First Sunday of Lent

Today's Mass Readings

The story of the Great Flood and God’s subsequent covenant with Noah is a great story of human-divine relationship. It tells us about the kind of fidelity that only God can have. Here is a God who does not disown creation no matter what. This covenant tells us about a God who loves people in spite of their sin and beyond their sin. It may seem to us at first reading that God’s Covenant with Noah was about not destroying creation ever again. On a deeper reading we realize that this Covenant was really about saving creation. This covenant was about because of God’s fidelity and love. Today’s gospel reading is a continuation of that original Covenant God made with Noah. And just as in the Noah story God is portrayed as human and divine, so too in the gospel Jesus fasting for fourty days has human and divine elements. On the one hand, Jesus in the desert is God’s fidelity in concrete human form. Jesus in the desert is God’s love in a real, concrete person. Jesus in the desert is God’s saving love in action. Jesus in the desert is the fulfillment of that original Covenant with creation.

I would like you to imagine these fourty days of Lent as your personal journey with Jesus in the desert. In other words, many times during the day, imagine yourself shadowing Jesus as he spends time alone with God. What do you think he prays? What do you think he feels? What do you think he says to himself? In what aspect is he very human? How does he live his divinity? What do you pray as you walk with Jesus? What do you feel? What would you say to yourself? What would you say to Jesus? What could we see about our own humanity and our divine image?

- Fr. Satish Joseph