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A central theme in today’s readings is perseverance in our prayer and our worship. The first reading might have been unthinkable to the faithful Israelites at the time it was written, it said, “The foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, ministering to him, loving the name of the LORD, and becoming his servants—all who keep the sabbath free from profanation and hold to my covenant,”

In our first reading we have one of the characters and situations I was referring to last weekend, Elijah in the presence of God, the prophet hid his face so he did not see God, so in the Transfiguration which we celebrated last weekend, Elijah finally got to see God face to face.

The Transfiguration reveals the relationship between the “humanity” and the “divinity” of Jesus. One of the reasons it’s such an important feast is because it is the one time in the Gospels that Jesus’ divine nature - which is normally hidden under His human nature - His divine appearance is made visible to Peter, James and John.

This weekend is the last of our three weeks of parables describing the Kingdom of Heaven, and as before we will continue looking at the twists found in these parables. The twists or the unexpected aspects can help us understand what Jesus is trying to tell us about the Kingdom.