Last Wednesday, we started the season of Lent. We have five weeks of Lent until Easter. Lent does not have quite the impact it used to in the past, as I noticed last Ash Wednesday. Only a few had ashes on their foreheads. Most of those I met were carrying red roses or cakes or teddy bears or chocolates or anything that symbolized their love for each other as they celebrated Valentine’s Day.

The scenario gave me the impression that Lent doesn’t seem to have as much of an impact on the lives of Christians as Ramadan has on the lives of Muslims. Yet, it is worth reminding ourselves that Lent is beginning. As a church, we have set out on a journey that will end at the Easter Triduum, those three great days of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

The Gospel reading for the first Sunday of Lent is always about the temptation of Jesus. Mark’s account is the shortest by far. We are given no dialogue between Jesus and Satan; the temptations are not spelled out in any way. Instead, we have that enigmatic statement that Jesus “was with the wild beasts and the angels ministered to him.”

It is not surprising that the three great world religions — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — were all born in the desert. It was through the desert that Moses led the Israelites from slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land. It was from that desert that John the Baptist came to herald the Messiah.

After reading the first books of the Old Testament, thanks to our professor Dr. Moses Catan, I came to realize the significance of the desert. What is impressive about the desert is that it has no vegetation, no bird life and, apart from the odd tiny lizard, almost no animals.

And that is what we need — total silence. In silence, nothing comes between man and God. One either discovers God or succumbs to despair.

No life thrives in the desert except inner life. It is not surprising that it was the Desert Fathers who created that great institution dedicated to fostering the inner life, Western monasticism.

As the Holy Spirit led Jesus out into the desert where He remained for forty days, we indeed also need that time and space to nurture our spiritual lives. Like Jesus, we should let the Holy Spirit lead us out into the desert this Lent where we can confront the devils that haunt our lives, and like Him too, triumph over them. That is the freedom, dignity and gift that is offered in today’s gospel.

In a reflective way let us look at life as Christians struggling between sin and grace, selfishness and holiness. We can only say that we have spent time on earth successfully if we have put aside sin and lived by the grace of God. In the Scriptures, we can see two contrasting reactions to temptation. The first humans, Adam and Eve, are imagined as preferring their own inclinations to the will of God.

Jesus, the Savior, on the contrary, resisted temptation, remaining faithful to what God the Father required of him. Saint Paul reflects on how these choices affect ourselves: Adam’s sin brought trouble on all, but we are saved and offered new life because of the fidelity of Christ.

Temptation in one form or another is an unavoidable part of life. If we honestly examine our daily experience, we can find many aspects of temptation: impulses or tendencies counter to the right way of doing things. We sometimes tend to rationalize temptation, so that it becomes socially acceptable and politically correct. We want to dictate for ourselves what is right and wrong, to draw for ourselves the boundaries of “acceptable” behavior.

My greetings to my friend Jojo and Marichu who have exchanged their vows and fidelity to each other in marriage. And may the MST Community enjoy our outing today.