February 26
First Sunday of Lent
“Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.”
Readings
Reflection
What should we make of this account of Jesus in the desert? When we hear today’s gospel it can be an interesting one to imagine, especially just the captivating opening line: At that time Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil (Mt. 4:1). Why might he intentionally set out to be tempted by the devil? Should we be doing the same? Well, no. But given the context of our readings today, Jesus—who is always about the mission of bringing about our salvation and bringing us back to our communion with God—goes out and endures the same threefold temptation that our first parents, Adam and Eve, faced—yet he does not give in.
Let’s go back to the first reading from Genesis 3, the account of “the Fall” or the original sin that leads to our concupiscence or our inclination toward sin. What goes terribly wrong is that Adam and Eve fall victim to temptation that somehow they were lacking, or that somehow God was holding out on them. They failed to know the goodness of God, they failed to recognize his ability to constantly provide for all of their needs. The only “knowledge” they seem to gain after eating the fruit is of their vulnerability, their nakedness, their need. The letter of St. John teaches specifically what goes wrong and points out how temptation lives in our experience today:
Do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. (1 Jn 2:15-16)
This is the pattern of how temptation works. Eve saw that the tree was 1) good for food, 2) pleasing to the eyes, and 3) desirable for gaining wisdom (Gn 3:6). Lust, Greed, and Pride—all for the purpose of becoming “like God” as the serpent says. When the things of the world become ‘idols’ or replace God in our lives, we begin to neglect our identity of belonging to the Lord as his beloved children, and we put ourselves in place of God. We, too, fall victim to believing that God is “not enough,” or that he cannot provide for all our needs, or that somehow we are not known or loved intimately by him.
Jesus goes into the desert for us to see that like us, he faces the same threefold temptation, and with him, we too can overcome temptations that lead us away from choosing the loving embrace of our heavenly Father. As Christians we are all called to overcome the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and pride. The practices that we do all year but intensify now (fasting, almsgiving, and prayer) are ways that the Lord strengthens us with his grace to know his love and to help us walk the path of life. Fasting pushes against the lust of the flesh. Almsgiving pushes against the lust of the eyes (greed/avarice), and prayer pushes against pride by helping us to acknowledge our dependence on God. May we have the grace to experience the strength that only comes to us from Jesus, and may we feel the closeness of his embrace this Lent.
Peace,
Fr. Brendan Foley
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