First Sunday of Lent (C)
“Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil”
Today, we see that Jesus, “Filled with the holy Spirit” (Lk 4:1), was led by the Spirit into the desert, far from men, to be able to immediately experience his total dependency upon the Father. In the end Jesus feels hungry and this moment of weakness is taken advantage of by the devil, who tries to tempt him with food to destroy the very nucleus of the identity of Jesus as the Son of God: his substantial and unconditional adhesion to the Father. And, today, our eyes cast upon Christ, victorious over evil, we feel stimulated to go deep into our preparation for Lent. We are pushed by a desire for authenticity: to fully be what we actually are: Jesus' disciples and, with him, sons of God. This is why we wish to get deeper and deeper in our profound adhesion to Jesus Christ and to his program of life, which is the Gospel: “One does not live by bread alone” (Lk 4:4).
As Jesus in the desert, armed with the wisdom of the Scriptures, we are called to proclaim to our consumer world that man has been designed on a divine scale and he can only satisfy his thirst of felicity when he opens wide the doors of his life to Jesus Christ, Redeemer of man. This implies to overcome many temptations that want to belittle our human-divine vocation. With the example and strength of Jesus, tempted in the desert by Satan, we will unmask the many lies about man that, systematically, are spread by the social media of the pagan environment where we live in.
Saint Benedict dedicates chapter 49 of his Rule “On the Observance of Lent” and exhorts us to “wash away during these holy days all the negligence of other times, (...), and give ourselves up to prayer with tears, to reading, to compunction of heart and to abstinence (...). Thus everyone of his own will may offer God ‘with joy of the Holy Spirit’ something above the measure required of him (...). And with the joy of spiritual desire he may look forward to holy Easter.”