DESERT, TEMPTATIONS, FAITHFULNESS TO THE COVENANT OF LOVE, AND FREEDOM.

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February 18, 2024.
First Sunday of Lent – B.

Readings: Gn 9:8-15; Ps 25:4-5, 6-7, 8-9; 1 Pt 3:18-22; Mk1:12-15.

“The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan.” (Mk 1:12)

An Arabic proverb says: “In the desert of life the wise person travels by caravan, while the fool prefers to travel alone.” A Bambara proverb adds: “The greatest crime in a desert is to find water and keep silent about it.”

In each one's life, there are moments when we are put to the test. We are tempted, sometimes, even beyond our capacity for resistance. All the temptations we go through are a test of our ability to keep faithful to our promises and covenants. No one is exempted from temptations. Even Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God, was not exempt from temptation. The capacity to resist and keep faithfulness in front of temptations is what determines our love. He who truly loves, endures, and resists.

Besides, without temptation, we cannot judge someone's faithfulness. Temptations, therefore, become the key and the tool of evaluation.

In this Lenten Season, each of us is invited to let himself be led into the desert of our lives, the places of deep intimacy with ourselves and with God, and be evaluated on how we keep faith in God, mostly in the moments of trials and tribulations.

Pope Francis, for this Lent 2024 gave a beautiful message titled: "Through the Desert, God Leads us to Freedom."

The desert is a place of solitude and reflection on oneself. It is also a place of encounter, encounter with God, and encounter with oneself. The most beautiful is that the desert is a place where one learns to be free. Through the experience of the desert, we become free from material possessions and accumulation, free from the spirit of the world made of consumerism, free from presumption and preconceived ideas, free from gossip, hatred, jealousy, and everything that loads our lives in the ordinary of our days. Though, truly, deserts are not a pleasing place, the experience of the desert is the most formative one needs to reach any form of maturity, even spiritual. The Holy Father, after running through the experience of the children of Israel in the desert and many other expressions of the desert as the place to be for prayer, intimacy, and communion, affirms: "The desert is the place where our freedom can mature in a personal decision not to fall back into slavery." That is exactly what we are called for, during this Lenten pilgrimage, to decide to not be slaves of sin, not be slaves of material possessions, not be slaves of the self and its desires, but rather, to open a way to genuine and sacrificial love.

In our first reading, we hear about God's covenant with Noah and his children after the flood that wiped away from the earth all evil and all evildoers. The Lord promises that never again will his wrath rise to destroy the earth. As a sign, he gave the rainbow, an bow, of love, harmony, and peace. The image of the covenant is perfect here.

The Gospel speaks of the experience of the Lord Jesus in the desert. It was for him a place of temptations, but also a place of faithfulness to his Father.

Mark states that Jesus was tempted by Satan, and the angels ministered to him. After this experience of the desert, the Lord started his public ministry, a mission that will lead him up to the Calvary and his death and Resurrection.

In this Lenten Season, we have embarked with him on this journey. We are invited to go with him in the deserts of our life, face temptations, fight sin, die of our sins, and with him, rise unto a newness of life. This journey of dying with the Lord and rising again with him, we already did it in our Baptism. But because we are still in the journey of purification and toward perfection, the Lenten Season comes to remind us of the need for daily and continual conversion. St. Peter, in his pastoral letter, presents the reality of Baptism as a new birth after death. In the words of the Apostle, this sacramental birth was prefigured by the flood, at the time of Noah. Just as the flood was for purification, so too, the Baptism plunges us into the death of Christ, purifies us, and regenerates us unto new life.

During this time, may we open our hearts and lives to the experience of the desert. With Christ, let us face and overcome all temptations. Let us faithfully keep God's covenant of love. Only then would we be truly free and happy. We must always remember that Lent is not a time of sadness, but of freedom, newness and happiness. Christ, in this time, will die so that we may live happily and free from sin and its corollary of death.

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