The Gospel for the second Sunday of Lent is the Transfiguration. Peter, overwhelmed with awe, offers to build three tents for these three holiest of men. But the revelation is not complete. Only one is the Beloved Son, not just human, but also divine. This is a foretaste not only of Christ’s coming resurrection, but ours as well – what God has in store for those who “listen to him”.
As Jesus and the disciples eventually returned down the mountain to continue their work, so, too, do we but now with the knowledge of what is to come. In our secular culture, especially in healthcare, we experience just how much we are transfigured by listening to Jesus. There are the specifics, like not prescribing birth control or not supporting policies related to gender ideology, but these are details that flows from the source of our fundamental transfiguration: the Catholic view of Human Dignity.
I am a revert to the Catholic faith. While I was baptized and made my First Communion, our family did not attend Mass and I was not Confirmed in my youth. Yet Catholicism had some significance in my Italian Irish family. In college, I encountered Christian Evangelicals that shared the Good News with me. That inspired me pull out the bible I had among the books I brought to college – I have no idea how or why I had it – and read the New Testament. It all made perfect sense to me. I listened to Him and He gave me the grace of Faith.
As graduation neared, those Evangelical friends urged me to find a church when I went off the grad school – any church would do, except a Catholic one. No reason was given, just a general shaking of the head to the idea. When I settle in Central Massachusetts, I attended a Northern Baptist church. I was overwhelmed with so many people acknowledging my presence as a new face among the congregation. During the service, they passed around small cups of wine and pieces of bread for communion. The paster invited me for lunch at his home after. But the following week, he said I needed to be baptized. I told him I had been already baptized, but he insisted it had to be repeated. I may have been poorly catechized, but God’s grace let me know this was not possible. I never went back, and I stopped attending church, though I still professed my Christian belief. Due to my lack of catechesis, I had not yet been transfigured.
Not until I met the man who is now my husband did I return to church. He was raised Catholic, was an altar boy, had been Confirmed, but fell away as a young adult. When Evangelical co-workers shared the Good News with him, he decided he was going back to Mass, and that was just about the time we met. We were married in that parish, and our children were all baptized there. My belief at the time was that all Christian denominations were essentially the same, they simply had different styles of worship.
Several years later, we started our homeschooling journey. Soon after, I attended a homeschooling information meeting at the local library where I met Paula who lived just up the street with kids of the same age, who was also Catholic. We joined a Christian co-op near us that met at Loretta’s house, the mother of a devout and active Catholic family with thirteen children. Now my eyes were beginning to see the beauty of the Faith and just how countercultural it was, along with homeschooling, from interacting with this eclectic mix of Protestants, Evangelicals, and Catholics. Our family grew close to these families.
One day, three of us moms were out together and stopped by a Christian bookstore. I perused the Catholic section and opened Why Do Catholics Genuflect? by Al Kresta. In explaining the Eucharist, he pointed out that only Catholics believed this to be the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ. I never realized this! But it was not that the Eucharist was actually Jesus that shocked me but that only Catholics believed it. Just as I knew that to be baptized again was wrong, I knew the Eucharist was truly Christ. That is the grace of Faith, a pure gift for listening to Jesus. From that moment, I realized I could never be anything but Catholic.
My love for the Faith continued to grow. I found EWTN and watched daily Mass. The daily readings and rich 15-to-20-minute homilies provided me with an outstanding catechesis. One day, we Catholics were discussing Confirmation names. I had no idea what they were talking about. The question came up if I had ever been Confirmed. I didn’t know. That year, 2007, I was Confirmed.
I began PA practice in 1993 in emergency medicine at a Catholic hospital. The ER is an area that is fraught with bioethical issues of which I had not considered prior to my Confirmation. Shortly after my Confirmation, I had a two separate encounters in the same week of college women requesting emergency contraception but not due to sexual assaults. What I had done before without thought, I know realized was problematic.
I went to Confession. The priest did not know how to advise me and sent me to Msgr. Peter Beaulier (then Fr. Peter) where I worked. He gave me a copy of the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services. He eventually wrote my letter of recommendation for the National Catholic Bioethics Center certificate program and Holy Apostles MA in Theology/Bioethics. He has been a constant source of support and a good friend since that time. I had been transfigured by Human Dignity.
Because health care is such a nidus of conflict for Catholic bioethical principles, and because moral theology and Catholic bioethics are not widely taught, CAPPA is planning a bioethics series. We are still evaluating the best way to deliver this content and generate conversation given everyone’s disparate schedules. We have yet to find an affordable source for granting CMEs for this, though we are still looking and praying. Please let us know if you are affiliated with a ACCME organization that would take CAPPA under its wing.
How has the Catholic faith transfigured you? Send me your story.
Lenten blessings,
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