PRIEST: In today’s celebration, we are appalled by Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son, while thrilled with the glory transfiguring Jesus on the mountain! But we human beings carry both the evil and the glory within us. As we join the apostles on the Mountain of the Transfiguration, to behold the Glory of God, the glory that each of us carries deep within our being, we know that we are all created in God’s image and likeness. Let us cry out for mercy for a world that sacrifices its young so easily through war and poverty! Let us seek never to obscure God’s glory within us, by our sin, our lack of love, our self-centredness. May God transfigure by his mercy our poor love into a new and deeper well-spring of divine love.
READER: For the times when God calls us as he called Abraham
and we refuse to leave our security,
refuse to follow him, we fail to trust him
Lord have mercy…
For the times when the demands of our faith seem too much
and we avoid the hardships of deeper commitment
Christ have mercy…
For the times we have not reverenced or believed
in ourselves or each other;
for failing to transfigure our world
in the power of His love within us
Lord have mercy…
PRIEST: May God our Father speak his words of forgiveness and love to our hearts;
May the Transfigured Christ transform the darkness of our sin
into the glory of His love;
May the Holy Spirit be the light of compassion and mercy in our hearts,
and bring us to everlasting life…
AMEN!