Behind the scenes of some of Saint Paul’s letters were people in the communities to which he had written who were preaching and living out a different message than Paul had originally given and trying to undermine his earlier teaching. Among the Philippians were “enemies of the cross of Christ” who glorified themselves, were preoccupied with the activities of the world, and had lost a sense of urgency about the return of Christ.

We’ve all learned some useful things sitting in a classroom: How to read and write, add and subtract, name the 50 states (or some of them, at least), and random facts about the history of our country and the world. If we went to Catholic school, we also memorized prayers, lists of sacraments, and definitions of heavy mysteries like Trinity, Transubstantiation, and Virgin Birth.

Jesus climbed the mountain to pray, taking Peter, John, and James along. While he was in prayer, the appearance of his face changed and his clothes became blinding white. At once two men were there talking with him. They turned out to be Moses and Elijah—and what a glorious appearance they made! They talked over his exodus, the one Jesus was about to complete in Jerusalem.

A painting by the early 19th-century German artist Caspar Friedrich is named “The Monk and the Sea.” It’s a huge canvas, about four feet high by five feet wide. The picture is almost entirely a stormy sky. But at the horizon is the wide band of the ocean, rough-skinned with whitecaps, and in the foreground a strip of land. On the land, merely a speck in the big canvas, is a single, small dark figure, its back to the viewer. It is a breathtaking picture, with the immensity of sky and sea contrasted with the seeming insignificance of the person.

We ask for forgiveness in this year of mercy from our merciful, forgiving God.

With the psalmist on the Lenten Sunday, we pray, Your presence, O Lord, I seek. Why? Because the Lord is . . . my salvation. We also await a savior and wait for the Lord with courage.

Faith is a light of such supreme brilliance that it dazzles the mind and darkens all its visions of other realities, but in the end . . . we gain a new view of all reality transfigured and elevated in the light itself. —Thomas Merton