Transforming Fear into Joy

Julián Carrón - We, too, like the disciples, often find ourselves in fear, troubled by our worries, and full of doubt in the face of the challenges that life does not spare us. Faced with these situations, the question strikes us: can we attain the certainty of the disciples, who transformed their fear into joy, or are we condemned to postpone certainty to some future time in history because we do not believe, as they did, that a certainty such as that of the Easter stories can happen in history? 

We all know that without certainty we are always in anxiety, determined by the fear of losing something we love, something meaningful, by the fear of time passing, by the lack of tenderness towards ourselves, because the measure of our anxiety prevails. How many things clutter our minds every day? All this leads to such existential insecurity that it leads us to the conviction that the true peace of which Jesus speaks, that present, deep peace that frees us from the worries that clutter our days, is unattainable because there is always some shadow that dominates, that clutters the mind. 

The resurrection stories are striking because they testify to another possibility that is within reach for ordinary people like us, of the people, so much so that we long for it. Only a living, resurrected presence, one that has conquered death, can bring us, by grace, to what seems to us an unattainable goal.

What makes it possible? His living presence. Here. Now. As the French poet Charles Péguy said:

"He is here./ He is here as on the first day. [...] It is the same story, exactly the same, eternally the same, that happened in that time and in that land, and that happens every day for all eternity". (From: The Mystery of the Charity of Joan of Arc)

Only his living presence, received in the simplicity of faith, can make possible for us what we see in the disciples, giving substance to ourselves, so fragile and often at the mercy of everything because it fills life with joy and security.

A unique initiative

"It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. All the attempts of the wise men of old could not reach the goal of overcoming the distance that separated God from man. Then the Lord takes a unique, singular initiative, asking the Son if he is willing to take a body. "You did not like burnt offerings, sacrifices or offerings. Instead, you have prepared a body for me. [Then I said, 'Behold, I have come to do your will, O God.'" This acceptance by the Son is the origin of the announcement made to Mary. For the Son to take a body, he needs a woman. 

Therefore, the whole plan for Mary is intimately linked to God's plan to have a Son who would definitively overcome the distance that separates God from man. "Rejoice, Mary, the Lord is with you" is the announcement made to this promised bride. All the preference for the fulfillment of His plan happens in this 15-16-year-old girl who is invested by this total preference of the mystery. From that moment on, her whole life will be determined by this promise: "The Lord is with you," never more true! Therefore - "Do not be afraid, for you have found the grace of God" - her whole life will be determined by having "found grace with God". God's deigning to look at a person is the greatest sign of His freedom; it is the greatest sign of His preference for that person.

From that moment on, this girl will have to do nothing but what He says: "Let it happen in me according to Your Word. For Mary, "according to His Word" means that once she accepts the Son, she will no longer have to imagine anything, she will no longer have to follow any thought, because the only one she will have to follow is that Son through whom the Mystery makes things happen. And the Son will have nothing more to say than that he lives by the Father's will: "I have done nothing but fulfill the Father's will. 

This fulfillment of the Father's will by the Son will lead this Mother to stand before God's plan for His Son in such a way that she, too, will be able to follow Him. This ever-closer union, which will lead her through all the moments of her Son's life up to his death and resurrection, will make her a partaker of his victory in the Ascension. Everything is simple, only one thing is needed, and that is what Elizabeth says to Mary: "Blessed are you who have believed, for what the Lord has told you will come to pass".

Nothing like this

Peter, James, and John were drawn to Jesus from the beginning. From the first day, they were so caught up in the awe of his unique presence that, as the Gospel tells us, they could not help but follow him the next day and the day after that and never stopped. Each day they became more and more attached to this person who had suddenly appeared in their lives. They were impressed by his authority, different from that of the scribes, which made their humanity vibrate with an intensity they had never experienced before. 

They were amazed by his miracles and by his gaze, which was able to embrace each of them in such a profound way that they were left open-mouthed and exclaimed: "We have never seen anything like this! (Mark 2:12). But they had not yet seen what awaited them; the best was yet to come. They had gotten up that day, as they did every other day, to visit him, but on this day, Jesus had prepared a unique surprise for them beyond anything they could have imagined.

"Jesus took Peter, James, and John with him. Among all the other apostles, Jesus took the three with him, one by one, calling them by name: Peter, James, John. Jesus is not afraid to dare to choose some of them, even among those already chosen. He does not care what others think, he does not let himself be determined by the judgment of others. His freedom is unique. Who knows where this unique freedom comes from? "He led them," the text continues, "to a high mountain, where they were alone. Jesus takes them to a high mountain, away from the noise of daily life, as when one chooses the most appropriate place for an important communication. The choice of place had some unusual surprises. In their tradition, the mountain was a particularly significant place, just think of Mount Sinai. 

These were places chosen by God to communicate and reveal something particularly important, so it is not hard to imagine that Peter, James, and John were already in a state of anxiety, pacing around and thinking about what their friend was going to prepare. But their imaginations are overtaken by the facts when Jesus "was transfigured before them, and his garments became glorious, very white: no laundry on earth could make them so white.

St. Matthew says: "His face shone like the sun, and his garments were white as the light" (Mt 17:2). Only Luke adds that all this happened while Jesus was praying. If, from the beginning, they were so attracted to Jesus that they could not release themselves, now this attraction has reached frightening limits. "Peter took the floor and said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three huts, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. We know it well when something so unique happens to us that takes us completely, we never want it to end.

In that moment it is revealed in their experience that life is to stay there with Him, never to separate from Jesus again. It is also given to Peter, James, and John for us, according to God's method of giving it to someone so that through him it can come to others and slowly to everyone. If Christ is not a presence now, as he was for them, a present presence that takes us all, our life cannot be conquered and we are at the mercy of everything, like stray mines. 

If You, O Christ, are not a real presence, as You were for Peter, James, and John, my "I", my person, cannot reach the fullness that You bring to the world. In the climax of this event, we are offered the key to understanding this exceptionalism that bound them together from the beginning and that is now revealed. "And there came a cloud, and covered them with its shadow, and out of the cloud came a voice, saying, 'This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him.'" In the Transfiguration, Jesus wanted to reveal to Peter, James and John the source of all that they had already seen in their daily lives and that had filled them with wonder. Now they see it in all its splendor. 

"The transfiguration is an event of prayer; what happens in Jesus' dialog with the Father becomes visible: the intimate interpenetration of his being with God, which becomes pure light. In his oneness with the Father, Jesus himself is light from light. What he is in his inmost being - and what Peter had tried to say in his confession - is at this moment also made perceptible to the senses: Jesus' being in the light of God, his own being light as Son". (J. Ratzinger-Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, p. 357).

His Father is the inexhaustible source of his diversity, of the newness that shines before them. His relationship with the Father, his being Son, is what makes him shine, what makes Peter, James, and John want to remain with him. But the most important thing was for them to understand that this moment of transfiguration announced the great event that was to come: "Suddenly, looking around, they saw no one but Jesus, who was alone with them. 

When they came down from the mountain, he commanded them not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. Was this event reduced to a moment in their lives? Was it only for them who were fortunate enough to attend, and are we, the poor, excluded? 

St. Paul answers this question: "Brothers if God is for us, who will be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, will not with him give us all things? Who will accuse those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies! Who will condemn? Christ Jesus died, nay, rose again, and is at the right hand of God, interceding for us!" We are fortunate to have seen the continuation of that moment that happened on the mountain because the Transfiguration announces something definitive, the death and resurrection of Jesus. In fact, God did not spare his son Jesus, he spared his son Abraham, but not his son Jesus, he gave him up to death for us.

Why did He do this? So that we could see how far God's passion went by not even sparing His own Son for us. Then, from the resurrection of Jesus, there is not only a past presence: He is alive and continues to be present through those whom he chooses, those who have recognized the voice from heaven, and he invites us to listen to them. We can receive his witnesses, today as then, through the light that shines in their eyes, through the sparkle of their eyes, which we can touch with our own hands in those who follow and listen to the Son. 

That is why the Church places this Gospel scene before us, to invite us to walk with the Son, so that he may awaken in us the desire to share in this transfigured life, following the witnesses in whom he shines today.

This text collects some of the homilies delivered by Julián Carrón during the Easter season of 2024, published by paginasdigital.es.

The different sections do not correspond to the liturgy's chronology but to thematic groupings.
The author has not revised the text and its translation. Download.