Just prior to this week’s Passion narrative in St. Matthew’s Gospel, there is a small, striking story describing a woman’s scandalous action toward Jesus: “A woman came up to him with an alabaster jar of costly perfumed oil, and poured it on his head” (Matthew 26:7). The ointment was pure nard, worth more than 300 denarii. A year’s wages. Maybe a dowry, maybe a family inheritance. In any case, she breaks it. She does not measure or ration. She pours it all out, irreversibly, over Jesus. Why does this image begin Holy Week?

A friend of mine wrote an imaginative reflection on the raising of Lazarus that caught me off guard. She proposed that when Jesus called Lazarus from the tomb, the man was not joyful but angry and annoyed. After so much suffering, maybe death felt like a release. He had finally escaped the pain. And then, suddenly, Jesus' voice cuts through the silence: "Lazarus, come out!" (John 11:43) The light stings his eyes. The pain returns. And now he is dragged back into a world that had broken him.

If you are like me, it’s easy to fixate on our shadows: failures, guilt, shame. Especially when we suffer, it is easy to want to blame ourselves or others. In this week’s Gospel, Jesus’ disciples ask about the blind man, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents?” (John 9:2) They, like us, focus on blame. But Jesus sees the entire situation differently: “Neither he nor his parents sinned; it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him.”

Recently I received a note from a teenager I met years ago. He wrote, “Dear Father Muir, you probably do not remember me, but I wanted to thank you for your inspiring and humorous homilies at the parish. They helped me appreciate the beauty of Catholicism, which I have now embraced in a personal way.” That small note moved me more than he probably imagined. I had no idea my words had taken root in him. I was simply sowing seeds — week by week, Mass by Mass. Someone else — his parents, a youth minister, or God Himself — was doing the deeper work. Now this young man is joyfully reaping a harvest of faith.

When I sit down to answer emails or write a Gospel reflection or return a phone call, I sometimes wonder: Does any of this humdrum work matter? Maybe you ask the same thing about your daily labor. Today’s Gospel, the Transfiguration, offers a surprising answer.

Jesus leads Peter, James, and John up a mountain. There, “his face shone like the sun face and his clothes become white as light” (Matthew 17:2). That detail regarding his clothes is worth considering.

In my second-to-last year of seminary, I woke up one September morning to devastating news: two beloved classmates had died in a car crash. I was overwhelmed with grief and anger like I had never known. I entered therapy for the first time and had intense conversations with my spiritual director. For months I felt lost in a spiritual wilderness. But something unexpected happened: I encountered Christ there. The fear and sorrow didn't destroy me. In fact, that spiritual desert was a time of intense growth in faith.

Last year, my wife Maria and I heard the Lord call us to travel to each state's capital -- to pray in reparation for the sins of the nation against the Sacred Heart of Jesus and of the Church's clergy abuse. We answered the call and our adventure was incredible and continues to bear much fruit. In this 60 day pilgrimage, we learned many lessons including three major components: Fasting, Daily Mass and Prayer, by way of the Rosary, Adoration and spiritual reading/development.

I recently learned why zebras have stripes. Scientists used to think it was for camouflage, but new research suggests something more interesting: the stripes help zebras blend in with one another. When a predator looks at a herd, the overlapping stripes make it hard to single out one animal. But if a researcher spraypaints a dot on just one zebra, predators lock on it and eventually attack. The lesson? In the wild, blending in is protection. Standing out can be dangerous.

A priest I know was once falsely accused of a terrible crime. The claim was wild and easily disproved, but for a while, it didn't matter. In the atmosphere shaped by the abuse crisis of the early 2000s, the public assumption was guilty until proven innocent. His name was dragged through the mud, and his ministry placed on hold. I had the privilege - and the burden - of walking closely with him during that time.

He was angry. He was confused. He felt abandoned and deeply disoriented. The last thing on his mind was the words of Jesus in today's Gospel: "Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me ... Rejoice and be glad" (Matthew 5:11-12). Rejoice? He felt anything but.

To start this third installment of this article series on our parish vision statement, let me begin with bringing to attention two points from Scripture:

God desires every person to be saved and come to knowledge of the truth (1Tim2:4)

Every person was made by and for God, to have life to the full (Jn 10:10).

Last week, the first of this article series on our parish vision/mission statement: We exist to bring every person into intimacy with Christ, I wrote about how the first words of our vision/mission statement causes us to think about why we, and every person, exist. Which is to know and love God, who created us, in an intimate relationship. That truth echos our recent pope's call for the Church to return to our deepest identity -- as Pope Pius VI says, "The Church exists to evangelize".

Over the next several weeks I will be writing articles to explain our parish vision/mission statement: We exist to bring every person into intimacy with Christ. The purpose of the statement and the articles is to help better unite us as parish toward the same goal, a goal hopefully each one of you can agree with and will join actively in working towards it. I'll begin the series with the first two words: We exist.

When I was 22, I went on a pilgrimage to Rome for the Jubilee Year of 2000. I was traveling light with just a backpack, one blue shirt and black pants, little money, and no Italian. I had a few close friends and one goal: to reach the Eternal City. Despite the challenges and deprivations, I felt alive in a way I had never known before.

When do you feel most alive? I’d wager it’s not when you’re most comfortable or surrounded by stuff. Rather, it’s when your life is aimed at something great; when you’re on a meaningful and challenging journey with good friends.