May we like Jesus have total trust in our heavenly Father.

 

FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT  C  2025

 

There is the story of the famous scientist Einstein who was on a train in Europe.  The conductor asked him for his ticket.  He checked his pockets and then his wallet and he wasn’t able to come with it.  Then the conductor, seeing Einstein’s frustration in not being able to find his ticket, said:  “Don’t worry Mr.  Einstein, we trust you.”  Sometime later, the conductor returned to the train car and saw Einstein now on his knees looking for the ticket under his seat.  The conductor again told Einstein not to worry about it.

Einstein responded:  “Thank you, but I need the ticket to remind me where I’m supposed to be going.”

In a similar way, we need the Lenten season to focus us spiritually on where we are going,  on the meaning and direction of our lives as well.  Lent is a time when we, like Jesus, are led by the Spirit into the desert -- into the depths of ourselves, into our inner wilderness, so to speak, away from the world of achievements.

We were marked with ashes this past Wednesday as Lent formally began. These ashes acknowledge that we all belong to the order of penitents.  We all confess that we are sinners, and we stand in need of the Lord’s healing forgiveness.  The light of Christ that is within us has been dimmed by the darkness of our sin.   We acknowledge this reality with these ashes.  We were given the mantra to:  Repent and believe in the Gospel.

God led the people of Israel into the desert, to forge them into a new people.  The Spirit led Jesus into the desert to clarify the meaning of his Messiahship.  The Spirit leads us into the desert of Lent to reflect on how we have not always resisted temptation and have failed to love.  In the desert we seek mercy and forgiveness.  Lent is God’s gift to us to become more aware that we are God’s redeemed and forgiven people.

May our mantra for the Lenten season be the words spoken to us as ashes were placed on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday:  “Repent and believe in the Gospel.”

In the Lenten season,  we are led by the Holy Spirit into the desert to experience fasting and self-denial and to be tempted and to be tested by the devil.  As disciples of the Lord Jesus, we are tested; we are tried during the Lenten season to gauge our commitment of turning away from sin and being faithful to the Gospel.  How do we deal with the Lenten call to embrace spiritual disciplines?  What fasting are we willing to embrace in the Lenten season?  What spiritual discipline of prayer can we make a commitment to?  What almsgiving, what are willing to tithe in the service of others?

The story of Jesus’ temptations reveals to us the deepest thing about him:  he had total trust in his heavenly Father.  Jesus turned to the Word of God in the face of temptation and expressed his trust, his obedience to God’s plan for him. 

This Lent, into which desert are you being led into by the desert?  May we like Jesus have total trust in our loving Father even in the midst of the crosses and struggles of life.

My hope for myself and for you is that you will encounter the Lord in prayer this Lenten season.  May this encounter fill you with joy and inner peace.  Make a decision, for example, to pray the Stations of the Cross on the Friday Evenings of Lent with other parishioners, experience the merciful love of Jesus in the Sacrament of Reconciliation on Saturday afternoons or on the diocesan day of penance on Wednesday, April 2nd, participate in our parish retreat on March 17,18, 19^th on the theme of becoming a Listening, Missionary Church, and celebrate the Eucharist more frequently during Lent.

May our Lenten prayer further motivate ourselves to share the merciful love of Jesus with others.  Participate in one of the corporal works of mercy:  Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless.  Make a difference in the lives of people in need.

For example, the rationale behind your generosity to operation rice bowl is that our Lenten sacrifices become the source of hope and change for some of our poorest brothers and sisters around the world.  May our Lenten spiritual disciplines lead us to share what we have with those who are hungry and in need of our generosity.

Yes, we are called to make a difference as the disciples of Jesus.  What commitment will I make that will enhance the world, aid the poor, and provide resources for building up the kingdom of justice, love, and peace?

 

The Stations of the Cross describe the stages of the suffering and death of Jesus.  As we experience the stations of the cross of illness, of death, of brokenness in our own stories, may we too get the help of Simon of Cyrene and be strengthened by the love of Mary our mother.  As for Jesus, our own stations of the cross are our way of discipleship.

Yes, there are demons; there is sinfulness in our lives that we seek to turn away from.  Yes, we encounter Satan in the desert of our inner wilderness.  But that is not the end of our Lenten journey.  The real purpose of our Lenten spiritual disciplines is that we are to encounter God in the desert of Lent.  May we allow ourselves to believe in His love.

The Lenten desert is about wrestling with the demons of our life; but the Lenten season is also about conversion; it is our retreat in which we encounter God with blessed and grateful hearts.  We embrace the spiritual disciplines of lent – we embrace prayer, fasting, almsgiving – so that we are clearly place God as first in our lives.

May we encounter the God who loves us in our Lenten journey.