In the Gospel, Christ intercedes in the life of the apostles to prepare them for the crisis moment.

He again takes the direct approach, taking Peter, James and John up a high mountain and revealing his glory to them. They will soon face the horror of the cross. They will see the “Son of the Living God” become sin for their sake and die a shameful death. Satan will play out the advice “strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter.”

To prepare for that frightening day, Christ shows them his true glory by his transfigured appearance and receives confirmation from the Father's voice . He gives them all they need to stay faithful in the tough times.

In moments of crisis we can look back at the memories of those times of closeness to Christ when we saw and felt his greatness.

When things are tough financially, we can remember the years of plenty. When events in politics, in our personal lives, or in the Church shake us we also remember better days, when we saw the power of our principles and felt the rightness of our decision to stay by Christ's side.

The Peter-on-Mount-Tabor moments can help you when we're tempted to be Peter rejecting the cross.

When that temptation came, recall Christ's words:

"You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.

Take heart in your crisis: God is the protagonist of every story, not you. That can be disconcerting, but he'll be by your side when it's all over.