STM Homily | Fr. Joseph MacNeill | March 1, 2026

Let me begin, brothers and sisters in Christ, by sort of addressing the elephant in the room, maybe the elephant in the chapel, we might call it today. Does anybody feel this morning as you come to mass, as you made your way through the snow, as you found your spot in the pew, as we've begun to pray? Does anyone's spirit feel a little bit downtrodden during these days? I could ask for a show of hands, maybe, but I imagine most hands would go up. Do our spirits need to be uplifted today?

Maybe your spirit is a bit downtrodden because of, I don't know, maybe the news feed the last couple days. Maybe the students out there. Your spirit is downtrodden. I've heard it day in and day out last couple of weeks because of midterm season and all the papers and the projects that you have to get done before you get on a flight to who knows where after next week.

Maybe you're a bit downtrodden. Others of us, because it's lent and some of us don't quite like lent very much. And here we are, just the second Sunday in, and already you feel like you've fallen and fallen and fallen again and again with your plan. Remember Ash Wednesday, I said, have a plan for the season of lent. Maybe you're already feeling like my plan is not really working out, and we still have a lot of lent to go. Maybe you're downtrodden in your spirit because it's March first and it's snowing again. Whatever the reason, I think we all come to mass today with perhaps a spirit that's a bit troubled. And many of us are coming here today looking to find a message of hope. Right. That's what we want to hear from the gospel today.

Well, if that's the case for you, it's probably the case for all of us who are here this morning. You're in luck, brothers and sisters, did you hear the gospel passage today that we hear every second Sunday of Lent? Because we need to hear it. The church tells us every second Sunday of Lent, as we're in this period, that sometimes troubles our souls. We heard this wonderful story of the Transfiguration of the Lord.

What's the point of this story if we go back in time, put ourselves in the shoes of those apostles as they experience this moment? What's the point of the Transfiguration? Well, think about what happened just before this wonderful passage we heard proclaimed. Imagine this you're the apostles. You're following Jesus. He's called you to follow him day in and day out. He's performed miracles. He's gathering thousands of people to him. It seems like he has everything going for him. This Jesus. And then what does he do? Again, just before this passage we heard today. What does he do? The most peculiar of things. As it seems that everything is going for him. What does he do? He turns the apostles and says, you know what's going to happen to me? I'm going to go to Jerusalem. I'm going to be betrayed, Handed over to the authorities, mocked, scourged, beaten, bruised and crucified.

Can you imagine the confusion and consternation in the hearts of those apostles? What could he possibly be talking about? He's got everything going for him. The world is coming to him, and now he wants to go to Jerusalem, to be crucified and to die. A bit of that confusion in the apostles was also selfishness, because they're thinking, what's going to happen to me if my master is going to end up like that? So their hearts, right before this passage are troubled, probably far more troubled than our hearts are this morning because they're thinking about what could happen to them. They're troubled, their spirit is downtrodden.

And what does Jesus do? Does he just leave them in that spirit of despondency? Does he allow their souls to feel downtrodden and just move on with his journey? No. What does he do again in this very peculiar, Jesus like fashion. What does he do? He takes Jesus. Sorry, Peter. I should say Peter, James and John, the three leaders of the apostles. What does he do? He goes up on a high mountain. If anyone's been to the Holy Land. Have you been to Mount Tabor? Anybody? You know? It's a high mountain. It's about two thousand feet high. Takes well over an hour to climb up the mountain. There's some rocky outcroppings, some steep parts. You have to claw and climb your way up. So imagine that they're walking up about an hour, up about two thousand feet of steep cliff. They get to the top not knowing what's happening.

And just as they're admiring Peter, James and John, the wonderful view of the Jezreel Valley, you can see the Sea of Galilee from one direction as well, just as they're admiring that wonderful view. What happens? They almost miss it at first. Jesus is transfigured before them. His face, his hair, his his body, his his clothing. Everything becomes dazzling white, glowing with this luminous light. And they're amazed.

Now, what's happening with this passage? In a certain sense, Jesus is lifting the veil of his humanity and showing them who he really is the Messiah, the son of the living God, one in being with the father. He's also giving them a glimpse, a foretaste of the resurrection. He's reminding them, even though I will have to undergo all of that, what awaits at the end is resurrection, eternal life, heavenly glory.

And what a wonderful moment. Peter and his humanity is so dazzled by the sight, so transfixed by the transfiguration, that he cries out, let's just build a home here and stay on this mountaintop forever, because we love the light of your glory. That's the temptation we all feel sometimes to stay in that place of glory. The glimpse of glory the Lord gives us. We want to stay there. We don't want to go back down the mountain.

But what happens? The voice of the father interrupts. Peter, cuts him off in his tracks and says, no, no, you're not in charge here. You don't call the shots. Listen. The voice says to him, meaning Jesus, follow him. Yes, you have this glimpse of glory now on the mountain top, this mountaintop moment. But now you must go back down the mountain to Jerusalem, to everything that that will bring.

So, friends, perhaps we need a mountain top experience, a moment, a glimpse of glory. To renew our hearts, to lift up our troubled spirits. If we're in search of that, we find it here today at mass. The mass is for us, I would say, our mountain top moment. This meeting place of heaven and earth. When we behold the transfigured Jesus in the Eucharist, the transubstantiation of the Eucharist, the real presence of Jesus on the altar that we receive into our hearts is much like the transfigured Christ beheld by those apostles on the mountaintop. We receive here, we believe, as Catholic Christians in the mass a foretaste of heavenly glory as we behold Christ, as we hear the angelic strains of wonderful music. We have an experience in this space of heaven.

And maybe for some of us, like Peter, we'd like to just be able to stay here all our lives. Wouldn't it be great to just pitch a tent here in the chapel and just live at STM? We have some students that like to do that in our center, which is great. Sometimes there's a temptation to want to just cling to this moment of glory that we experience when we come to mass here, as we're lifted up in our spirit.

But Jesus the Lord, the voice from heaven tells us today, take it all in. Be uplifted in your spirit today. But then have to go back down the mountain. Back out there in the world where there's troubling news and there are exams and tests and there's lent and all the self-denial that that brings. But having been fed here, we go out renewed and refreshed to take on all those challenges with a new sense of spirit and nourishment.

So, brothers and sisters, as we draw closer and closer at this mass to Christ transfigured Transubstantiated present in the Eucharist, we pray that he might grant each one of us who feed upon him this day the strength, the grace, the courage to face all that may come with the strength that comes from him.