Second Sunday of Lent – Year A
St. Eugenia
If the Lord appeared to you today and said:
“Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you”— what would you answer?
Many of us do not need much imagination to understand Abraham’s situation. A great number of you have already left your country and come to Sweden. Some freely, others because circumstances forced you. Some followed love, others followed necessity, safety, work, or hope. Emigration is no abstract idea here; it is biography.
But today the Word of God asks a deeper question:
Was your journey only geography — or could it also be vocation?
Abraham leaves without knowing the destination. No guarantees. No contract. Only a promise. God does not give him a map; He gives him a word.
And Abraham goes.
This is why Scripture calls him the father of all believers: faith begins when security ends.
Lent places Abraham before us because Lent itself is a journey. Christianity is not primarily about staying where we are; it is about allowing God to move us.
And God always begins with a command that sounds unsettling:
Leave.
What must I leave behind?
Every move forces us to ask this question. We know how difficult it is to leave family, language, culture, habits, the things that make us feel at home.
Yet the harder question of Lent is not geographical but spiritual.
What must I leave behind so that God can lead me further?
Perhaps habits that slowly suffocate the soul.
Perhaps resentments we have learned to live with.
Perhaps comforts that keep us spiritually asleep.
Perhaps relationships that draw us away from truth rather than toward it.
God does not ask Abraham to leave to diminish him. God asks because He wants to bless him.
And here lies the uncomfortable truth: sometimes we cling to things that feel good now but prevent the deeper happiness God promises. We confuse comfort with blessing.
Lent is therefore not religious decoration. It is surgery. God removes what prevents life.
And what may I take with me?
Abraham does not depart empty-handed. He takes Sarah, Lot, and all he has gathered. Faith does not erase our past. God works through it.
Each of us carries a baggage filled not only with wounds but also with gifts: talents, experiences, relationships, faith, endurance gained through struggle.
Lent asks another demanding question:
What am I doing with what I have received?
Do my gifts serve only my own security — or do they become a blessing for others?
God’s promise to Abraham was never merely personal:
You will be a blessing.
Faith is authentic only when it becomes fruitful for someone else.
Leaving in order to see
Today’s Gospel of the Transfiguration deepens this call. Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up the mountain. They leave the ordinary world behind for a moment — and there they see Christ transformed, radiant with divine glory.
Why does this happen in Lent?
Because discipleship always involves ascent before descent.
The disciples glimpse who Jesus truly is: the beloved Son. They experience light, clarity, certainty. And immediately Peter wants to stay: Let us build tents.
He wants permanence. Stability. Control.
But the voice from the cloud interrupts him:
This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.
And then they must go down the mountain again — back to misunderstanding, suffering, and ultimately the Cross.
Faith does not allow us to remain in spiritual comfort zones. Even holy experiences are not given so we can escape reality, but so we can walk through it differently.
The Christian life is not about building tents on the mountain. It is about following Christ down into real life with new eyes.
A harder question
Abraham leaves without seeing.
The disciples see — and still must leave.
So, the question for us becomes sharper:
Are we willing to follow God even when we do not fully understand where He leads?
Many people today believe faith should confirm their plans, stabilize their lives, or protect them from uncertainty. But biblical faith does the opposite. It unsettles us. It converts us. It moves us.
God does not call Abraham to comfort but to trust.
Christ does not reveal His glory to avoid the Cross but to prepare His disciples for it.
Lent therefore confronts us: Where is God asking me to move — spiritually, morally, personally — and why am I resisting?
Some of you did not choose your emigration. Life displaced you.
But Scripture suggests something daring: even involuntary journeys can become places of grace.
Abraham’s departure becomes salvation history.
The disciples’ confusion becomes apostleship.
Our displacements can become vocation.
God can transform migration into mission.
Perhaps the Lord brought you here not only to receive a better life but to become a blessing here — in this parish, in this society, in the lives of people who will meet Christ through you.
The promise
Abraham walks toward land, nation, and name.
We walk toward something greater: eternal life revealed in Christ.
This is why we dare to leave what must be left behind. Because the promise is trustworthy. Because the One who calls us is faithful.
Lent asks us today:
What must you leave?
What must you carry forward?
What prevents you from listening to the beloved Son?
If we dare to answer honestly, then our journey — chosen or unchosen — may finally receive meaning.
And like Abraham, we may discover that faith begins precisely at the moment we step forward without certainty, trusting only the promise of God.
Dominik Terstriep S.J.
