Cycle C - Year I:  

10 March 2019: First Sunday of Lent

(Liturgical Color: Violet)

Readings:

First Reading:        Deuteronomy 26:4-10

Second Reading:   Romans 10:8-13

Gospel:  Please Read  Luke 4:1-13

We can overcome temptations!

 We interrupt our liturgical journey in Ordinary Time to begin the season of Lent. What is Lent season?

In general, Lent is a time of preparation for the big event of Easter Sunday. Specifically, Lent is the Catholic liturgical season consisting of forty days of fasting, prayer, and penitence beginning at Ash Wednesday, which falls March 6 this 2019 with the imposition of blessed ashes on our forehead, and concluding at sundown on Holy Thursday. Forty days is significant for Christians because it is the length of the fast and temptation of Jesus in the desert.

The liturgical color on the priest's vestments and the altar cloth change to violet (i.e. normally, the lighter shade of violet to distinguish it from the violet used during the Season of Advent.)

The evangelist St. Luke gives us the Gospel reading for the First Sunday of Lent on the temptation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now recall that during His baptism at the River Jordan, Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit as the Father has anointed and confirmed Him as the Messiah and Savior. Immediately after His baptism the Spirit led Him into the wilderness of Judea, a lonely place of solitude and silence. (Bible scholars describe Judean wilderness as a vast wasteland of sand, rocks, hills, and deep ravines that stretch for miles and miles. It is one of the most barren, bleak, and inhospitable places on the earth.)

According to the Gospel narrative, our Lord Jesus was alone in the wilderness for forty days, with no contact with friends and family. He was there to prepare Himself for the mission entrusted to Him, spending forty days and nights in solitude and prayers to His Father in heaven.

At the end of Jesus' forty days in the wilderness, Luke tells us, the evil one tempted Him. That is to say, the evil one saw an opportunity to strike while Jesus appeared more vulnerable in His physical and emotional weakened condition due to His prolonged fasting and inner struggle over His important call and mission. But Jesus rejected the empty promises of the evil one and chose the path of His Father -- a path that resulted in self-renunciation, humility, and obedience to His Father's will.

Now what is the lesson that the Gospel this Sunday is teaching us in our practical life?

As humans we constantly face the temptations of comfort, power, and wealth. We can imitate our Lord Jesus Christ Himself in fighting these temptations. For Jesus did not rely on His own human strength and will-power for overcoming temptations. He relied on the Holy Spirit for strength, wisdom, courage, and self-control. In the Gospel narrative, Jesus goes back to the word of God and quoted Sacred Scripture to find strength and insight to fight off evil. Because the word of God is our big source of energy when we are tempted.

Thus, our Lord Jesus Christ has shown us that we cannot fight temptation just on our own, because the enemy is far more powerful over humans. We need help, we need the strength and guidance of the Holy Spirit and the word of God to overcome temptations. And Jesus Himself gives us His Holy Spirit to help us in our weaknesses, and to be our guide and strength in time of testing. The Lord Jesus gives grace to those who humbly acknowledge their dependence on Him to be able to reject the lies and deceits of the evil one.

The practical way, perhaps, to handle temptation is to run away immediately at the first sign of temptation. Because we can never rely on our "moral capacity" to resist temptation.

In gist, the practical message of the Gospel reading for this Sunday is to remind us that when we face temptation in our day to day life, we can overcome them if we go to our Lord Jesus Christ and choose to remain with Him.

A blessed Sunday to us all. And thank you for a moment with God.

Ad Jesum per Mariam!