The readings this week deal with transformations. God responds to Abram’s faith by making a covenant with him, changing the relationship between the two. Saint Paul writes of the ability of God to glorify our bodies. Jesus’ Transfiguration reveals God’s power to transform.

What is faith? One popular notion is that it means believing in spite of all evidence to the contrary, a blind or even irrational approach to reality that makes it hard for educated people to take religion seriously. But the rabbis have something quite different in mind when they discuss faith.

There is a very long and prominent stairway in my town that leads from an old-fashioned promenade on a high bluff overlooking Lake Michigan down to the beach.

I was sitting in St. Stephen’s Green in Dublin reading when a young man walked over to me and began chatting. He asked me one or two questions about where I was from and then spent the next hour talking about himself. I couldn’t tell whether he was looking for a flirtation or a friend.

We ask for forgiveness from our merciful, forgiving God.

Make ready for the Christ, Whose smile, like lightning, sets free the song of everlasting glory that now sleeps, in your paper flesh, like dynamite.