Good and Blessed morning,
I pray that you and your loved ones have been well and blessed.
More than seven decades ago an incident took place that changed the course of human history. A small coloured boy had gone to work in a Johannesburg hospital with his desperately poor, and in many ways, unloved mother. The mother worked in the hospital as a cleaner. She was very much a second class citizen. The boy had felt great sorrow for his mother’s state and real anger at a system that institutionalized prejudice and injustice. Just then a tall man wearing clerical clothes approached his mother, smiled, asked how she was and took off his hat.
The man was called Trevor Huddleston and he was white, English and a priest who had gone to work in South Africa because he was appalled at the injustice of apartheid. The young boy, Desmond Tutu (Retired Archbishop of the Anglican Church), had never seen a white man talk to, let alone smile at his mother before. From that moment the boy decided to find out about the God that Trevor Huddleston represented and, the rest as they say is history.
Is it too much of a stretch to suggest that Trevor Huddleston was a transfigured figure, the physical embodiment of the Christian faith? He did indeed illuminate the world for the young Desmond Tutu. He did not do anything dramatic. It is just that he had been transformed from within and his faith allowed him to see the world and its people through God’s eyes.
As we start our journey into Lent, we too should ask God to transform us from within and then to illuminate and transfigure us, so that we too can point people towards a better way. As we grow in holiness, we become the sort of people who can bring real and lasting healing. We don’t need to become superheroes, but just ordinary transfigured Christians.
Continue to strengthen your home altars by praying together as a family and sharing the word of God. This practice will produce strong individuals.
Please find a link to our Last Sunday after Epiphany, the Feast day of Rev. Absalom Jones service and sermon here.
Sincerely,
Fr. Samuel K. Ndungu