May the Lord give you peace and health. It is 18th February 2024.
We celebrate the First Sunday of Lent with the theme of temptation.
We reflect on Genesis 9:8-15; 1Peter 3:18-22; and Mark 1:12-15.
At the outset of the Lent, we are led to ruminate over the time of temptations and deviations of the initial promises we have made to the Lord, family, and the community at large.
There is no one is spared when it comes to temptation.
Temptations come in every colour, shape, fabric, and fables.
God assures the humanity in the first reading that God continues to love us by connecting with us in the nature.
Lent is a time to examine how far we have given in to Satan’s tricks and treats by compromising our faith-commitments.
Satan is all around our life when to make us fall prey to malicious wishes casting on us.
The purpose of Satan is to divert our attention from God.
Mark teaches us Satan temptedJesus. In Hebrew, Satan means adversary.
In the OT, it means the opponent.
But in the NT, Satan is understood as the principal spirit of evil who opposed God’s ways and plans.
Every temptation calls us to have a change and clarification of our stand for God. Jesus emerged gloriously from the wilderness of temptation, but it did not stop there. The adversary would appear to distract Jesus during the ministry too.
“Get behind me Satan! Because the way you think is not God’s way but man’s” (Mk.9:33).
Jesus took a clear stand for God and inviting us to embrace the rule of God by believing in the Gospel.
Repentance and believing are the proof we have overcome the battle of temptation. Jesus is the Good News. It is time to know, love and serve Jesus.
A radical change and complete 360 turnaround.
It is not about leaving one sin or sets of sins rather our attitude and addiction to the sins to be looked at with faith.
Without repentance, we cannot believe in the Gospel and come closer to God.
As we begin the Lent, the Church invites us to discipline ourselves with the Word of God to face the wilderness of temptation with Jesus.
What is expected of us to resist evil and to bring peace and harmony in ourselves and with others. In facing the wilderness of temptation, we are not alone. We are with our Lord and the followers.
We are all tempted, sinned, and failed. Many of us have got stuck in the tunnel of sins believing that there is no way out. It is all about change of heart and mind about the way we think.
Lent is the time to examine our habits of sin and find the exit with the help of the Good News. It is a lifetime process till we die. Temptations would be there around if we live here on earth.
Let us begin again facing the enemy in us and around us. It is the time to enjoy not merely to endure. It is the perfect to grow in spiritual maturity and emerge so strongly than ever before.
St. Peter confesses, “For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God.” (1 Pet.3:18).
How many of us go to bed without examining our conscience daily? How many of us are willing to switch of the links, the connections, the contacts that make us feel sinful, small, and alienated from God?
Our screen time has increased so dramatically, while our space with God has shrunk so small. Each one has an addiction to look at it and deal with it during this time of grace, mercy, and forgiveness.
Lent is the time of growing up spiritually, relationally in our faith commitments and with one another. The floods of sins could have destroyed the areas we treasured most yet the rivers of grace never run dry in our life.
Lent is time of training to combat the evils we usually take for granted.
Jesus did this training in forty days to begin with. (Mk.1:12-13).
There is a wilderness in everyone’s life. We need to examine it. We do not need to judge, condemn, and crucify ourselves to look at us as God looks at us compassionately and to appreciate our willingness to change. “This is the time of fulfilment.
Re-form yourselves.” (Mt.4:17). The battleground has shifted from the desert to the halls of our hearts. Let us begin the Lent with enthusiasm, confidence, and courage even though we are still not able to have the full access to the Church and the Sacraments.
Our fasting, prayer and charity need to be accelerated. Our charity to the needy is the expression of our love for humanity within and embracing battered face of divinity in the image of God.
Let us change and submit ourselves out of love not out of force, fear, and formality. To experience the mercy and grace, we need to enter in.
May the Lord help us to enter the time of Lent with seriousness. Have a fruitful Lent and making the spiritual life meaningful.
God bless you and have a lovely day.