Cedric Pisegna - Be Enlightened
I’m Father Cedric Pisegna. I’m so glad that you tuned into the program, it’s the second Sunday of Lent. Whether you’re Catholic or non-Catholic, I want you to have a significant Lent. The reading for the second Sunday of Lent comes from the Gospel of Mark.
«Jesus took Peter, James, and John, led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them. His clothes became dazzling white, such as no fuller on earth could bleach them. Then Elijah appeared, and he was with Moses, and they were conversing with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus in reply, 'Rabbi, it is good that we are here! Let us make three tents: one for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah.' He hardly knew what to say, they were so terrified. Then a cloud came, casting a shadow over them; from the cloud came a voice, 'This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.' Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw one but Jesus alone with them. As they were coming down from the mountain, he charged them not to relate what they had seen to anyone, except when the Son of Man has risen from the dead. So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what rising from the dead meant».
The gospel of the Lord. We’re now in the second week of Lent, and remember, Lent is a season of grace, and it’s a time for everybody to get back to basics. We heard last week about temptation, we heard about purification and enlightenment. And this week, we’re gonna hear about enlightenment also. I wanted to share with you that in my car I have a compass, it’s up on my mirror, and as I’m driving, I can see whatever direction that I’m going. In a way, this is what the second week of Lent is doing for us, it’s providing direction, it’s providing a compass, it’s providing a way for us because a lot of people don’t know where they’re going but our church is telling us, remember, we’re getting back to basics, our church is telling us that we’re heading in a certain direction, we’re going in a certain way, we have a destiny in mind, that Lent, Christianity itself, is all about a goal.
And what is that goal? Well, we heard it in the reading, Jesus was transfigured, his face shone like the sun. And he said that exact thing in the Gospel of Matthew, he said that «your face will shine like the sun in the kingdom of your Father». He is giving us, in this beautiful transfiguration, a glimpse of glory. The compass, the direction where we’re heading, the goal, the simplicity, the basics of Lent is telling us that Lent is not an end in itself, the church is not an end in itself, Christianity is not an end in itself, we are going somewhere. And where is it that we’re going? I think you know the answer, we’re on the way to heaven. I remember what Paul the Apostle said, «If there is no resurrection,» he said, «we are among men, the most pitiable of men».
In other words, if Christianity is just for the here and now, we are to be pitied. But then he said, «But there is a resurrection, and Christ has been raised». And this is what the church is telling us. We’re not praying and fasting and giving alms, and trying to change and going through penance, and doing all the hard things of Lent for nothing, we have a destination, we have a goal, we have a destiny. Our faces will be glorified and shine like the sun, we have a destination called heaven. Lent is about purification and enlightenment. Purification, I’ll talk about this more in other episodes, has to do with personal change, growth, progression, maturation, moving forward. But enlightenment, enlightenment has to do with our God relationship, and this is what we all want, we all want to be enlightened, we wanna be illumined, we want this transcendent divinization, if you will, this divine moment with God, and this is what we have in the Scriptures, this transfiguration.
Every second Sunday of Lent, we were just in the desert last week, now, the second Sunday of Lent, we’re on the mountain top. And it’s not just this year, it’s every year, we go to the mountain top from the desert. Why is that, and what is the church doing? It’s giving us an early Easter, a glimpse of glory so that we will be fortified, that means strengthened, empowered by this glorious vision. If you have ever had a religious experience, you know that it fortifies you to face your trials and your problems and your difficulties, and that’s exactly the function of this story during the second week of Lent and it’s the function of the story in the gospel itself.
Peter, James, and John go up with Jesus to the mountaintop. This is Mount Tabor in Galilee, I’ve been there, I’ve worshiped there. It rises about 1,900 ft out of the plains of Galilee, it’s not a huge mountain, it’s more like a hill. And while they’re there, they have this beautiful vision, and then they come down from the mountain top and they meet a possessed boy, they get into conflicts with the religious leaders, and then eventually Jesus would die. It’s the same in our life. We have maybe not possessed boys in your family, but maybe children that have fallen away from the faith, maybe you’re in a conflict with somebody in a relationship, and maybe you have difficulty with your religion. And we need the vision, we need the glory, we need the power that God offers us, Lent is a movement of the Holy Spirit.
Remember, the first week of Lent, Jesus was literally thrown into the desert, that’s one of the versions, I think it’s Mark. He was led by the Spirit into the desert, and it’s a Spirit, the glorious Holy Spirit, that leads us, controls us and directs us in our Lenten journey. We need vision, it says in the Scriptures, the Book of Proverbs, «Without a vision, people perish». And I’m praying that this reading, today, in a way, we’ve all been invited to the mountain top to witness this. We may not see it with our eyes, but we see it with our heart, this transfiguration, this glory, this transcendence, this who we’re meant to be. What a powerful scene, what an ecstatic scene. I really want to impress upon you the supernatural other-worldliness of it. Notice, Peter, James and John, they were afraid. If you’ve ever had any kind of a religious experience, the fear of the Lord will be a part of it. Yes, God is love, but God is awesome.
We must have reverence and fear of God. Remember, even Mary, when the angel appears to Mary, she was afraid, and it was a gracious annunciation. «The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom». Enlightenment, we’re talking about now. Have you ever had a religious experience? I read a survey, I think it was done by Barna, Barna does a lot of the church pew surveys, and they said that some 50% of people that are Christians, 50%, one out of two, said yes. When I talk about a religious experience, I mean 55% of those people have seen an angel, 44% have heard a call, 20% have heard the voice of God. Remember, in this transfiguration moment, the voice of God was heard, «This is my beloved Son. Listen to him».
I had a woman write me because I preached about… I did a series about the call of Jesus, calling us by name. And I had a woman write me and she said, «Father Cedric, you’re exactly right, because I was in bed one morning and I heard the sweetest sounding voice I’ve ever heard in my life calling me by name, and it was God, and I will never ever forget that voice». God’s voice is powerful, but it’s gentle and sweet. My point is, is that many people have had a religious experience, and if you’ve had a religious experience, savor it, don’t put it on the back burner, remember it. This is what the church is doing here, I say «the church,» the Catholic Church, is presenting us with this vision the second Sunday of Lent.
This is what the church is doing, it’s helping us to remember where we’re heading and who it is that we follow, that he’s not just an ordinary Man, that he’s the Son of God and supernatural. Because remember what I said about Lent in the beginning, the first week of Lent, I said, «We gotta go from the superficial, where most of us live, to the supernatural, to something above and beyond just the ordinary». Bill Wilson, I like to tell the story about his life, he was a law student in New York. And as he was going to law school, I guess there was a lot of pressure, he was drinking, he was really an alcoholic, he ended up in a hospital for the fourth time. The fourth time, finally he called out to God, although he wasn’t religious. And he called out to God, and right there in his room in the hospital, he had what’s called a theophany.
That’s a religious term for the manifestation of God’s presence. He has this theophany, the room starts to glow with glory, and the Spirit of God touched him when he cried out for help, Never drank again after that. And of course, the Bill Wilson that I’m talking about is the Bill W. who founded «Alcoholics Anonymous». Millions of people have come into sobriety because this man had a religious experience. It’s a beautiful program, I’ve produced a whole series about the 12-step program, wrote a book about addictions and recovery called, «There is a Solution». But Bill Wilson said, «The reason why I founded 'Alcoholics Anonymous' is so that people will have an awakening with God».
If you know anything about the 12-step program, you need God, you need power, to be able to not only face your addiction, but to come into recovery, because we can’t do it on our own. Same with Lent, we can’t journey in Lent on our own, we need the Spirit, we need the glory, we need the vision, we need to know that we’re heading somewhere. And if you don’t know where you’re heading, how you gonna get there? We need that vision of heaven, folks. And even if you haven’t had a religious experience, I love what Jesus said, «Blessed are those who believe without seeing».
I think people that haven’t had a religious experience have a deeper faith than those who have, and I know that because I have had a religious experience. And I see people come into church that haven’t experienced the power of the Holy Spirit, that haven’t had a glorious vision, and I always marvel at that, because I don’t think I could do it, but these folks have enough faith without seeing. As Jesus said, «Blessed are those who believe without seeing,» I think they’re more blessed than those who have had religious experiences, but let’s get back to that. I wanted to share with you that I had two near-death experiences when I was 19 years old, totally revolutionized my life.
I wrote a book on that, called «Death: The Final Surrender». But those experiences were glorious, revealed to me the fear of God, but also they did something else in my life, they fortified me, they made me courageous and strong, and able to face adversity. I didn’t know when I joined the seminary that I was gonna have a priest come against me and try to make me leave, and the reason why I didn’t leave is because I had a vision. I didn’t know that I would suffer physically, and have to go through some operations for my knees and in my eyes, and various other things. And the way that I was able to face these adversities and physical sufferings is because I had a vision.
I didn’t know when I joined ministry and became a Catholic priest, and when I would travel to all these different churches all around the country for 30 years, as I’m preaching this right now, living in hard beds and soft beds, and good food and not-so-good food, and microphone systems that don’t work, a lot of adversity, a lot of troubles, a lot of trials. I didn’t know that I was gonna be going through all that, but I was able to withstand, and not only that, but be victorious, because I have a vision, and so do you. I remember I saw a movie one time, it was called «The Poseidon Adventure». It was a cruise ship and everybody was having a good time, little did they know this rogue wave was coming toward them, flipped the ship totally upside down. And in our life, the ship flipped when the pandemic hit way back in 2020, and the ship flipped when there was racial violence, the ship flipped when there was political turmoil, all around the world we are experiencing tribulation and hardships.
In the movie, when the ship flipped and everything was upside down, they had to try to get to the hull to be rescued, because the water was coming in. They would open one door, pwft, water comes flying in, they’d run to another door, pwft, there would be all kinds of flames and everything. So they gingerly and miraculously made it all the way up to the hull. Many people, most of the people on the ship died, but here’s these few people that finally… it’s the instinct to survive, they get to the top of the ship. They’re banging on the hull, there’s a helicopter up there, they’re saved. And that’s the journey, we all have to have adversity and trials, and tribulations, but we’re not left alone, we’ve got the Holy Spirit with us to help us.
And even though there are outrageous tribulations like my parents dying, the pandemic, half a million people dying from this pandemic in the United States alone, and more, we are the conquerors, «We are more than conquerors through Christ who loves us». And I remember the beautiful song that was sung during this «Poseidon Adventure,» it’s become my theme song. Do you have a theme song? It’s about hope. «There’s got to be a morning after If we can hold on through the night, We have a chance to find the sunrise. Let’s keep on looking for the light». Oh, that’s so good, that’s my theme song, «There’s got to be a morning after,» because we’re all in the same boat, folks. And sometimes that boat flips, but there’s hope. That’s what this vision is offering us, hope.
In fact, three things last forever: faith, hope, and love last forever. And I love what the Scripture says in 1 Peter, we not only have hope, we have a living hope. Hope is alive and it energizes our life when we’re going through trials and tribulations and hardships so we don’t give up, we don’t quit. I had the privilege of studying in Rome, and I’ve led pilgrimages to Rome. Rome, of course, is the center of Catholicism, and so much to see there. One time I had Mass in the Catacombs. The early Christians were going through tribulations and trials, they were being persecuted for their faith, for the hope that they had in Jesus Christ, they had to go underground. While they were underground, they worshiped.
And I heard about the earliest Christian symbol that was etched into the wall. And when I went down there to pray, I asked the tour guide to show me and he brought me through a dark tunnel. And there in the dark tunnel, he put a flashlight on it, an anchor with a cross on the top, comes right from the Book of Hebrew. We have this hope, hope in eternal life, as an anchor for our soul. You know what an anchor does? When there’s a storm, the ship drops anchor, and the anchor, no matter how much the storm rages, the anchor holds the ship fast so the ship won’t be overwhelmed. In our life, it’s hope, where we’re heading, our resurrection, eternity, that anchors us when we lose our loved ones, when we go through physical sufferings, when people come against us.
So we have an anchor and that anchor is hope, and not just hope, a living hope. This vision proclaims to us where we’re heading and it fortifies us no matter what comes against us that we can be strong. In addition, I wanted to share with you about something called Christology. I studied that course in the seminary and it was very eye-opening for me. Christology is the study of who Jesus is. Many people present him in movies and writing as being solely divine, Jesus knew everything when he came out of his mother’s womb and he knew exactly what was gonna happen. That’s what a lot of people think, that’s called a high Christology. A low Christology was Jesus was very human, he didn’t know everything that was going to happen, he was just like us in all things but sin, just like we don’t know the future. And I really believe that it’s somewhere in between, he’s divine and human.
Now, what is happening at the Transfiguration? The Lucan account says, brings his disciples up to the mountain top to pray, and as he’s praying, as he’s seeking God, he has this self-revelation of who he really is, and he hears the voice of God telling him, «You are my beloved Son». He heard that at his baptism. In other words, Jesus is coming to an awakening, the human Jesus, an awakening about who he really is. And I love that because the same thing happens in our life. We, too, are human and divine. The journey of Lent is a journey from the superficial to the supernatural, we are trying to have an awakening. And by the way, when Bill Wilson had his experience in the hospital room, he called it an awakening.
And I call it an awakening too, an enlightenment, an awakening, because it’s not like God’s not there, he’s already there with us, we need to have an awakening to God’s presence, we also need to have enlightenment about who we really are. I was reading about Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton is a Trappist monk, was a Trappist monk, he passed away. And he talked about the true self and the false self that we all have. What’s the false self? Watch some politicians sometimes or a comedian, some preachers, when they put on this false persona. That’s the false self, and we all have it, narcissism, trying to get everybody to like us, and we have a true self. And what is our true self? Our true self is integrity, honesty, calmness, we don’t put on airs, humble.
I have watched preachers for all my life on television and in person, some of them have this fake persona and this false voice, I call it preacher’s voice. And I wanna tell you, I have promised myself that I would never ever be like that, I give it to you straight up, with sincerity, with authenticity, and with honesty. That’s why many of you donate to me, because I’m not putting on any airs, I’m trying to be my true self, and I preach from my gut, I preach from my heart. And I’ve determined that I’m going to do that all my life because that’s my true self, I’m not trying to win approval, I’m trying to help you to go to heaven, to have your most significant Lent ever.
What is the purpose of Lent? That you get in touch with your true self, that you go beneath the surface, from the superficial to the supernatural, that you have experiences of divinity like Jesus did. «He’s the pioneer and the perfecter of our faith». Why do we have this vision? So that we’ll know where we’re going, we’ll be fortified to face our adversities, and we’ll come to enlightenment with God and with our true self. I am praying that you have the most significant Lent you will ever have as you listen to this truth, and I am praying that you will be strong and courageous, and fortified to face whatever it is you need to face, and be victorious. Don’t just live, live with passion.