great solemnity

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Thursday, 19 March 2020 : Solemnity of St. Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Romans 4 : 13, 16-18, 22

If God promised Abraham, or rather his descendants, that the world would belong to him, this was not because of his obeying the Law, but because he was just and a friend of God through faith.

For that reason, faith is the way and all is given by grace; and the promises of Abraham are fulfilled for all his descendants, not only for his children according to the Law, but also for all the others who have believed.

Abraham is the father of all of us, as it is written : I will make you father of many nations. He is our father in the eyes of Him Who gives life to the dead, and calls into existence what does not yet exist, for this is the God in Whom he believed. Abraham believed and hoped against all expectation, thus becoming father of many nations, as he had been told : See how many will be your descendants.

This was taken into account for him to attain righteousness.

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Thursday, 19 March 2020 : Solemnity of St. Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 88 : 2-3, 4-5, 27 and 29

I will sing forever, o Lord, of Your love and proclaim Your faithfulness from age to age. I will declare how steadfast is Your love, how firm Your faithfulness.

You said, “I have made a covenant with David, My chosen one; I have made a pledge to My servant. I establish his descendants forever; I build his throne for all generations.”

“He will call on Me, ‘You are my Father, my God, my Rock, my Saviour.’ I will keep My covenant firm forever, and My love for him will endure.

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Thursday, 19 March 2020 : Solemnity of St. Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

2 Samuel 7 : 4-5a, 12-14a, 16

But that very night, YHVH’s word came to Nathan, “Go and tell My servant David, this is what YHVH says : When the time comes for you to rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your son after you, the one born of you and I will make his reign secure. He shall build a house for My Name and I will firmly establish his kingship forever. I will be a Father to him and he shall be My son.”

“Your house and your reign shall last forever before Me, and your throne shall be forever firm.”

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Sunday, 15 March 2020 : Third Sunday of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Third Sunday of Lent, all of us as Christians are called to remember the love that God has shown to us all despite the rebelliousness, disobedience and stubbornness which we had shown Him all these while. Beginning from the story in our first reading today, taken from the Book of Exodus of the rebellion of the Israelites against God at the place called Rephidim, where they complained against God and became angry at God as they thought that God had abandoned them and left them thirsty and hungry in the desert.

We have to understand that the truth is, God has been blessing them, providing for them and protecting them all through the challenging journey that they had gone through, starting from calling all of them through Moses, who confronted the Pharaoh with his brother Aaron, and sent ten great Plagues against Egypt and the Egyptians while the Israelites were protected from harm. Since then, God had led them out of Egypt, destroying the armies and the chariots of the Pharaoh sent after them, opening the sea before them to walk on the dry seabed.

And God also gave the people water to drink, water that is good to drink, plentiful and crystal-clear in the middle of the vast and dry desert. He gave them food in the form of manna, the bread sent down from heaven itself, every morning without fail, and also large birds to supplement what they have already had in the manna. For God to provide His people with sustenance and everything they needed in the middle of the lifeless and dry desert, He has done so much for the sake of His people, and yet we saw how the people complained and grumbled against Him.

While not specifically mentioned in today’s reading passage, the Israelites also complained because in Egypt although they were enslaved by the Egyptians, they were not short of food and good things to eat, complaining that all that they had to eat were the ‘tasteless’ manna when in another part the manna were actually described as being sweet and good-tasting. All these alluded to the fact that the Israelites were tempted and swayed by their own greed and desire for worldly sustenance and pleasures rather than to obey God.

As the Israelites put a lot of focus and emphasis on what they were missing and lacking from, this caused them to forget that they already had what they needed, all provided by God Who still continued to love them and was still patient with them despite their constant and repeated disobedience, complaining and grumbling against Him. And in what we heard of the rebellion of the Israelites at Rephidim, God still asked His servant Moses to give the people what they have asked for, which is drinking water, despite having been doubted by the very same people.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we must indeed count ourselves to be very fortunate to have such a loving God and caring Father, Who has always been so patient and good with us despite all of our disobedience, our pettiness and stubbornness, our sins and all sorts of wickedness we have done before Him, as the Israelites themselves can testify to us through their long history of rebellions and disobedience against God, both what we have heard in today’s reading from the Book of Exodus, and many other occasions.

The Lord has always been patient with His people, sending prophets and messengers, one after another to remind the people to turn away from their sinful ways and to embrace once again His laws and precepts. But more often than not, the people refused to listen and hardened their hearts, preferring to follow their own desires and paths, in disobedience against God. They worshipped the pagan idols and offered sacrifices to them, followed the wicked customs of their pagan neighbours among others. Yet, the Lord was still willing to forgive them and was willing to be reconciled with them.

Now, let us bring our attention to the Gospel passage today in which we heard about the Lord Jesus and His encounter with a Samaritan woman at a place named Sychar, in the land of the Samaritans. At that time, the Samaritans were at odds with the Jewish people in Judea and Galilee, and this enmity has occurred for several centuries by the time of Jesus’ ministry. The Samaritans were the descendants of the people who were settled in the region named Samaria after the old capital of the northern kingdom of Israel after the Assyrians destroyed that kingdom and brought most of its people into exile.

The Samaritans were therefore a mixture of peoples, with both descent from the Israelites through the people of the northern kingdom of Israel and those people who have been resettled from various origins by the Assyrians. The Jewish people, to whom the Lord Jesus and His disciples belonged to, were the descendants of the people of Judah, the southern kingdom which had been in conflict and rivalry against the northern kingdom of Israel. Therefore, the enmity and troubles between the Samaritans and the Jews had originated for many centuries.

The Samaritans and the Jews argued that they were the righteous and chosen people of God, as mentioned in today’s Gospel, the differences in viewpoints as the Samaritans argued that their ancestors’ practice of offering sacrifices on the mountains of Bethel or Ephraim was the right and legal way of worship, which had originated since as early as the earliest days of the division between Israel and Judah, over a thousand years earlier. the Jews argued that worship must be conducted at the Temple in Jerusalem, in the tradition of Solomon’s Temple which King Solomon built in that city.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, how are all these linked to what we have heard about the disobedience of God’s people earlier on? This is because the Jews at the time of Jesus often looked down and were very discriminatory against the Samaritans. The Jews were very proud of their status as the direct descendants of the Israelites of old, those same Israelites who were led by God out of Egypt in their Exodus. They saw the Samaritans as pagans and people who were unworthy, ungodly and wicked, and henceforth, ought to be despised and ostracised.

The Jews thought that they were guaranteed salvation and God’s inheritance because of their heritage, but they failed to realise that being the sons and daughters of Abraham and Israel alone were not good enough reason for them to become worthy and righteous before God. And the Lord Jesus showed it all through His words and interactions with the Samaritan woman, whom, in the terms of that day’s society, was among the lowest of all people. She was a Samaritan, prejudiced against as I elaborated earlier on, and she was also a woman, who was regarded as inferior to men. And her background of not being legally married, and having cohabitated in the past would have made her to be even less respected.

As the disciples of Jesus showed us, it was most bewildering to them that Jesus, their Master, a Jew, would be in such close proximity to a Samaritan, less still a woman, and being engaged in such a deep conversation with her. That was why the Lord revealed to them that the Lord does not distinguish His people in the manner that they have been divided against each other, being prejudiced against other people and thinking of themselves as being better than others based on their own prejudices and narrow mindsets.

The Lord loves all of us equally and He treats us all equally without any prejudices. As long as we are willing to embrace Him and His love, He will give us all the blessings intended for us, and through Christ, His Son, make us all to be His adopted sons and daughters. This is because Christ, the Son of God, has willingly entered into our world and assumed our human existence in the flesh, born as the Son of Man, and by sharing that humanity with us, we also share His connection with the Father. We call God, our heavenly Father because of this.

Our Lord Jesus showed us all that God’s love and forgiveness are extended to all of us mankind, and even to the worst of sinners, like that of the Samaritan woman, to whom the Lord Who knew her sins, offered the living water found in Him, essentially offering her forgiveness and reconciliation, and the fullness of grace by her faith in Him. And now, the Lord wants us all to reflect carefully on our way of living our lives, and how we live our lives together with all those who are around us, whether we want to be like the Jews and the Samaritans, who were prejudiced against each other, or whether we want to work together to be more faithful and help each other to be more committed to God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we are all called to renew our love and devotion to God, just as He has loved us all so much all these while despite all the terrible attitude, doubts, disobedience, and rebelliousness we have showed and committed in our lives. We must remember how God still provided for His people, the Israelites, for a total of over forty years throughout their time journeying towards the Promised Land. Despite all their constant actions in angering God and in betraying Him, God still sent them manna and food without fail, and provided drinking water in the desert.

If God loves us all so much despite our imperfections and sins, then why can’t we also do the same to our fellow brothers and sisters? Whenever we look down on anyone, or are prejudiced or biased against anyone, or whenever we think that we are better or more worthy than others, or when we are angry against certain people or are unhappy and even hating them, then we should keep in mind what the Lord has done to us, forgiving and loving us sinners, as St. Paul said in our second reading today, even when we are still so wicked, imperfect, terrible and in such a corrupted state.

This season of Lent, as we go forward in living our lives, let us all discern and strive to be more like God, to love the way He has loved us, to be more forgiving upon one another just as He has forgiven us, to be more patient with each other, with our spouses, children, parents, family members, friends and even those who we disagree and are unhappy with, just as the Lord has been so patient with us all these while. Let us all make this blessed season of Lent meaningful and fruitful to us all, and be closer to God, through our deeper appreciation of His love, through healthy prayer life and deepening of our spiritual life, and through our charity and acts of love to our fellow brethen. May God bless us all, now and always. Amen.

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Sunday, 15 March 2020 : Third Sunday of Lent (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

John 4 : 5-42

At that time, Jesus came to a Samaritan town called Sychar, near the land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well is there. Tired from His journey, Jesus sat down by the well; it was about noon. Now a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” His disciples had just gone into town to buy some food.

The Samaritan woman said to Him, “How is it that You, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan and a woman, for a drink?” (For Jews, in fact, have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus replied, “If you only knew the gift of God! If you knew Who it is, Who is asking you for a drink, you yourself would have asked Me, and I would have given you living water.”

The woman answered, “Sir, You have no bucket, and this well is deep; where is Your living water? Are You greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us this well, and drank from it himself, together with his sons and his cattle?” Jesus said to her, “Those who drink of this water will be thirsty again; but those, who drink of the water that I shall give, will never be thirsty; for the water, that I shall give, will become in them a spring of water, welling up to eternal life.”

The woman said to Him, “Give me this water, that I may never be thirsty, and never have to come here to draw water.” Jesus said, “Go, call your husband, and come back here.” The woman answered, “I have no husband.” And Jesus replied, “You are right to say, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you said is true.”

The woman then said to Him, “I see You are a Prophet; tell me this : Our ancestors came to this mountain to worship God; but you Jews, do you not claim that Jerusalem is the only place to worship God?” Jesus said to her, “Believe Me, woman, the hour is coming when you shall worship the Father, but that will not be on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.”

“You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, because salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is even now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for that is the kind of worshippers the Father wants. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit, and truth.”

The woman said to Him, “I know that the Messiah (that is the Christ) is coming. When He comes, He will tell us everything.” And Jesus said, “I Who am talking to you, I am He.”

At this point the disciples returned, and were surprised that Jesus was speaking with a woman, however, no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are You talking with her?” So the woman left her water jar and ran to the town. There she said to the people, “Come and see a Man Who told me everything I did! Could He not be the Christ?” So they left the town and went to meet Him.

In the meantime the disciples urged Jesus, “Master, eat.” But He said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” And the disciples wondered, “Has anyone brought Him food?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of the One Who sent Me, and to carry out His work.”

“You say that in four months there will be the harvest; now, I say to you, look up and see the fields white and ready for harvesting. People who reap the harvest are paid for their work, and the fruit is gathered for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. Indeed the saying holds true : One sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap where you did not work or suffer; others have worked, and you are now sharing in their labours.”

In that town many Samaritans believed in Him when they heard the woman who declared, “He told me everything I did.” So, when they came to Him, they asked Him to stay with them, and Jesus stayed there two days. After that, many more believed because of His own words, and they said to the woman, “We no longer believe because of what you told us: we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is the Saviour of the world.”

Alternative reading (shorter version)

John 4 : 5-15, 19b-26, 39a, 40-42

At that time, Jesus came to a Samaritan town called Sychar, near the land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well is there. Tired from His journey, Jesus sat down by the well; it was about noon. Now a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” His disciples had just gone into town to buy some food.

The Samaritan woman said to Him, “How is it that You, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan and a woman, for a drink?” (For Jews, in fact, have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus replied, “If you only knew the gift of God! If you knew Who it is, Who is asking you for a drink, you yourself would have asked Me, and I would have given you living water.”

The woman answered, “Sir, You have no bucket, and this well is deep; where is Your living water? Are You greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us this well, and drank from it himself, together with his sons and his cattle?” Jesus said to her, “Those who drink of this water will be thirsty again; but those, who drink of the water that I shall give, will never be thirsty; for the water, that I shall give, will become in them a spring of water, welling up to eternal life.”

The woman said to Him, “Give me this water, that I may never be thirsty, and never have to come here to draw water. I see You are a Prophet; tell me this : Our ancestors came to this mountain to worship God; but you Jews, do you not claim that Jerusalem is the only place to worship God?” Jesus said to her, “Believe Me, woman, the hour is coming when you shall worship the Father, but that will not be on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.”

“You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, because salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is even now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for that is the kind of worshippers the Father wants. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit, and truth.”

The woman said to Him, “I know that the Messiah (that is the Christ) is coming. When He comes, He will tell us everything.” And Jesus said, “I Who am talking to you, I am He.”

In that town many Samaritans believed in Him, so, when they came to Him, they asked Him to stay with them, and Jesus stayed there two days. After that, many more believed because of His own words, and they said to the woman, “We no longer believe because of what you told us: we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is the Saviour of the world.”

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Sunday, 15 March 2020 : Third Sunday of Lent (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Romans 5 : 1-2, 5-8

By faith we have received true righteousness, and we are at peace with God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Through Him we obtain this favour in which we remain and we even boast to expect the Glory of God.

And hope does not disappoint us because the Holy Spirit has been given to us, pouring into our hearts the love of God. Consider, moreover, the time that Christ died for us : when we were still helpless and unable to do anything.

Few would accept to die for an upright person; although, for a very good person, perhaps someone would dare to die. But see how God manifested His love for us : while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

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Sunday, 15 March 2020 : Third Sunday of Lent (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Psalm 94 : 1-2, 6-7, 8-9

Come, let us sing to the Lord, let us make a joyful sound to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before Him giving thanks, with music and songs of praise.

Come and worship; let us bow down, kneel before the Lord, our Maker. He is our God, and we His people; the flock He leads and pastures. Would that today you heard His voice!

Do not be stubborn, as at Meribah, in the desert, on that day at Massah, when your ancestors challenged Me, and they put Me to the test.

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Sunday, 15 March 2020 : Third Sunday of Lent (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Exodus 17 : 3-7

But the people thirsted for water at Rephidim and grumbled against Moses, “Why did you make us leave Egypt to have us die of thirst with our children and our cattle?”

So Moses cried to YHVH, “What shall I do with the people? They are almost ready to stone me!” YHVH said to Moses, “Go ahead of the people and take with you the elders of Israel. Take with you the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will stand there before you on the rock at Horeb. You will strike the rock and water will flow from it and the people will drink.”

Moses did this in the presence of the elders of Israel. The place was called Massah and Meribah because of the complaints of the Israelites, who tested YHVH saying, “Is YHVH with us or not?”

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Sunday, 8 March 2020 : Second Sunday of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday, the second one in the season of Lent, we are all called to listen to God’s will and heed His calling. Indeed, today’s Scripture readings are focused on one important aspect of our faith and our lives, and that is to respond and answer God’s call in our lives. God has called all of us His people to follow Him just as He has called many of our predecessors in the past, and for those who followed Him and walked in His path, God would bless them and guide them to righteousness.

In our first reading today, we heard of the Lord’s calling of a man named Abram from the land of Ur in southern part of Mesopotamia in what is today southern Iraq. This man seemed to appear from nowhere, suddenly making its appearance in the Scripture in the Book of Genesis. But this was the man whom God had called and chosen, for God Who knows the heart and mind can see that Abram had faith in Him and was a righteous and obedient person.

And God called Abram to follow Him with the promises that He swore before him, that He would make Abram to be a great nation, blessed and presented by the grace of God. God promised that the name of Abram would be blessed and great, and He would bless all those who bless him and curse all those who curse him. Such were the promises that God had given to Abram, and Abram believed in God fully and completely, leaving his ancestral family and lands behind, and walked with God to the land of Canaan.

God called Abram to an unknown wilderness and an uncertainty. Abram had a lot of property, amazing connections and things he definitely enjoyed in his ancestral homeland in Ur. But Abram chose trust in God and left his past behind him, and walked with Him to the land which God promised that He would give to him and his descendants. Abram trusted and had faith in God, committed himself and his descendants to a Covenant which God would make and seal with him.

The Covenant that God made with Abram, who was then known as Abraham, had been renewed again and again, and Abraham became the father of many nations as God has promised. Through his sons Isaac and Ishmael, many nations including the Israelites called Abraham as their father and ancestor, and ultimately, by the last renewal of the Covenant by none other than Christ Himself, all of us who believe in Christ, also call Abraham our father, as our father in faith. For like us who answer God’s call, Abraham was the first to respond to that call, and we follow in his footsteps.

In our second reading today, we heard from the Epistle of St. Paul to St. Timothy who reminded us as Christians again about what our Christian calling is all about. God has called on all of us through Christ to serve Him and to be witnesses of His truth and His Gospels. We are all called to holiness to serve the Lord through obedience to His Law and to His will and commandments, and to listen to what He has called and taught us to do, as we heard in our Gospel passage today on the account of the Transfiguration of Our Lord.

Through the occasion of the Transfiguration at Mount Tabor mentioned in our Gospel passage today, as the Lord Jesus was glorified and appeared before three of His disciples, St. Peter, St. James and St. John in His fullness of glory and divinity, together with Moses and Elijah, essentially God has revealed through them to us, that by sending Jesus Christ, God’s own beloved Son into this world, He has called us all yet once again, to follow Him and to forge that new and everlasting Covenant with us.

It was revealed at the moment of the Transfiguration that Christ was not just merely a Man, but also the Son of God. In the person of Jesus Christ, Saviour of the world or the Messiah, was two distinct yet inseparable natures of Man and Divine, through which Christ would then seal and make a new Covenant with all of us that will last forever. This refers to the Covenant that He made through His Passion, His suffering and death on the Cross. By this Covenant, all of us are made to be sons and daughters of God, and we are made sharers of God’s inheritance and glory.

What then happened at the Transfiguration and what is its significance for us, brothers and sisters in Christ? This is where then we need to pay attention to how the Transfiguration of the Lord revealed to us what we ought to do as Christians, in how we ought to be living our lives and our faith from now on. In that occasion, we heard how St. Peter suggested to the Lord Jesus that they ought to build three tents for Him, for Moses and Elijah, reason being that it was so wonderful and glorious to be up there in the mountain in the sight and presence of God’s glory.

Certainly, the Lord was tempted by that offer, for He clearly knew what He was about to do in order to establish the New Covenant with all of us. He clearly knew that He had to suffer terribly, bear the burdens of our sins on His Cross, to be rejected and treated terribly and humiliated by His enemies, and finally to suffer and eventually die a most painful death as a condemned and humiliated criminal on the Cross for everyone to see. Who would not have wanted to avoid such a fate?

But the Lord resisted that temptation, just as He had resisted the three temptations of Satan mentioned in our Gospel passage from last Sunday’s readings. And God then came over all the three disciples, reminding them to listen to the One He had sent into this world to be its Saviour. Essentially, through this, God has called on His people again to trust in Him and to follow Him in the path that He has shown us and which He Himself had walked.

I refer to the fact that the Lord Jesus chose willingly to descend from Mount Tabor and leave behind His glorious moments there, and walking down, heading eventually towards Jerusalem where He was to suffer and die. We can see here a clear parallel between Abraham and Jesus, in how both chose to follow the path that God has presented to them, with Abraham following God and obeying Him as he journeyed and dwelled in the Promised Land, while the Lord Jesus obeyed His heavenly Father’s will, and fulfil the mission which He has been entrusted with, through the Cross.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, now as I mentioned earlier, all of us have also been called to follow God and to obey His will. And looking from the examples I mentioned earlier, when we are called by God to follow Him, often the outlook and the path forward may seem to be uncertain and unknown to us, as compared to what we are now having in life. And the devil is always ready to strike at us, persuading and tempting us to stay put and not to follow the Lord, but instead to remain in our comfort zone.

During this season of Lent in particular, we are all called to reexamine our lives, how we have lived them thus far and think and discern of how we are going to proceed forward in life. Are we able to discern carefully what we are going to do with our lives from now on, brothers and sisters in Christ? God has called us to follow Him, but are we willing to put in the effort to follow Him and to put our trust in Him, in whichever directions that He is going to lead us to?

Let us all therefore make good use of this season of Lent, to detach ourselves from the excessive attachments we have to the many comforts in life, and to restrain ourselves from succumbing to our many desires, lusts, greed, ambition among other things that prevented us from truly living our lives as righteous and faithful Christians. Let us all spend more time with God, through prayer and through fasting and abstinence, that we may turn our attention and focus back towards Him and away from the temptations of this world.

Let us also be more generous and loving in our interactions with our fellow brothers and sisters, especially to all those who are marginalised, rejected by others, weak and poor, sick and dying. Let us all be more charitable and loving, following the examples that Our Lord Himself has shown and taught us. In doing so, we are doing what St. Paul had told us in his Epistle of our second reading today, to live our lives with holiness and to respond to God’s call with faith. For it is by showing love to one another that everyone may know that we are God’s beloved people.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, are we willing to follow God more closely this season of Lent going forward? Are we able to make the commitment to change our way of life that from now on we will become more faithful, more trusting in God, more obedient to His will and more loving in all of our actions in life, first of all towards God and then towards our fellow brothers and sisters, particularly those who are in need of our help and love, our care and attention?

May the Lord, our loving Father and Creator, Who has shown us His eternal and infinite love through His gift of His Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ to be our Saviour, always be with us through the trials and difficult moments of our lives that we may always remain faithful in Him throughout our journey of faith, and that we may grow ever more faithful and loving towards Him with each and every passing moments in our lives. May God bless us always, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Sunday, 8 March 2020 : Second Sunday of Lent (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Matthew 17 : 1-9

At that time, six days after Jesus predicted His own death, He took with Him Peter and James and his brother John, and led them up a high mountain, where they were alone. Jesus’ appearance was changed before them : His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became bright as light. Just then Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Jesus.

Peter spoke and said to Jesus, “Master, it is good that we are here. If You wish, I will make three tents : one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” Peter was still speaking, when a bright cloud covered them with its shadow, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is My Son, the Beloved, My Chosen One. Listen to Him.”

On hearing the voice, the disciples fell to the ground, full of fear. But Jesus came, touched them and said, “Stand up, do not be afraid.” When they raised their eyes, they no longer saw anyone except Jesus. And as they came down the mountain, Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone what they had just seen, until the Son of Man be raised from the dead.