First Sunday of Lent, 2/13/05

See the final text of the homily here at the OLA website. You can listen, too.

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Preliminary Notes.

Please be aware that this is not a "draft text" for a homily, but my own thoughts as I am preparing. I welcome comments, suggestions, and further reflections.

Readings for the First Sunday of Lent

Scripture References:

Gospel: Matthew 4:1-11
First Reading: Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7
Second Reading: Romans 5:12-19

The temptation of Jesus is fundamentally the same as the temptation of Adam and Eve: to become one’s own god. Thus Jesus begins his ministry in a deeply symbolic way. By overcoming the same temptation that our first parents yielded to, Jesus brought to the fore both the field and the focus of his mission: liberation from sin and its destructive and enslaving effects.

As we begin Lent, the first Sunday every year invites us to consider temptation in our own life. It might seem that we don’t face the same temptations as Jesus did; after all, none of us has the power to do any of those things! And yet the heart of Jesus’ temptations was to misuse the power that he had to serve his own gratification rather than God’s intentions. When we look at it that way, we have to ask ourselves whether we use the gifts God has given us for ourselves or for him.

Here's my Pastor's Desk column for this weekend's parish bulletin. I think Michael Casey has some insights that may give more direction to my homily musings:


Several weeks ago I was on retreat at St. Andrew’s Abbey in Valyermo, where the mountains meet the desert between Wrightwood and Palmdale. There, I wrestled a bit with this question, because the ordinary answers—prayer, fasting, and almsgiving—didn’t seem satisfying. Giving up stuff that I don’t need anyway? Well, there’s some merit in that, but is Jesus asking for more? Praying more? Well, yes, but that’s always necessary. Opening my heart more to the poor? Again, yes that’s important. But there still seemed to be something I was missing.

As I often do, I looked to the question, “What would Jesus do?” And in turn, the only way to answer that question is to examine, “What did Jesus do?” We usually answer ask—and therefore answer—that question as, “What would I do if I were Jesus?” or “What do I think Jesus ought to do?” A very different question indeed.

A book I bought at St. Andrew’s (Michael Casey, Fully Human, Fully Divine: an interactive Christology) helped me to explore that question. If we look at the experience of Jesus in the desert—this Sunday’s Gospel—the real job of Lent is to struggle with temptation. What did Jesus do in the desert? Let’s listen to Michael Casey, a Cistercian monk and insightful spiritual writer, and let him be our guide:

For Jesus to live consciously as God’s Son here on earth necessarily involves a struggle. To be with God means contending with “Satan” who, in the Old Testament, is not so much an anti-God but the adversary of humanity, the recorder and accuser of every misdeed. Our relationship with God is constantly undermined by the querulous murmur, “How can you be a child of God when you do such things?” The loving trust to which we give the name “faith” allows us to affirm God’s unconditional love without denying or dissimulating our own guilt. We are, at the same time, sinners and yet saved. … Jesus is the one who, par excellence, holds together these contrary realities.

Far from being shielded from this perennial contest, Jesus is flung into it. The desert is a harsh and hostile environment, considered in the ancient world to be the lair of demons. This is no romantic escape into golden sunsets and solitary meditation, but a life-and-death struggle, the outcome of which is not immediately clear to the principal protagonist. Nor are the ground rules of such warfare predictably defined. Temptation rarely involves a full frontal assault on God by open rebellion. More often it is a matter of putting God’s claims on hold “temporarily,” while other more immediate matters are attended to . God is absent from our awareness: we are directly concerned with other more tangible realities, like food, possessions, and reputation. … We know from our own experience that the overt content of temptation is often irrelevant, just as eating the fruit in Eden was a harmless enough activity. The malign meaning of the forbidden act is to be found in its capacity to rupture the relationship of dependence on God. An action becomes a sin when it is a means of claiming an inappropriate autonomy. Jesus’ lifelong temptation was to allow his mission from the Father to become dormant, to do nothing, to spare himself the trouble, to take life easy. What a sin of omission would that have been!

The Fourth Gospel makes it abundantly clear that Jesus’ chosen priority in life was the accomplishment of the Father’s plan of salvation: “My food is that I do the will of the One who sent me and bring his work to completion” (Jn 4:34). But it was not a choice lightly made. “Now my very soul trembles. Should I say, ‘Father, save me from this Hour’? No, it is for this that I have come to this Hour” (Jn 12:27). Let us not water down the heroism of Jesus in pursuing his mission.

… From the outside, Jesus’ life may have appeared to be like a boat tranquilly holding its course in midstream. The inner reality, as suggested by [the temptation] narrative, was more energetic—a constant battle to hold the rudder steady against contrary currents, with much vigilance and heavy toil necessary to avoid coming aground. (Fully Human, Fully Divine, pp. 44-46.)

For me, at least, that last sentence pretty well lays out my task for Lent. What is yours?

May this season of Lent by a time of surprising grace in the midst of the struggles of life for you and all those you love. I love you.
Fr. Tom Welbers.