1st Sunday of Lent, year ’B’
“The Sprit pushed Jesus into the desert. And here he stayed forty days and was tempted by Satan.”
Our way into this time of Lent is opened up for us by Jesus, who lives in the gaze of His Loving Heavenly Father, moved by the Holy Spirit: it is ’the Spirit who pushes Jesu into the desert.’ This sending into the desert is full of meaning since it as much a place of trial as that of an encounter with God. Jesus will spend 40 years in the desert not only will he be tempted there, but he will also celebrate his Convent with God, his Father, and so with te Messiah will bring about a new harmony. Again, we shall continue our conversion: ’Convert and believe in the Good News. We wish to make of our life a true act of faith in God’s Infinite Love!, Through faith we have come into this mystery and we shall grow until the time when our faith which has been celebrated in the faith of the Church, becomes a personal one. As people who have been baptised, we already participate in Christ’s Resurrection. Having received the gift of the Holy Spirit at Confirmation, we depend this new Life that has been given to us. Nourished by the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, we are continuously alive as ’Risen people’. To love from Jesus’ Resurrection means to participate in the Victory of His Love. To truly believe that Jesus’ Victory is our own means to move forward even more into the Life of God’s Kingdom. “After John the Baptist was arrested, Jesus left for Galilee to proclaim God’s Good News. He said ’The time has come: the Kingdom of God is close at hand.” This time of desert is given to us so as that we go further down into the depths of our being and thus encounter Jesus present there. Marked by the seal of the Holy Spirit we can enter into the combats of faith. Jesu took on our human condition so as to lead us to the fulness of God’s Love. Jesus faces up to evil and is victorious over it, he announces the Good News. In this favourable time, we ask for the grace to be victorious over all of that is opposed to Love. Our sinful humanity keeps on breaking with God’s Covenant. Jesus keeps on intervening with the Power of the Holy Spirit. Out of experience we know that ’the world’ is in the hands of the power of nothingness and lies; Humanity cries out in the pangs of an ongoing child-birth. Taken up by our activities we no longer give a thought to it, but as soon as we are alone for a while we are confronted with these war-torn homes and the pain alongside them. These realities, so hard to bear, are both within us and outside of us.
“Convert and believe in the Gospel.” Led by the Holy Spirit with Jesus we move forward in an attitude of the beloved child of the Father, on a road of tenderness and of gentleness. When faced with any temptations we humbly pass beneath these obstacles with gentleness. With Jesus, through Him and with Him, so as to be established in God’s Tenderness. Converted, we enter into the Power of Love of the Holy Spirit. As we listen to our conscience we are led to recognise and to name all that which is not adjusted to the Love of the Father for us. In this combat against everything which opposes us t divine Love, The Light of the Holy Spirit is given to us. The enemy is within us, expressed by our ’selfish, proud, dominating me’, in the power of obscure forces. When we humbly ask Jesus to help us confront adversity, then we shall receive the courage to confront them. We are never alone when we lead this battle under the action of the Holy Spirit. ’God our Father will lead us to victor according to his benevolent plans.