Second Sunday of Lent – 1 March 2026
Welcome to everyone who has joined with us to pray.
Here we are in the second week of Lent.
Recently, I received an email in which the writer asked whether the Timorese Catholics could work with me to recruit a priest from their country as a chaplain.
The Timorese have their own food and culture and they have left a lot to come here to this country. So it is understandable that they would like to have Mass in their own language and with some of their own traditions.
How often has that been the case—in our midst? People leave their homes, homelands, friends and relations—on a wing and a prayer. They came to this country seeking a new and better life—and they have brought with them the faith of their fathers and mothers. Some of the strongest witness to faith, in this country, is that which has been brought to us by the Maltese, Filipino’s, people from the subcontinent and the Vietnamese.
The pilgrimage of many people to this country has been a journey of faith. Many have come to escape war and oppressive regimes. Some have particularly come in perilous circumstances to avoid danger and to preserve their commitment in faith.
In some ways, these people have lived and continue to live the first line of the second reading of today: “With me, bear the hardships for the sake of the Good News, relying on the power of God who has saved us and called us to be holy”. Many, many people have come to this land to live in freedom, they have borne hardships and those hardships have been carried for the sake of the Good News.
These folks have taught and continue to teach the local church how to be holy. The Lord God never ceases to gather a people to himself, so that from the rising of the sun to its setting a perfect offering may be made to the glory of God’s name.
To take another tack, just for a minute. We have heard the story of the Transfiguration read each Lent. It comes on this day—and we hear it read from the different Gospel writers—this year from Matthew. And each year—the homilist probably asks us to again hear the word of God: “This is my Son, the Beloved … listen to Him.”
Jesus is transfigured—Peter, James and John get a glimpse of his glory. They are the ones who will get closest to the Passion. They are the ones who set out on the deep. And they will be the ones who set the mission of Jesus in train after the Resurrection and Ascension.
This little snippet is the glimpse we get of what glory is about.
It must have had a profound effect on the early Church. Transfiguration must have got into the common language of the people. St Paul writes about transfiguration—but he does not talk about this event. St Paul writes not about Jesus—but about us—when he speaks of transfiguration. He wrote in his letter to the Philippians: “For us our homeland is in heaven, and from heaven comes the saviour, we are waiting for, the Lord Jesus Christ and he will transfigure these wretched bodies of ours into copies of his glorious body”. (Phil 3:20)
During Lent, each year, we prepare not only to celebrate the Lord’s death and Resurrection—we prepare to celebrate our death and Resurrection. We are asked to leave behind the old country—and set out on a pilgrimage of conversion. We are challenged again to live well, bear the hardships of life well, live in hope and with genuine holiness. We await our new homeland and our transfiguration in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection. Lent, then, is a wonderful time of new life and fresh hope. Our prayer for the week could be the opening prayer of this Mass: “Nourish us inwardly with your word, that we may rejoice to behold your glory”. In other words, set out from this land for our heavenly homeland, purposefully live in joyful hope and await the transfiguration which comes with Resurrection.
Most Rev. Anthony J. Ireland
Archbishop of Hobart
1 March, 2026