Moments of self-giving

Moments of self-giving

The transfiguration was an awe-inspiring experience of God’s presence for Jesus and for His disciples. It was an incredible show of divine support, grace and inspiration at the time when Jesus faced the most trying period of his life: the decision to offer Himself for our salvation through His own passion and death. The illumination of this experience would carry Him through the dark days of confusion, insecurity and terror that would come after this encounter with the Other. Jesus received the affirmation of his mission to give himself up from the great figures of his tradition, representing the law and the prophets.

The transfiguration was one of those moments when Jesus took time out of His hectic ministry to go on a mountain to assess His relationship with His Father. It was one of those breaks that proved to be a time for renewal of commitment to His Father to love and to serve. It was one of His times of prayer: to listen to God’s will in His life and to resolve to give rather than receive.

All of us need some graced memories or God-filled experiences to recall or return to when faced with difficulty and challenge in our journey of faith.

These graced-filled experiences or God-moments can inspire us and carry us through the darkness and difficulty of our trying periods of our journey. Our own stories of struggle in the faith can sustain us in our trials and tribulations. These God-moments may not approximate Christ’s transfiguration on a mountaintop, but their significance can help us in efforts to do God’s will when we recognize and acknowledge it in our prayer and discernment. These moments are marked with self-giving and generosity that fulfill the deepest hunger of our soul.

All grace-filled memories or God-filled experiences are times when we realize giving ourselves to others in the spirit of self-sacrifice and true love. These are moments when we imitate God’s generosity and love which embody the essence of our personal commitment to Christ who gave himself up for our freedom from sin and death. Our struggling efforts to offer ourselves to God and others can be transformed into meaningful faith experiences by returning to our graced-filled memories when we experienced God’s love and presence in our lives.

Our spirit of self-giving gives us a sense of fulfillment that is rooted in the gospel value of offering our life in order to gain it, to give in order to receive, to die to oneself in order to secure our eternal life. By sharing in Christ’s brokenness in the Eucharist, we can be transfigured and transformed into God’s holy people. Like God’s covenant with Abraham, our father in the faith, with bodies broken and eaten by God in bright fire, our covenant with God requires that we offer our lives to be broken for others in acts of giving, sharing and serving.