LENT I [A] Gen 2:7-9, 3:1-7; Rom 5:12-19; Mt 4:1-11

Today we begin the first Sunday in the season of Lent. Lent is a season of penance that has been set apart by the Catholic Church in memory of the forty days fast of Our Lord Jesus in the desert.

The first reading from the book of Genesis (Gen 2:7-9, 3:1-7) describes the “Original Temptation” – “You will be like gods, knowing what is good and what is evil.”  It tells us that Adam and Eve were given the possibility of making a choice. The fundamental choice was to live for God, dependent upon and obedient to His will, or to say no to God. Like Adam and Eve, we are all tempted to put ourselves in God’s place. Consequently, we resent every limit on our freedom, and we don’t want to be held responsible for the consequences of our choices, as the first parents tried to pass the blame on each other and the snake.

Paul reminds us of the social consequences of sin. Sin is never a private affair, affecting only myself. When we sin, all our relationships are affected: our relationship with our inner self, our relationships with our brothers and sisters, our relationship with our God and our relationship with nature and the world in which we live.

Today’s Gospel gives an account of the temptations Jesus endured. After fasting for forty days and forty nights, Jesus was put to severe temptations.  The message of lent given to us from the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness is that we fight against three basic evil natures in us:  temptation to amass material possession, temptation to gain popularity through unfair means, temptation to get power at the cost of others. If we are able to resist them in little measures we will be able to contribute to the alleviation of suffering and injustice that prevail today.

Originally, Lent was the season when those about to be baptized repented of their sins and sought to know the Lord Jesus more intimately. Then it became a season for the baptized to do the same. We are challenged to die to sin so that we may rise again to the new life in Christ.

There is an Irish island called Lough Derg, which is also known as St. Patrick’s Purgatory, which purportedly was visited by St. Patrick in the 5th century. The saint came in order to spend a penitential retreat of forty days and forty nights. And from the Middle Ages to the present day, pilgrims have journeyed there, in imitation of Patrick, to do penance and to pray. When the retreatants arrive, they are instructed immediately to take off their shoes and socks, and they endure the three-day process barefoot, regardless of the weather. That first day, they fast (eating nothing but dry bread and a soup composed of hot water and pepper), and they move through a series of prayers and spiritual exercises. The first night, they are compelled to stay awake, fasting from sleep. If someone dozes off, his fellow pilgrims are expected to wake him up. The following day, they continue with their fast and their exercises, but they are allowed to sleep that night. The third day involves still more prayer and culminates with confession and Mass. After the liturgy, the pilgrims put their shoes back on and are ferried across to the mainland. Those who come to Lough Derg take their spiritual lives with utter seriousness, and that is precisely why they are willing to endure hardship – even imposing it on themselves – in order to deepen their communion with God. They know that there are certain tendencies within their bodies and souls that are preventing the achievement of full friendship with God and therefore they seek, quite sensibly, to discipline themselves.

St. John Henry Newman commented that the ascetical principle is basic to a healthy Christianity. He meant that Christians, at their best, understand that our sinful nature has to be chastised, disciplined, and rightly ordered. When the ascetical instinct disappears (as it has in much of Western Christianity), the spiritual life rapidly becomes superficial and attenuated, devolving into an easy “I’m okay and you’re okay” attitude. The whole point of the Christian life is to find joy, but the attainment of true joy comes, in a sinful world, at the cost of some suffering.

As we delve deeper into the season of lent let’s recognize our need to accept personal suffering and inconveniences to strengthen us in our spiritual footing and the need of grace to fight the temptations that come from within and the testing that comes from outside of us. And let’s earnestly pray the prayer Jesus taught us:  “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.”