Reflections on the Sunday Readings for 3/08/09 by Dawn

You can find the full Scripture Readings for this Sunday at http://www.usccb.org/nab/readings/030809.shtml

Jesus took Peter, James, and John
and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves...
Then Peter said to Jesus in reply,
"Rabbi, it is good that we are here!
Let us make three tents:
one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah."
Mark 9:2, 5

Have you ever said something similar to God? Perhaps when you were on retreat, or during Eucharistic Adoration - a time when you felt so close to the Holy, to God. There have been a few times in my life that I, like Peter in today's Gospel, asked God if I could stay in that place forever. You feel so at peace, and have no need to speak, you just want to sit and be in the Presence. Thankfully God gives us those times in our life, and they are always just when we need them.

Unfortunately, though, like Peter, James and John, we have to come down from the mountain. One time I was talking about this with a friend of mine. We had just been on a retreat that was incredibly powerful. As I was whining about having to go back to real life and leave the "mountain-top high", he pointed out that when you look out in nature, there's usually not too much vegetation on the top of a mountain. It's usually sparse, and rocky, but as you go further down the mountain there starts to be more and more trees and plants, and the valleys and plains are filled with growth. It's the same for us - those times of being so close to the Holy are awesome, because there's no trees (distractions) for us we can usually see pretty far in the distance, but it's in the valleys and the plains (the ordinariness of our lives) that we grow.

Seeing as this Sunday is the Feast of the Transfiguration, many churches will be singing "'Tis Good Lord to Be Here". The last verse of this hymn is what we need to walk away with:

’Tis good, Lord, to be here.
Yet we may not remain;
But since you bid us leave the mount,
Come with us to the plain.

We need to remember that when we leave those mountain tops, we, again like Peter, James and John, don't go down the mountain alone. Jesus walks down into the valleys and plains with us.



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