Welcoming & Embracing the Stranger: Lenten Reflections with the Artwork of James Tissot

March 5, 2026 - Thursday of the Second Week of Lent

In this painting of the Transfiguration, Jesus stands before His disciples, clothed in light, speaking to Moses and Elijah. His disciples fall to the ground in wonder of the Lord and in great fear. This scene carries a subtle uneasiness as the disciples are confronted by a part of Jesus they don’t understand. The instinct the disciples have is not one to embrace but one to fall and be afraid. This is often our instinct when we are confronted with the strange and unfamiliar. We retreat and cling to what is comfortable.  

Today’s reading from Jeremiah offers us an image to consider. Those who trust in themselves are like barren shrubs, but those who trust in the Lord are like trees planted by the water with roots so deep they fear no drought. Embracing the stranger requires deep-rooted trust in the Lord, which prepares a heart to remain open when what stands before it is unfamiliar.  

The Gospel today takes this call even further. Lazarus, a man marked by much suffering, waits outside the rich man’s house, but the rich man does not help him. The tragedy is not just that the rich man is cruel, but that he is entirely unmoved. His heart is the barren bush Jeremiah spoke about: dry, unmoved, fruitless.

Only after death does the rich man see Lazarus, but the chasm is fixed. The chasm between heaven and hell mirrors the distance the rich man created by refusing a relationship. His indifference was blindness, and his staying in comfort was a wall.  

Lent is an invitation to walk down the mountain with Jesus and His disciples and look at who stands at our own doors with a generous heart. A generous heart is not just a heart that gives, but also a heart that receives. It is a heart that allows itself to be troubled by the needs of others and to be moved. Jesus appears not only in radiant light but in the suffering body of Lazarus. He appears in the face of every person we would rather pass by.

To embrace and welcome the stranger is to trust that God is already there waiting to be recognized. It is to believe that the heart of Christ is not only revealed in glory but encountered in mercy and in the stranger. This is where hearts rooted in trust of the Lord are transfigured and learn to bear fruit.  

O God, who delight in innocence and restore it, direct the hearts of your servants to yourself, that, caught up in the fire of your spirit, we may be found steadfast in faith and effective in works. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. (Roman Missal)

Kayhlynn Dickey, Sacristan, Undergraduate Theology Major and Catholic Studies Minor, Class of 2027

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