Tag: transformation

Easter: Resurrection, surrender, transformation

April 20, 2025
John the Baptist

Easter: Christ has risen!

In Christ’s resurrection, we are offered transformation. 

We – in and of ourselves – cannot transform ourselves into the fullness of who we are meant to be.

….This is the fourth Lenten season in a row when I have experienced medical challenges – surgeries, etc.   This year, I broke my left foot on March 19th.  

After March 19, I continued falling (mishaps with crutches, etc.).   In addition to a broken left foot, I subsequently sprained my right foot.  Ended up with medical boots on both feet.   Then….On the morning of April 6, I fell again (two boots makes navigation difficult).    I sent an email to a couple people about this, ending the email with “Anger doesn’t begin to describe…..”   One person replied with insightful observations about surrender.

It’s true.  I know it’s true – I reach such a point of surrender-to-God in 2016 with a subsequent transformation in 2016 (that surrender involved a homily at an Irish mass and a broken ankle!).

For Christ to truly transform us, we have to surrender ourselves and our greatest difficulties to God.

Surrendering doesn’t just mean some limited-scope prayer to God and “hoping” that something positive will happen.   It doesn’t mean we hang onto some aspect of what we supposedly surrender – as if what we surrender still somehow belongs to us.   No.   True surrender means that we no longer have possession (ownership) or control.

True surrender comes when we surrender our hardest challenges.  The challenges we don’t tell people about.  Challenges that we somehow feel tied to…..  Challenges that are eating away at our very being.

When we truly surrender these aspects of our lives to God and allow God to do whatever God wants to do (WE DON’T KNOW WHAT GOD’S GOING TO DO!), true and life-giving transformation of our very selves happens in and through God.  Galatians 2:20:  “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

It’s Easter, Christ has risen!   A great time to surrender to experience transformation offered by the Risen Christ.

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist (and is a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). Blogging is sustainable via blog readership (i.e. readers/subscribers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you subscribe to follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog, please share it with them and invite them to subscribe (thank you!).

Good Friday, Tenebrae, grace, pending resurrection

April 18, 2025

Welcome to Good Friday.

In his book Beyond Tenebrae, author Bradley J. Birzer writes “I am fascinated by the recognition of Tenebrae (…..3 pm on Good Friday)…… The extinguishing of light, candle by candle, the stripping of the altar, the bearing of the books, the departure from the chapel in a deafening silence.” As we move through Holy Week, I am

God’s grace in our lives and the transformation offered us as a result of the resurrection are how I find my being within Christianity. I wrote in a recent post, “We are indeed ‘a resurrection people,’ our redemption is made possible as a result of Christ’s death on the cross.   There’s a redemptive joy possible through God’s ability to transfigure us – when we allow God to work in us – that motivates my continued prayer life…..”

As you experience Good Friday today, make it an encounter with Christ rather than just another day. Reflect: what are your plans for the upcoming Easter season (the time between Easter and Pentecost)? This is a great season within the liturgical year to surrender into a transformative relationship with Christ, allowing God to move us more fully into the people we are meant to be. If anyone is pondering whether it’s worth it to surrender into allowing God to transform our very being, just ponder how well one’s inner life and life circumstances are going without surrendering to God being in charge – that should satisfactorily answer whether to turn one’s life over to God. This opportunity to surrender is one in which “I have been Crucified with Christ. It is no longer I, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). We give up any pretense of running our own lives. Acts 17:28: “For it is in God that we live and move and have our being.”

Easter is coming! Alleluia!

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist (and is a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). Blogging is sustainable via blog readership (i.e. readers/subscribers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you subscribe to follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog, please share it with them and invite them to subscribe (thank you!).

Second Sunday in Lent: Reading Reflection

February 25, 2024
James Tissot's painting of Jesus praying

Many of Christianity’s denominations read the same Bible readings each Sunday – the three-year cycle of weekend readings decided upon by the Catholic church after Vatican II.

This Sunday, we hear in the First Reading of Abraham following God’s orders by going to a mountaintop to sacrifice his only son – the son he was given later in life to be the son who God had said would provide Abraham with countless descendants. At the last moment – when Abraham had demonstrated his willingness to follow God’s instructions – he was told not to sacrifice his son.

In the second reading (Romans 8:31-34), we hear reference to God not saving his own son – a son biologically descended from Abraham – from death.

In the Gospel reading, Jesus goes to a mountaintop – just as Abraham had gone to a mountaintop in the first reading (the readings each weekend are paired based upon shared topics or themes) – and is transfigured in dazzling white, having discourse with two prophets of old, all before three of Jesus’ apostles.

When we surrender to allow God to work in our lives, we are also transformed. To the degree that we allow God to work in our hearts, we become the people God meant for us to be. When we give up the false perception of being in control of our lives, it can be tempting to think that we are surrendering our independence and self-determination. How well is independence and self-determination working in today’s increasingly lonely, socially-distanced, and broken world? The people we are meant to be are people who are daughters and sons of God – daughters and sons who live in relationship with God and who are transformed through God’s love for us. We subsequently find ourselves transformed into living the two commandments Christ said are the two greatest: Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Transformed into a life of joy that passes all understanding. In surrender, a new life is given to us.

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages (and a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog, please share it with them (thank you!). You can also support this blog by clicking here when you are going to shop on Amazon (that lands A Parish Catechist a commission on Amazon sales).