First Sunday of Lent

Gn 9:8-15, 1 Pt 3:18-22, Mk 1:12-15

 

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

 

Part of Lent is deepening our awareness that we are people who have a Covenant with the Living God. We are not just people who believe in God.  We are a people sought out by God, a people formed by God and a people with a special love relationship with God.  Only when we are deeply aware of His love for us can we truly begin to do penance in a Christian way.

The first reading today is from the Book of Genesis and recounts the establishment of the Covenant with Noah and his descendants.  Many times, in the history of the Chosen People, God has made Covenants. These Covenants mark important events in the life of the Chosen People and are a sign of God’s choosing this people and remaining faithful to His choice.  What happens always is that God remains faithful to the Covenant and we do not.  Yet we are called to look back at these Covenants and to let God change our faithlessness to faithfulness.

The desert was the birthplace of the people of God of the first covenant. The Hebrew people who escaped from Egypt as scattered tribes entered the Promised Land as one nation under God. It was in the desert that they became a people of God by covenant. In the course of their history when their love and faithfulness to God grew cold, the prophets would suggest their return to the desert to rediscover their identity, their vocation and their mission as a way of reawakening their faith and strengthening their covenant relationship with God.

The great prophets Elijah and John the Baptist were people of the desert: they lived in the desert, they ate desert food and adopted a simple desert lifestyle. The desert is the classroom where God teaches His people.

In this weekend’s Gospel from Mark, which we know to be the shortest of the Gospels, we find that Jesus spends time by himself in the desert. He is tempted there.  He resists that temptation.  It is likely that we’ll be tempted this Lent as well.  I hope we’ll strive to make some serious time for God this holy season.  We’ll have chances to pray, to fast and to give alms.  God will be with us always, to help us resist temptation and live lives of love and honesty.  We’ll have chances this week too, to go to Mass, Evening Prayer, and Stations of the Cross, and to spend more time by ourselves in private prayer.

In a few minutes as we continue with our celebration and as we accept God’s invitation to be one with him in the Eucharist, let us ask him for the determination to begin again, the strength to resist temptation, the courage to accept his invitation to go into the desert and the wisdom to allow his mercy into our lives.  And as always, let us ask him to guide our thoughts, our feelings and our actions.

Lent is the time for the desert experience.  We can all create a desert space in our overcrowded lives. Remember that we have an open invitation from Christ, “To come away to a deserted place and rest awhile.” We can set aside a place and time to be alone daily with God, a time to distance ourselves from the many noises and voices that bombard our lives every day, a time to hear God’s word, a time to rediscover who we are before God, a time to say yes to God and no to Satan as Jesus did.

Welcome to Lent! Welcome to the desert!

 

Peace and all good!

Fr. Valery Burusu

Parochial Administrator