1st Sunday

Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and lasts until the celebration of Eucharist on Holy Thursday. It presents us with its usual challenge to take stock of our lives, to see more clearly what is in our hearts. While it is one of the more sober seasons of the Church's year, we prepare during Lent for the celebration of the Resurrection at Easter. It is a time for personal as well as group reflection, a time for entering into 'the wilderness' and grappling with the mysteries of life, especially the mystery of suffering.

Today's liturgy invites us to reflect on Jesus' 40-day experience in the wilderness or desert.

Forty is a symbolic number in Israel's story: the great flood lasted 40 days and 40 nights; Moses spent 40 days and 40 nights on the mountain of God; Israel wandered for 40 years in the wilderness; King David reigned for 40 years; the prophet Elijah travelled 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness on his way to the mountain of God. 

The wilderness or desert is a fitting symbol for the place of encounter with God.

In Israel's story, the wilderness is the place of testing for God's people: 'Remember the long way that your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness ... testing you to know what was in your heart' (Deut 8:2).

Jesus is 'filled with the Holy Spirit' and, like so many human beings before and since, is 'led by the Spirit' into the wilderness of life to be 'tested' there. ['Tested' is a more accurate translation of the Greek peirazein than the usual 'tempted']. The Lukan Jesus passes the tests that the people Israel failed in the wilderness of Sinai. 

From a human perspective, deserts are often depicted as uninhabited or desolate regions. Anyone who has spent time in such places knows that the desert supports a rich diversity of other-than-human life. Human retreat to the wilderness can be an opportunity to encounter God in the unfamiliar and self in relation to the other-than human.

The Lenten season invites us to such encounters.

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