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Homilies

First Sunday of Lent
March 5, 2006

(For the Homilies Archive, click here.)

What is God Saying in the Readings?

Today is the First Sunday of Lent, and each of the readings for today’s Mass refers to Baptism. There is no coincidence here. The Holy Spirit, acting through Holy Mother Church, is trying to tell us something about the time of Lent.

In the first reading God establishes a covenant between him and man (and the creatures of the earth). As a sign of this covenant, God creates the beautiful rainbow. The rainbow rises from the earth to the heavens, and connects man to God in a covenantal relationship. God promises: “the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.” (1 Gen. 9:15)

In the second reading, Saint Peter tells us that the reality of Noah and his family going through the flood is a prefiguring of the Baptism each of us has received through the Church. And Saint Peter reminds us that Christ paid the heavy price of our baptism through his passion, death, and resurrection.

The Gospel reading opens with these words: “And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.” (cf. Mk. 1:12) The Christ is the Son of God, united in the flesh with man. Here we find the first public act of he who is true God and true man. What is this act? To go into the desert, to fast for 40 days, and to defeat Satan in spiritual combat.

Immediately after Christ’s duel with Satan, we are informed that John the Baptist is arrested. John’s public life is now over. As Christ’s begins, so John’s ends—just as John himself had predicted: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” (Jn. 3:30) After John’s arrest, Jesus goes to Galilee, announcing that the kingdom of God has come near.

Now the Church expects us to know that, right before the Spirit drove Christ into the desert, a very important three–fold event took place in the Jordan:

Up to this point, Jesus was living a quiet life with his family in Nazareth. His baptism in the Jordan is the first event of his public life: Here Jesus is introduced to us. And his Father ensures that his beloved Son is properly announced.

So baptism is connected with each of today’s readings. The Church is trying to tell us something about baptism on this first Sunday of Lent. What might that be?

After Jesus is baptized, he is immediately driven into the desert by the Spirit in order to do battle with Satan. Up to this point in history, no man has met Satan head–on. Many have successfully avoided being dominated by Satan, but no one met him face–to–face in spiritual combat. Jesus does exactly this, and in the course of the battle forces Satan to show his true colors of pride and envy. It is a terrible mismatch, like a child entering the ring with a full-grown man.

But it’s not as if Jesus doesn’t take the battle seriously. Jesus takes it so seriously, in fact, that he meets him only in the desert and only while he is fasting. Jesus knows that the battle with Satan is ultimately at the spiritual level. He knows that if man cannot remove himself from the allurements of the world and the concupiscence of the flesh, he will never be able to engage in serious combat with Satan.

By going into the desert, the things of this world are not there to entice us. And by fasting, the concupiscible appetites (e.g., desire for sex and food) are put in their proper place.

Yet, this victory of Christ in the desert is only a foreshadowing. His ultimate victory over Satan will be from the Cross. But the fact remains: by this duel in the desert, a man has now whipped Satan. Satan no longer has dominion over us.

What is the Message in the Readings?

The message throughout these readings is clear: with baptism we can overcome Satan.

In fact, few people today even fear Satan. We even tend to paint him as cute cartoon character. We seem to think that his existence isn’t even a very real one. He somehow remains in the realm of the imagination, not a real person like you and me. Few consider him as “a roaring lion ready to devour us”. (cf. Sunday Compline)

Chances are that we ourselves, though unaware, tend to think (or at least act) as if Satan is of little threat to us. A good litmus test of how seriously we take the threat of Satan might be to compare our behavior with that of Christ.

Let’s look again at how Christ’s faced the whole issue of Satan. Here are some facts:

Now I ask myself:

During this time of Lent, the Church is exhorting me, a baptized Christian, to imitate Christ. I am, like Christ, to go out and face Satan. To examine the way Satan is manipulating me. And to defeat Satan, I ought to develop the habits of silence, prayer, and fasting.

What is my Response to the Readings?

I must admit that I am still not quite convinced. Part of me still thinks I have nothing to fear but fear itself. In fact, part of me is not quite convinced I am going to die soon and have to give an account of my actions. But the better part of me really believes in the Christ, and, therefore, I wish to imitate his example. Perhaps by imitating him, by developing some of his habits, I will come to see things more from his perspective.

This Lent, therefore, I will not eat at all on Fridays. I will seek silence every Friday night in prayer, in the chapel. I will pray that I may see precisely the way Satan has his grip on me. And I will ask for strength to do battle with him.

With the psalmist in today’s responsorial psalm, I respond to your Word, O Lord:

Make me to know your ways, O Lord:
teach me your paths
Lead me in your truth, and teach me,
for you are the God of my salvation
for you I wait all day long.
Your ways, O Lord, are love and truth to those who keep your covenant.
Gloria Patri et Filii et Spiritui Sancto
Sicut erat in principio et nunc et semper et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.

Contribution by Brother Anthony Myers
© SACROS 2006 {www.sacros.com}
To read homilies from other Sundays, click here.