A TIME TO GO INTO OUR DESERT

« Sunday, March 1, 2020 »

First Sunday of Lent
Lectionary: 22

L-Ewwel Ħadd tar-Randan

 

 

Reading 1       Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7

The LORD God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the reath of life, and so man became a living being. Then the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and placed there the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the LORD God made various trees grow that were delightful to look at and good for food, with the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the animals that the LORD God had made. The serpent asked the woman, “Did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?” The woman answered the serpent: “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; it is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘You shall not eat it or even touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman: “You certainly will not die! No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is evil.” The woman saw that the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

Qari I        mill-Ktieb tal-Ġenesi 2, 7-9; 3, 1-7

Il-Mulej Alla sawwar il-bniedem mit-trab tal-art u nefaħlu fi mnifsejh nifs il-ħajja, u l-bniedem sar ħlejqa ħajja. U l-Mulej Alla ħawwel ġnien fl-Għeden, in-naħa tal-Lvant, u qiegħed hemm il-bniedem li kien sawwar. U l-Mulej Alla nibbet mill-art is-siġar kollha li jpaxxu l-għajn u bnina għall-ikel; u s-siġra tal-ħajja f’nofs il-ġnien u s-siġra ta’ tagħrif it-tajjeb u l-ħażin. Is-serp kien l-aktar wieħed li jilħaqlu fost l-annimali selvaġġi kollha, li kien għamel il-Mulej Alla. U qal lill-mara: “Tassew li Alla qalilkom: “La tiklux mis-siġar kollha tal-ġnien?”. U l-mara wieġbet lis-serp: “Mill-frott tas-siġar fil-ġnien nistgħu nieklu. Imma mill-frott li hemm f’nofs il-ġnien, Alla qalilna: “La tiklux minnu, u lanqas ma għandkom tmissuh, inkella tmutu”.U s-serp qal lill-mara: “Le, żgur ma tmutux. Imma Alla jaf li dak in-nhar li tieklu minnu jinfetħu għajnejkom u ssiru bħal allat, li jafu t-tajjeb u l-ħażin”. U l-mara rat li s-siġra kienet tajba għall-ikel u tiġbdek fil-għajn, u s-siġra tħajrek biex tikseb id-dehen; u ħadet mill-frott u kielet. Imbagħad tat ukoll lil żewġha, li kien magħha, u kiel. U nfetħu għajnejhom it-tnejn u ntebħu li kienu għerja, u ħietu weraq tat-tin, u għamlu iħżma. Il-Kelma tal-Mulej

Responsorial Psalm       Psalm 51:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 17

Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness;
in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense.
Thoroughly wash me from my guilt
and of my sin cleanse me.
R. Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.

For I acknowledge my offense,
and my sin is before me always:
“Against you only have I sinned,
and done what is evil in your sight.”
R. Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.

A clean heart create for me, O God,
and a steadfast spirit renew within me.
Cast me not out from your presence,
and your Holy Spirit take not from me.
R. Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.

Give me back the joy of your salvation,
and a willing spirit sustain in me.
O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.
R. Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.

Salm Responsorjali      Salm 50 (51), 3-4.5-6a.12-13. 14 u 17

R/. (ara 3a): Ħenn għalina Mulej, għaliex dnibna

Ikollok ħniena minni, O Alla, fi tjubitek;

fil-kobor tal-ħniena tiegħek ħassar ħtijieti.

Aħsilni kollni mill-ħtija tiegħi;

naddafni mid-dnub tiegħi. R/.

Għax jien nagħrafhom ħtijieti;

id-dnub tiegħi dejjem quddiemi.

Kontrik biss jiena dnibt,

u dak li hu ħażin f’għajnejk għamilt. R/.

Oħloq fija qalb safja, O Alla,

u spirtu qawwi ġedded fija.

La twarrabnix minn quddiemek;

tneħħix minni l-ispirtu qaddis tiegħek. R/.

Roddli l-hena tas-salvazzjoni tiegħek,

u bi spirtu qalbieni wettaqni.

Iftaħli xufftejja, Sidi,

u fommi jxandar it-tifħir tiegħek. R/.

Reading 2     Romans 5:12-19

Brothers and sisters: Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin, death, and thus death came to all men, inasmuch as all sinned— for up to the time of the law, sin was in the world, though sin is not accounted when there is no law. But death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin after the pattern of the trespass of Adam, who is the type of the one who was to come. But the gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one, the many died, how much more did the grace of God and the gracious gift of the one man Jesus Christ overflow for the many. And the gift is not like the result of the one who sinned. For after one sin there was the judgment that brought condemnation; but the gift, after many transgressions, brought acquittal. For if, by the transgression of the one, death came to reign through that one, how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of justification come to reign in life through the one Jesus Christ. In conclusion, just as through one transgression condemnation came upon all, so, through one righteous act, acquittal and life came to all.For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so, through the obedience of the one, the many will be made righteous.

Qari II       mill-Ittra lir- Rumani 5, 12-19

Ħuti, kien permezz ta’ bniedem wieħed li fid-dinja daħal id-dnub, u permezz tad-dnub il-mewt, u hekk il-mewt laħqet il-bnedmin kollha, għax kollha dinbu. Kienet għada ma waslitx il-Liġi, id-dnub kien ġa fid-dinja: imma d-dnub ma kienx magħdud, ladarba Liġi ma kienx hemm. Madankollu l-mewt saltnet ukoll minn Adam sa Mosè, imqar fuq dawk li ma waqgħux fid-dnub li fih kien waqa’ Adam, li kien xbieha ta’ dak li kellu jiġi. Imma d-don m’huwiex bħall-ħtija. Għax jekk permezz ta’ ħtija waħda mietet il-kotra, aktar u aktar issa l-grazzja ta’ Alla u d-don mogħti bil-grazzja ta’ bniedem wieħed li hu Ġesù Kristu, xterdu bil-bosta fuq il-kotra. U d-don anqas ma hu bħall-frott ta’ dak il-wieħed li dineb; għax tassew, il-ġudizzju mogħti fuq dnub wieħed, wassal sal-kundanna, iżda d-don mogħti wara ħafna dnubiet iwassal għall-ġustifikazzjoni. Għax jekk minħabba fil-ħtija ta’ wieħed waħdu saltnet il-mewt permezz ta’ dak il-wieħed, aktar u aktar dawk li jirċievu l-kotra tal-grazzja u d-don tal-ġustizzja għad isaltnu fil-ħajja permezz ta’ wieħed li hu Ġesù Kristu. Mela kif bil-ħtija ta’ wieħed waħdu waslet il-kundanna fuq il-bnedmin kollha, hekk ukoll bl-opra tal-ġustizzja ta’ wieħed waslet lill-bnedmin kollha l-ġustifikazzjoni tal-ħajja. Għax kif bid-diżubbidjenza ta’ bniedem wieħed il-ħafna saru midinbin, hekk ukoll bl-ubbidjenza ta’ wieħed il-ħafna jsiru ġusti. Il-Kelma tal-Mulej

Gospel     Matthew 4:1-11

At that time Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was hungry. The tempter approached and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves of bread.” He said in reply, “It is written: One does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.” Then the devil took him to the holy city,  and made him stand on the parapet of the temple, and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written: He will command his angels concerning you and with their hands they will support you, lest you dash your foot against a stone.” Jesus answered him, “Again it is written, You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test. ”Then the devil took him up to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence, and he said to him, "All these I shall give to you, if you will prostrate yourself and worship me.” At this, Jesus said to him, “Get away, Satan! It is written: The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve.”Then the devil left him and, behold, angels came and  ministered to him.

Evanġelju         Qari skond San Mattew 4,1-11   

F’dak iż-żmien, 1l-Ispirtu ħa lil Ġesù fid-deżert biex ix-xitan iġarrbu. U Ġesù baqa’ sajjem għal erbgħin jum u erbgħin lejl, u fl-aħħar ħadu l-ġuħ. U resaq it-tentatur u qallu: “Jekk inti Bin Alla, ordna li dan il-ġebel isir ħobż”. Iżda Ġesù wieġbu: “Hemm miktub: “Il-bniedem mhux bil-ħobż biss jgħix, iżda b’kull kelma li toħroġ minn fomm Alla”. Imbagħad ix-Xitan ħadu miegħu fil-Belt imqaddsa, qiegħdu fuq il-quċċata tat-tempju, u qallu: “Jekk inti Bin Alla, inxteħet għal isfel; għax hemm miktub li: “Lill-anġli tiegħu jordnalhom jieħdu ħsiebek, u li fuq idejhom jerfgħuk, ħalli ma taħbatx riġlek ma’ xi ġebla”. Qallu Ġesù: “Hemm miktub ukoll: “Iġġarrabx lill-Mulej, Alla tiegħek”. Għal darb’oħra x-xitan ħadu miegħu fuq muntanja għolja ħafna, urieh is-saltniet kollha tad-dinja u l-glorja tagħhom, u qallu: “Dawn kollha nagħtihom lilek jekk tinxteħet tadurani”. Imbagħad qallu Ġesù: “Itlaq, Xitan! Għax hemm miktub: “Lill-Mulej, Alla tiegħek, għandek tadura, u lilu biss taqdi”. Imbagħad ix-Xitan ħallieh. U minnufih ġew xi anġli u kienu jaqduh. Il-Kelma tal-Mulej

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With Jesus in the Desert

Here is the Lenten homily for this First Sunday of Len by the preacher of the Pontifical Household, Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa ofm cap

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Every year Lent begins with the account of Jesus going into the desert for forty days. In this introductory meditation we seek to discover what Jesus did during this time, and what themes are present in the evangelical account, to apply them to our life.

“The Spirit led Jesus into the desert”  -  The first theme is that of the desert. Jesus had just received the messianic investiture in the Jordan to take the good news to the poor, to heal afflicted hearts, to preach the Kingdom (cf. Luke 4:18 f). However, he is not in a hurry to do any of these things. On the contrary, obeying an impulse of the Holy Spirit, he goes into the desert where he stays for forty days. The desert in question is the desert of Judah, which extends from the walls of Jerusalem to Jericho, in the valley of the Jordan. Tradition identifies the place as Mount Quarentyne overlooking the Jordan valley.

In history there have been groups of men and women who have chosen to imitate Jesus and withdraw into the desert. However, the invitation to follow Jesus in the desert is not addressed only to monks and hermits. In a different way, it is addressed to all. Monks and hermits chose a space of desert, we have to choose at least a time of desert. Lent is the occasion that the Church offers to everyone, indistinctly, to live a time of desert without thus having to abandon daily activities.

Saint Augustine made this famous appeal:  Re-enter your heart! Where do you want to go, far from yourself? Re-enter from your wandering which has led you outside the way; return to the Lord. He is quick. First re-enter into your heart, you who have become a stranger to yourself, because of your wandering outside: you do not know yourself, and seek him who has created you! Return, return to your heart, detach yourself from your body …. Re-enter into your heart: there examine him whom you perceived as God, because the image of God is there, Christ dwells in man’s interior.

To re-enter into one’s heart! Outside the ambit of human physiology, where it is but a vital organ of the body, the heart is the most profound metaphysical place of a person, the innermost being of every man, where each one lives his being a person. In ordinary language the heart also designates the essential part of reality. Thus, the heart indicates the spiritual place, where one can contemplate the person in his most profound and true reality, without veils and without pausing on externals.

To return to the heart means, therefore, to return to what is most personal and interior to us. Unfortunately, interiority is a value in crisis. Some causes of this crisis are old and inherent to our nature itself. Our “composition,” that is, our being constituted of flesh and spirit, inclines us toward the external, the visible, the multiplicity. Like the universe, after the initial explosion (the famous Big Bang), we are also in a phase of expansion and of moving away from the centre. We are perennially “going out” through those five doors or windows which are our senses.

How many of us must make our own the bitter observation that Augustine made in regard to his life before his conversion: “Late have I loved Thee, beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved Thee! Lo, you were within, but I outside, seeking there for you and upon the shapely things you have made I rushed headlong – I, misshapen. You were with me, but I was not with you. They held me back far from you those things which would have no being were they not in you.”

What is done outside is exposed to the almost inevitable look of other persons which has the power to deflect our intention, like certain magnetic fields deflect the waves. Our action loses its authenticity and its recompense. Appearance prevails over being. Because of this, Jesus invites to fasting and almsgiving in a hidden way and to pray to the Father “in secret” (cf. Matthew 6:1-4).

When is it that a person is truly himself? Only when he has God as his measure. “There is so much talk – writes the philosopher Kierkegaard – of wasted lives. However, wasted only is the life of a man who never realized that a God exists and that he, his very self, stands before this God.” 

However, let us try to see what we can do concretely, to rediscover and preserve the habit of inwardness. Moses was a very active man. But we read that he had a portable tent built and at every stage of the exodus, he fixed the tent outside the camp and regularly entered it to consult the Lord. There, the Lord spoke with Moses “face to face, as a man speaks to his friend” (Exodus 33:11).

However, we cannot always do this. We cannot always withdraw into a chapel or a solitary place to renew our contact with God. Therefore, Saint Francis of Assisi suggested another device closer at hand. Sending his friars on the roads of the world, he said: We always have a hermitage with us wherever we go and every time we so wish we can, as hermits, re-enter in this hermitage. “Brother body is the hermitage and the soul is the hermit that dwells within to pray to God and to meditate.” It is like having a desert “in the house,” in which one can withdraw in thought at every moment, even while walking on the street.

Fasting accepted by God  --  The second great theme present in the account of Jesus in the desert is fasting. “After having fasted forty days and forty nights, he was hungry” (Matthew 4:1). What does it mean for us today to imitate Jesus’ fasting? Once understood by the word fasting, was a limit of one’s intake of food and drink and to abstain from meat. This fasting from food still keeps its vitality and is highly recommended, when, of course, its motivation is religious and not only hygienic and aesthetic, but it is not the only kind of fasting or the most necessary.

Today the most necessary and meaningful form of fasting is called sobriety. To willingly deprive oneself from little and great comforts, of what is useless, and sometimes also damaging to one’s health. This fasting is solidarity with the poverty of so many. Who does not remember Isaiah’s words that the liturgy speaks to us at the beginning of every Lent?

“Is not this the fast that I choose: To share your bread with the hungry, And bring the homeless poor into your house; When you see the naked to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?” (Isaiah 58:6-7).

Such fasting is also a protest against a consumerist mentality. In a world, which has made of superfluous and useless comfort one of the ends of one’s activity, to renounce the superfluous, to be able to do without something, to stop oneself from taking recourse to the most comfortable solution, from choosing the easiest thing, the object of greater luxury — to live, in sum with sobriety, is more effective than imposing on oneself artificial penances.

More necessary than fasting from food today is fasting from images. We live in a civilization of images; we have become devourers of images. Through television, internet, the press, advertising, we let a flood of images enter us. Many of them are unhealthy, they engender violence and malice, they do nothing other than incite the worst instincts we bear within us. They are made expressly to seduce.

If we do not create a filter, a barricade, we quickly reduce our imagination and our spirit to a rubbish dump. The evil images do not die on reaching us but ferment. They are transformed into impulses to imitate, they condition our freedom horribly. Feuerback, a materialist philosopher, said: “Man is what he eats”; today, perhaps we should say: “man is what he sees.”

Another of these alternative fasts which we can do during Lent is that of evil words - not only bad language but also cutting, negative words that systematically bring to light a brother’s weak side, words that sow discord and suspicions. In the life of a family or a community, such words have the power to shut everyone in himself, to freeze, creating bitterness and resentment. A word can do more evil than a fist.

Tempted by Satan   --  We pass to the third element of the evangelical narrative on which we wish to reflect: Jesus’ fight against the devil, the temptations. First of all a question: does the devil exist? That is, does the word devil truly indicate some personal reality gifted with intelligence and will, or is it simply a symbol, a way of speaking to indicate the sum of moral evil of the world, the collective unconscious, the collective alienation and so on?

The main proof of the existence of the devil in the Gospels is not in numerous episodes of deliverance of the possessed, because in interpreting these facts we must take into account ancient beliefs about the origin and nature of certain sicknesses. The proof is Jesus who was tempted in the desert by the devil.

What can one know of Satan if one has never had to do with the reality of Satan, but only with his idea, that is, with the cultural, religious, ethnological traditions about Satan?  It is altogether normal and coherent that one who does not believe in God does not believe in the devil. It would be downright tragic if one who does not believe in God believed in the devil! Yet, if we think about it well, it is what happens in our society. The devil, Satanism and other connected phenomena are of great topicality today. Chased out the door, the devil has re-entered by the window. That is, chased out of the faith, he has re-entered with superstition.

The most important thing that the Christian faith can tell us is not, however, that the devil exists, but that Christ has conquered the devil. For Christians, Christ and the devil are not two equal and contrary princes, as in certain dualistic religions. Jesus is the only Lord; Satan is only a creature “gone bad.” If he has been granted power over men, it is because men have the possibility to freely make a choice and also so that they “are kept from being too elated” (cf. 2 Corinthians 12:7), believing themselves self-sufficient and without need of a redeemer.  With Christ we have nothing to fear. Nothing and no one can do us harm, if we ourselves do not allow it. After the coming of Christ, said an ancient Father of the Church, Satan is like a tethered dog: he can bark and fling himself as much as he wants but, if we do not approach him, he cannot bite. Jesus freed himself from Satan in the desert to free us from Satan!

Today also, the whole effort of the devil is to divert man from the purpose for which he is in the world, which is to know, love and serve God in this life to enjoy him later in the next; to distract him. But Satan is astute; he does not appear as a person with horns and the smell of sulfur. It would be too easy to recognize him. He makes use of good things leading them to excess, absolutizing them and making them idols. Money is a good thing, as is pleasure, sex, eating, drinking. However, if they become the most important thing in life, they are no longer means but become destructive for the soul and often also for the body.

A particularly related example to the topic is amusement, distraction. Play is a noble dimension of the human being; God himself commanded rest. The evil is to make of amusement the purpose of life, to live the week waiting for Saturday night or the trip to the stadium on Sunday, not to mention other pastimes that are rather less innocent. In this case amusement changes sign and, instead of serving human growth and alleviating stress and exhaustion, it makes them grow.

Why Jesus went into the desert  --  I have tried to bring to light the teachings and the examples that come to us from Jesus for this time of Lent, but I must say that I have omitted up to now to speak about the most important of all. Why did Jesus, after his Baptism, go into the desert? To be tempted by Satan? No, he did not give that the least thought. No one goes on purpose in search of temptations and he himself has taught us to pray so as not to be led into temptation. The temptations were an initiative of the devil, permitted by the Father, for the glory of his Son and as teaching for us.

Did he go into the desert to fast? Yes, but not mainly for this reason. He went there to pray! Jesus always withdrew into desert places to pray to his Father. He went there to be attuned, as man, with the divine will, to deepen the mission that the voice of the Father, in his Baptism, had made him perceive: the mission of the obedient Servant called to redeem the world with suffering and humiliation. He went there, in sum, to pray, to be in intimacy with his Father. And this is also the main purpose of our Lent.

The believer goes into the desert, goes down into his own heart, to renew his contact with God, because he knows that “Truth dwells in the interior man.” It is the secret of happiness and of peace in this life. What does one in love desire more than to be alone, in intimacy, with the person loved? God is in love with us and he wants us to be in love with him. Speaking of his people as of a bride, God says: “I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her” (Hosea 2:16).

We know what the effect is of being in love: all things and all other persons withdraw, are placed in the background. There is a presence that fills everything and renders all the rest “secondary.” It does not isolate from others, rather it renders one more attentive and disposed to others. Oh if we men and women of the Church would discover how close to us, within our reach, is the happiness and the peace that we seek in this world!

Jesus awaits us in the desert: let us not leave him alone during this time.

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