Five years ago, the COVID-19 pandemic locked us down and disrupted much of our lives. We can still see the effects it has had on the social fabric of our communities and wonder what it means going forward.
While it may be easier to remember what was lost during the pandemic, for some it was a time of being found. I remember one young man recalling the pain of not being able to visit his ailing grandfather before he died. And yet, this dark experience became a moment of light and clarity for him in finding his own purpose in life. His loss called him to go beyond himself and toward healing others. He went into medical school.
Moments of light and clarity arrive in some of the darkest hours of life. Many biblical figures and saints recalled their own moments of light in times of sickness and sin, war and death, darkness and doubt. The moment of light elevated them beyond their present moment of pain to see God’s call. They could see their lives having eternal value and purpose beyond themselves. This kind of light realigned their priorities and commitments. Some of our most profound spiritual experiences can also begin in the dark. These are the transfigured moments of hope.
When Abram struggled to understand God’s plan for his descendants, God told him to look up into the sky and see if he could count the stars. In that moment, Abram’s life was transfigured and he put his hope in God to fulfill that promise. Abram began to see that his life had value far beyond his understanding and even his lifetime. He started to live in that hope beyond the stars.
Hope moves us beyond ourselves to trust in God’s word and transform the current moment. I’m reminded of a line from the poem “The Rainy Day” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: “Be still, sad heart! and cease repining; Behind the clouds is the sun still shining.” When we put our hope in the Lord, it means to trust beyond the present darkness to something more.
This was true for the disciples when they saw Jesus transfigured in glory after he predicted his death on the cross. Rejection, suffering and death would come, but they could trust his word that beyond the darkness of the cross the resurrection was sill shining. Hope and patience are often very close to each other because we may not see the glory in our timing. And yet living in hope can reorient and give meaning to our lives in this moment.
One person transfigured by hope who launched a movement was Chiara Lubich. In 1943, Chiara was huddled in a bomb shelter with a few friends as Allied planes bombed her town in Italy. As she prayed in the dark and read the Gospel in candlelight, she had a moment of clarity from Jesus’ hope that “all may be one” (Jn 17:11). She said it became clear that this was her call: to bring unity through God’s love and healing to the world. She believed she was born to live this verse of the Bible.
Soon after gathering with others, Lubich had a moment of clarity that God’s love shines brightly through Jesus on the cross forsaken. These young women began to seek out “Jesus forsaken” in the world. “From that moment on,” Lubich later wrote, “we seemed to discover his countenance everywhere.” They saw the forsaken Christ in the wounds of the people they served. They saw him in each other and in themselves.
This transfigured moment launched the Focolare Movement, which is present in 183 countries today. Lubich gave her life to this hope until she died in 2008, and this hope continues beyond her. Her cause for sainthood was opened in 2015.
Let us be pilgrims of hope. Let us trust that behind the clouds the sun is still shining. Beyond the sun, the stars are still shining. Beyond the stars, heaven is still shining, and we are citizens of heaven called to live in this world. And beyond the bread and the wine that we share in the Eucharist, Christ’s presence shines through to us as the mystery of faith — Christ dying and rising. We wait in hope till he comes again in glory.
Deacon Friesen is director of the Center for Mission, which supports missionary outreach for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. He can be reached at friesenm@archspm.org.
