One of the most frustrating remarks in a conversation is "Yes, I know. I have heard it before." It often means that the person in question did not really listen to you. He or she knew it all. Their minds were made up long ago.

It's often really difficult to add anything new to the experience of someone who can only say "Yes, I know I've heard it before." It's difficult because most of us know ourselves guilty of the admission of having heard it all before. How many times in just the past week did we say "Yes, yes" and presume that we'd heard it all before? We rarely really listen; either to ourselves or to each other. We keep on repeating: "I know, I know." We have difficulty keeping silent, emptying our- selves of all we have been doing and thinking and hearing before.

Jesus met the same difficulty, as the gospel for this second Sunday of Lent makes clear. Up on the mountain (and it doesn't really matter which one it might have been) those three disciples found themselves looking at a totally new Jesus. He was, the gospel says, transfigured and shining even brighter than the sun. As they stood amazed a voice was heard from within a cloud. That voice told them "This is my Son, the Beloved Listen to him. " That voice might just as well have said "Do pay attention to him; don't say that you know it already, that you've heard it all before. You do not. Here is something new. He is new, and so are you and so am I." The point is clear: let us listen to Jesus; in our Lent and in our lives. DG