February 14, 2016 – First Sunday of Lent – Lectionary: 24

 

Reading 1 – Deuteronomy 26: 4-10

Moses spoke to the people, saying:
“The priest shall receive the basket from you
and shall set it in front of the altar of the LORD, your God.
Then you shall declare before the Lord, your God,
‘My father was a wandering Aramean
who went down to Egypt with a small household
and lived there as an alien.
But there he became a nation
great, strong, and numerous.
When the Egyptians maltreated and oppressed us,
imposing hard labor upon us,
we cried to the LORD, the God of our fathers,
and he heard our cry
and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression.
He brought us out of Egypt
with his strong hand and outstretched arm,
with terrifying power, with signs and wonders;
and bringing us into this country,
he gave us this land flowing with milk and honey.
Therefore, I have now brought you the firstfruits
of the products of the soil
which you, O LORD, have given me.’
And having set them before the Lord, your God,
you shall bow down in his presence.”

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 91: 1-2, 10-11, 12-13, 14-15

1. Be with me, Lord, when I am in trouble.
   You who dwell in the shelter of the Most High,
   who abide in the shadow of the Almighty,
   say to the LORD, “My refuge and fortress,
   my God in whom I trust.”
2. Be with me, Lord, when I am in trouble.
   No evil shall befall you,
   nor shall affliction come near your tent,
   For to his angels he has given command about you,
   that they guard you in all your ways.
3. Be with me, Lord, when I am in trouble.
   Upon their hands they shall bear you up,
   lest you dash your foot against a stone.
   You shall tread upon the asp and the viper;
   you shall trample down the lion and the dragon.
4. Be with me, Lord, when I am in trouble.
   Because he clings to me, I will deliver him;
   I will set him on high because he acknowledges my name.
   He shall call upon me, and I will answer him;
   I will be with him in distress;
   I will deliver him and glorify him.
5. Be with me, Lord, when I am in trouble.

Reading 2 – Romans 10: 8-13

Brothers and sisters:
What does Scripture say?
The word is near you,
in your mouth and in your heart
—that is, the word of faith that we preach—,
for, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord
and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,
you will be saved.
For one believes with the heart and so is justified,
and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.
For the Scripture says,
No one who believes in him will be put to shame.
For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek;
the same Lord is Lord of all,
enriching all who call upon him.
For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Gospel – Luke 4:1-13

Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan
and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days,
to be tempted by the devil.
He ate nothing during those days,
and when they were over he was hungry.
The devil said to him,
“If you are the Son of God,
command this stone to become bread.”
Jesus answered him,
“It is written, One does not live on bread alone.”
Then he took him up and showed him
all the kingdoms of the world in a single instant.
The devil said to him,
“I shall give to you all this power and glory;
for it has been handed over to me,
and I may give it to whomever I wish.
All this will be yours, if you worship me.”
Jesus said to him in reply,
“It is written:
You shall worship the Lord, your God,
and him alone shall you serve.”
Then he led him to Jerusalem,
made him stand on the parapet of the temple, and said to him,
“If you are the Son of God,
throw yourself down from here, for it is written:
He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,
and:
With their hands they will support you,
lest you dash your foot against a stone.”
Jesus said to him in reply,
“It also says,
You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.”
When the devil had finished every temptation,
he departed from him for a time.

 

 

Listen to the Scriptures:   click on the link below:

 

http://ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/16_02_14.mp3

First Sunday of Lent – C

14^th February 2016

 

Jesus in today’s Gospel three times rejects anything which might interfere with His life of ministry and confesses fully and powerfully His relationship with the Father.

 

With the opening of the Lenten season we are asked to re-examine our lives, reflecting as they do in miniature the kinds of choices which faced Jesus in the three temptations.  Each life can be seen as a pattern of unrelated events, a series of circumstances over which we have no control.  Yet the attitude with which we face temptation, sorrow or loss gives our life a mark of dedication to Jesus that signifies our Christian identity.  Our ministry to others reflects our consent to His choice of us as His followers.

 

Point 1: What kind of Messiah will Jesus be?  Will He win the people by granting them what they think they want, or will He allow them to experience suffering in order to live up to the ideals He hopes from them?  We know the answer, as we know Jesus’ reply to the first temptation.  But we might ask ourselves: “What do I expect from Jesus”?  If we look for reward for our sometimes trivial “good deeds,” we may have done the “right thing for the wrong reason.”  Sometimes our concept of the filial care we expect from God excludes openness to suffering and disappointment, denial or our will or wishes.  Yet true care and love, even in human relationships, often brings challenge and pain.  Sometimes we ask God to win our favor when He has already done so.  It is now our turn to minister to others in His name, to love others as He has first loved us.

 

Point 2: “You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.”  The age of developed technology in which we live tempts us to think of ourselves as self-sufficient.  Politically, the world is a network of struggle and counter-struggle for power.  Personally, in our hearts, we often surrender our principles to gain some promotion or recognition or to get what we want or to do what we wish.  We betray our brothers and sisters in need all over the world by our political choices, not so much out of greed as out of the lack of zeal to effect social changes which would better their lives.  We betray, on a personal level, the assurance we owe our friends because we are in subtle competition with them.  But Jesus’ way was to confess the primacy of His relationship with God from which His claim of brotherhood with all mankind followed.  His fidelity to that relationship and to solidarity with us gives us the ability to choose Him and to resolve to serve Him selflessly.

 

Point 3: “If you are the Son of God …” challenges Satan, but Jesus rebukes him, for the Messiah does not wish to win our hearts by dazzling us.  His confession of absolute fidelity to the Father and His refusal to appear in a startling manner means that God’s way is a way of service, of suffering with His suffering people.  The choice will pursue Him and puzzle even His closest followers who will ask for a sign until the very moment of His death.  If the three temptations are difficult for us to understand, it is because we have not penetrated deeply enough into the essence of Christianity, because we too are asking Him, pleading with Him to demonstrate His power (and save us from the exigencies of human life.)  However, Jesus knew that the direction of His life would affect the future of humanity.  He would not force us or manipulate us into a servitude that would destroy our free.  The test for us consists in whether we have truly confessed to Christ despite the incomprehensibility of life.

 

Conclusion:  The Gospel narrative ends with the visitation of the angel, and behind the temptations we perceive heaven approaching earth.  For us, the attitude exemplified by Jesus, the conversion of our hearts to His way, can mean that our world will become heaven.  The ultimate reality will shine out in the passing events we experience, for the transformation of the spirit is what changes the world.

 

 

QUESTIONS THAT MAY LEAD TO OTHER THOUGHTS / REFLECTION / DISCUSSION / WRITTEN

 

1. What are some of the things which interfere with your relationship to Jesus by preventing you from fully choosing to live your life in Him?

 

2. What are some of your “temptations?” What is your concept of suffering and ministry (service)?

 

3. Describe how you have experienced the temptations that Jesus underwent? What did you do?

 

4. What are some ways your political or cultural practices might keep you from enjoying a true brotherhood with all people? Cite one or two which hinders you or with which you are struggling?

 

 

 

 

The tempter launched his attack against Jesus along three lines, and in every one of them there was a certain inevitability.

 

1. There was the temptation to turn the stones into bread. The desert was littered with little round pieces of limestone rock which were exactly like little loaves; even they would suggest this temptation to Jesus.

 

This was a double temptation.  It was a temptation to Jesus to use his powers selfishly and for his own use, and that is precisely what Jesus always refused to do.  There is always the temptation to use selfishly whatever powers God has given to us. God has given every man a gift, and every man can ask one of two questions.  He can ask, “What can I make for myself out of this gift?” or, “What can I do for others with this gift?”  There is no man who will not be tempted to use selfishly the gift which God has given to him.

 

But there was another side to this temptation. Jesus was God’s Messiah, and he knew it.  In the wilderness he was facing the choice of a method whereby he could win men to God.  What method was he to use for the task which God had given him to do?  One sure way to persuade men to follow him was to give them bread, to give them material things.

 

But to give men bread would have been a double mistake.  First, it would have been to bribe men to follow him.  It would have been to persuade men to follow him for the sake of what they could get out of it, whereas the reward Jesus had to offer was a Cross.  He called men to a life of giving, not of getting.  To bribe men with material things would have been the denial of all he came to say and would have been ultimately to defeat his own ends.  Second, it would have been to remove the symptoms without dealing with the disease.  Men are hungry.  But the question is, why are they hungry? Is it because of their own foolishness, and their own shiftlessness, and their own carelessness?  Is it because there are some who selfishly possess too much while others possess too little?  The real way to cure hunger is to remove the causes–and these causes are in men’s souls. And above all there is a hunger of the heart which it is not in material things to satisfy.

 

So Jesus answered the tempter in the very words which express the lesson which God had sought to teach his people in the wilderness: “Man does not live by bread alone, but that man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord” (Deut.8:3).  The only way to true satisfaction is the way which has learned complete dependence on God.

 

2. So the tempter tried his another avenue of attack. It was the world that Jesus came to save, and into his mind there came a picture of the world. The tempting voice said: “Fall down and worship me, and I will give you all the kingdoms of this world.”  Had not God himself said to his chosen one, “Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession”? (Ps.2:8).

 

What the tempter was saying was, “Compromise! Come to terms with me! Don’t pitch your demands quite so high!  Wink just a little at evil and questionable things–and then people will follow you in their hordes.” This was the temptation to come to terms with the world, instead of uncompromisingly presenting God’s demands to it.  It was the temptation to try to advance by retreating, to try to change the world by becoming like the world.

 

Back came Jesus’ answer: “You shall fear the Lord your God; you shall serve him and swear by his name” (Deut.6:13).  Jesus was quite certain that we can never defeat evil by compromising with evil.  He laid down the uncompromisingness of the Christian faith.  Christianity cannot stoop to the level of the world; it must lift the world to its own level.  Nothing less will do.

 

3. So the tempter renewed his attack from yet another angle. In a vision he took Jesus to the pinnacle of the Temple.  Had not the Prophet Malachi said, “The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his Temple”?  (Mal.3:1). Was there not a promise that the angels would bear God’s man upon their hands lest any harm should come to him? (Ps.91:11-12).

 

This was the very method that the false Messiahs who were continually arising promised. These pretenders had offered sensations which they could not perform.  Jesus could perform anything he promised.  Why should he not do it?

 

There were two good reasons why Jesus should not adopt that course of action.  First, he who seeks to attract men to him by providing them with sensations has adopted a way in which there is literally no future.  The reason is simple.  To retain his power he must produce ever greater and greater sensations.  Wonders are apt to be nine day wonders.  This year’s sensation is next year’s commonplace.  A gospel founded on sensation-mongering is foredoomed to failure.  Second, that is not the way to use the power of God. “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test,” said Jesus (Deut.6:16).  He meant this; there is no good seeing how far you can go with God; there is no good in putting yourself deliberately into a threatening situation, and doing it quite recklessly and needlessly, and then expecting God to rescue you from it.  God expects a man to take risks in order to be true to him, but he does not expect him to take risks to enhance his own prestige.  The very faith which is dependent on signs and wonder is not faith.  If faith cannot believe without sensations it is not really faith, it is doubt looking for proof and looking in the wrong place.  God’s rescuing power is not something to be played and experimented with, it is something to be quietly trusted in the life of every day.

 

Jesus refused the way of sensations because he knew that it was the way to failure–it still is–and because to long for sensations is not to trust God, but to distrust God.

 

So Jesus made his decision.  He decided that he must never bribe men into following him; he decided that the way of sensations was not for him; he decided that there could be no compromise in the message he preached and in the faith he demanded.  That choice inevitably meant the Cross–but the Cross just as inevitably meant the final victory.

Prayer of the Faithful

For the Church: that we may be faithful to our identity as children of God and remain single-minded in seeking to do God’s will, let us pray to the Lord.

For the grace of reflection and awareness: that we may slow down and be aware of the hungers of our heart and recognize the gifts that God wishes to give us, let us pray to the Lord.

For the grace to face temptations: that the Spirit of God will lead us to freedom and wholeness as we face trials and temptations in life, let us pray to the Lord.

For the gift of listening: that we may be open to the Word of God, allow our hearts to be transformed, and resist the temptation to use it for our agenda, let us pray to the Lord.

For all who hunger each day, especially children: that our hearts may be open to sharing our bounty with all who are in need during this Lenten season, let us pray to the Lord.

For all who fast during this season: that they may grow in their awareness that God is the source and strength of their life, let us pray to the Lord.

For all who exercise power: that they may be good stewards of the authority entrusted to them and use their power for the common good, let us pray to the Lord.

For all who are celebrating the Rite of Election and Call to Continuing Conversion: that they may grow in their knowledge of God’s love for them and into greater unity with the Church, let us pray to the Lord.

For all who are unemployed: that God will guide them to new opportunities to use their gifts and talents for the good of the human family, let us pray to the Lord.

For the members of Parliament/Congress: that God will guide and inspire their policy deliberation on the budget, unemployment and immigration, let us pray to the Lord.

For greater respect for religious liberty: that the Spirit will open productive discourse between government and religious leaders, let us pray to the Lord.

For all who are recovering from storms and floods: that God will give them strength to rebuild their lives and many helping hands to assist them, let us pray to the Lord.

For all who serve in the military: that they may be kept safe and return home to their families soon, let us pray to the Lord.

For Peace: that God will bring an end to violence and bloodshed in the troubled areas of the world and protect women, children and the elderly from harm, let us pray to the Lord.