In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask you for pardon of my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Mother Immaculate, Saint Joseph, my Father and Lord, my Guardian Angel, intercede for me.
Lent, a path of purification: Jesus is tempted in the desert. We are in Lent. We can ask ourselves, why Lent?
In the school where I help as chaplain, there are two bells after the morning break. The first is to wrap up what you are doing and to get ready for the next class. The second bell means it's time to get in line to go to class in an orderly and disciplined way. In a way, this is what happens at Lent. The Church, like a good mother, rings the bell to help us to stop and to prepare for what comes next after our life here on earth.
We easily get caught up in doing things that are not necessarily bad, but it can happen that we lose sight of what is important. Our lives are moving fast, but not necessarily in the right direction. In Lent, we want to stop and take our bearings. The Church has given us this rich liturgical time to help us along.
Lent begins with Ash Wednesday. It sets a tone and a mood that is conducive of conversion. We take our bearings and, as we said, we try to face up squarely to the areas in our life that need adjusting. It may not be big things. It helps to have in mind, however, that a vessel at sea, for example, that is off course by a fraction of a degree when it sets out, will eventually end up far away from its destination if that deviation is not corrected. Am I prepared this Lent for a new conversion?
As we continue in this time of prayer, let us ask our Lord for light and strength to make good use of the graces of Lent to lead a fuller Christian life. Lord, give me light and give me strength to be ready for this wonderful journey of conversion in Lent.
Interestingly, to help us, the Church uses military imagery in the liturgy of Ash Wednesday. In the Collects at Mass, the priest says, "Grant, O Lord, that we may begin with holy fasting this campaign of Christian service, so that as we take up battle against spiritual evils, we may be armed with weapons of self-restraint." It is a prayer for troops that are summoned to march out to engage the enemy in a decisive battle.
Jesus is the true warrior sent by the Father, not to conquer by violence, but to defeat the devil through obedience, sacrifice, and love, culminating in the Cross. He will establish a new temple, a new worship, a new sacrifice, a new people gathered together in his kingdom.
The Church is using this imagery to refer to the inner struggle that we are summoned to take up to have a full Christian life. It is a struggle to conquer over our pride and over our disordered desires for pleasure and material possessions. We are called to live for others, and to do this we cannot have our hearts set on selfish pursuits. Our campaign is one of Christian service to souls, helping them to grow in holiness. We take up a battle against spiritual evils, ready to make a determined effort to struggle against temptations. We are armed with weapons of self-restraint, using the means to overcome disordered desires that take us away from God.
Lent commemorates the 40 days and 40 nights that Jesus spent in the desert before beginning his public ministry. In military imagery, this would be a boot camp, training for battle. In his work To Know Christ Jesus, Frank Sheed presents the temptations of Christ in the desert as a critical, dramatic confrontation between Jesus and Satan. Sheed highlights that the temptations were designed to steer Jesus away from his path as the Saviour. The devil's strategy was to get Jesus to use his divine power for selfish, worldly ends, rather than the work of redemption willed by the Father dying on the Cross. We are going to consider and pray about these temptations, trying to accompany Jesus.
Lord, give us light, as we have been saying, and give me strength, so that as I try to enter into these scenes of the Gospel, I will draw from them the lessons of divine love that they contain, and to obtain the grace that I need in this Lent to live a deeper, a fuller Christian life.
The first temptation challenged Jesus' hunger, urging Him to turn stones into bread. Jesus quoted Deuteronomy, emphasizing reliance on God's word rather than physical sustenance. The second temptation took Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple, urging Him to prove himself by jumping off with angels promised to catch Him. Jesus countered this with another scriptural reference, highlighting the folly of putting God to the test. In the third temptation, Satan offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world in exchange for worship. Once again, Jesus rebutted with Scripture, affirming God as the only one deserving worship.
Let us accompany our Lord. Jesus, You did your boot camp. We must do ours if we wish to conquer with You over sin and death and live a holy life.
This is a way we can look at Lent. It is an invitation to pause, to pull ourselves away from the busyness of life, at least internally. And in that desert place of quiet, reflection, to learn from the temptations of our Lord.
The first temptation concerns bodily urges and desires. These are not bad in themselves. Hunger and thirst, for example, when properly understood and managed, help a person to be healthy and to work towards a better standard of living for all. They become disordered, however, when they are not directed to the good of the whole person, but obey rather the selfish logic of greed that is destructive of health and relationships and undermines civic life. Like greed, lust, the disordered desire for sexual pleasure, also follows a selfish logic that is degrading to self and others. A person who arbitrarily gives in to greed and lust may say, "I feel okay," but he or she is deceiving himself or herself, for that person is dominated by selfish pleasures and is not free to follow Jesus in the war of peace and love.
Lord, to reign with you, we know that You must first reign within us. And I know that this means a determined struggle, like a good soldier, a good soldier of yours, to overcome my easygoing and comfort-loving ways and to dedicate myself seriously to the loving fulfillment of the ordinary duties of each day.
Saint Josemaria prayed many times a day, "Lord, take away from me all that takes me away from you." Isn't it a lovely prayer that we can make our own as we are looking at the first temptation of Jesus? Lord, take away from me all that takes me away from you. I might determine this Lent to give time and effort to discover and root out all that keeps me from following Jesus Christ wholeheartedly. I ensure that hunger, thirst, and sexual attraction serve a positive purpose in my life through the practice of temperance, sobriety, and chastity. It would help me this Lent to make good use of these graces, to live these virtues that would help me to have properly ordered desires, that I can order my desires and my urges to loving you more each day.
Let's turn to the second temptation. The devil wants to lure Jesus into doing something extraordinary using his divine power. It would be an amazing spectacle. He would go up to the pinnacle of the most famous building in Israel, the temple in Jerusalem, throw Himself off and be unharmed, gently brought to earth by the angels. With a feat like that, He would quickly be the talk of the town and be exalted, or using a modern word, the greatest influencer of his time.
Jesus was not sent to captivate and manipulate the minds of the masses in this way. The spectacle He was going to give is rather his complete self-giving on the Cross. By human standards, this is a complete failure. What sort of training are we getting from Jesus here? On one hand, we learn that it's important to be humble. So often we are set on showing off, being in the limelight and getting praise and recognition from others. If I am acknowledged for the good things I do, that is not bad. It is part of gaining prestige. It can become a twisted, selfish pursuit however, when it is all done for personal glory.
Deus omnia gloria. Lord, to You be the glory. I do not want to be a thief, stealing from You the glory that You deserve. Jesus Himself taught, "But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." And this is the glory. The glory is to work without human glory, St. Josemaria would say.
Saint Josemaria also had for the motto of his life, "to do and disappear." To do and disappear. He taught his children in Opus Dei that their way is to work without the desire for human glory, as we said, so that all the glory would be for God. Deo omnis gloria, to God be all the glory. Once a gentleman told me that he was very remorseful because he saw clearly how neglectful he was to his family in the early years of his marriage, spending a great deal of time playing golf to meet people and to improve his game. His excuse was that he is a competitive person and that playing golf was good for his career. But what about his family? Perhaps there is no one big thing like that in our lives. But is it not true that we attract attention unnecessarily to ourselves or that we justify, saying, "Oh, I'm a competitive person," or "It's for my career," at times that what we are really seeking is to stand out, draw attention necessarily to ourselves for the things that we do. And sometimes, you know, just to be noticed.
As we seek to accompany Jesus in the desert in our prayer, we can ask ourselves courageously: do I seek recognition for my good deeds or am I content to serve quietly for God's glory? Do I draw unnecessarily attention to myself rather than pointing others to God? Am I willing to accept hiddenness and apparent failure in order to love more sincerely? This will help us to grow in humility and receive, as Jesus taught us, this reward in heaven.
Lord, help me to seek this reward and to do good because it is good, to love because it is good to love. Help me to have the right intention. Right now, in my prayer, I want to rectify my intention in the things that I do. Lord, I'm doing this not because I am going to benefit in any way, but it is because — okay, we will benefit in some way — but it is for You, Lord, for your glory.
In the last temptation, Jesus is offered power and dominion over the kingdoms of the earth. He would be Lord of the world, but for that, He would have to renounce being Lord in the hearts and minds of believers, which He would accomplish through the grace of the Holy Spirit, by giving his life on the Cross. Jesus rejected the offer.
It is unlikely that we would ever be offered dominion over the whole world. But at times, our pride leads us to build up a little bubble around ourselves where everything has to revolve around our likes, our preferences, our whims, our opinions, our point of view. In that bubble, we have renounced sacrifice for love.
On one occasion, a lady was telling me that she blew up with her family members before leaving for work in the morning because someone had moved her water bottle. She reflected on it and discovered that she was very proud, wanting everything to be how she liked at home. That realization was a special grace. She was moved to tears, thinking how she had ruined the day of her family over something as silly as a water bottle. Perhaps there are similar things in our life that we need to address.
Lord, open my eyes and to see how without realizing it, I'm also building up around myself a little kingdom in which I am king. And maybe, with the people around me, I'm insisting that I want my way without realizing it. Others around me may be making so many concessions to make me happy, to make my life pleasant for me, and I in turn am not doing half as much. Well, let me be the one who goes out of the way to serve, to put myself out, to make life pleasant for others. We can ask ourselves: are we often fussing and complaining about things, little discomforts or little things, little dislikes of little importance? If I need to correct someone, do I know how to do it in a nice way that is not harsh and humiliating? Do I habitually give in in my preferences to make the lives of those around me more pleasant? Do I do this in a way that others would not even notice? Do I try to create a pleasant and friendly atmosphere around me, going out of my way to cheer others up?
Jesus, You've placed the bar very high for us. For You want us to forget about ourselves completely, to die to ourselves in serving You and serving You in others. Lent is also a time of hope. It is a demanding preparation, as we have been considering in our prayer, for a real spiritual battle. But it is also a time filled with grace, because Jesus, we know that You fight with us, and that You fight for us, and that You fight in us.
Perhaps we can feel overwhelmed with the training in the desert with Christ that this season proposes to us. In our prayer, perhaps we have discovered many things in small ways in ordinary life where a new conversion is needed. Jesus does not expect us to change in everything at once. He wants us to prove our love, and we can do this by focusing on one or two things with a determined effort to change. What are the one or two things that you see our Lord is asking you to work on this Lent?
Let us ask our Lord for light and strength. Lord, give me light. Give me light. To see what are those one or two things, some small point of that discipline that I can learn from this training. What can I take from this boot camp with You in the desert? Looking at my discipline, looking at those virtues, my temperance, looking at fortitude, looking at humility, considering my pride and greed. But what are those one or two things, concrete things, maybe getting up on time, perhaps just making more time for prayer... Maybe the Lord is asking me to find ways of serving others, little ways of pleasing others and putting aside my preferences, sometimes being silent, not speaking too much. You know, as St. Josemaria's spiritual director told him, "Don't speak, listen." Maybe this Lent I could try to be a better listener so that I could be more in tune with ways I can actually better serve others, rather than impose on others. Let us ask our Lord for these lights to pin down those two points because, Jesus, I know that You are counting on me for this march on Jerusalem.
"In the face of our frailties," St. Augustine encourages us, "do not lose heart. One frail being has fallen, but He who made both heaven and earth will raise you up again, if you but acknowledge your fault." This encouragement invites us to trust in God's mercy and power to renew us, even in our weakness and failure.
Lent is a time of hope. We are journeying towards Easter. Easter will be an outpouring of blessings and renewal. And we must take up a battle, but we have Jesus at our side. There is no place for discouragement in these 40 days, as we are beginning this journey with Christ, as we are marching with our Lord.
In the Way of the Cross, where Jesus falls for the second time, Saint Josemaria comments, "You are discouraged. Why? Is it your sins and miseries? Is it your defeats at times coming one after the other? A really big fall which you did not expect? Be simple. Open your heart. Look, as yet nothing has been lost. You can still go forward and with more love, with more affection, with more strength, take refuge in your divine sonship. God is your most loving father. In this lies your security, a haven where you can drop anchor no matter what is happening on the surface of the sea of life. and you will find joy, strength, optimism, victory!"
If we stay close to Jesus, victory is assured. Let us go to our Lady. We know that at the foot of the cross, when the others had fled, our Lady persevered there. She accompanied our Lord faithfully on this journey, all the way to the end. Mary, you are the Queen of Victory. We want to take up this journey with our Lord. Help us to begin with trust. Help us to be courageous. Help us to have that quiet determination to love more and to struggle in some small area each and every day, knowing that victory is assured.
I give you thanks, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me in this meditation. I ask you for help to put them into effect. My Mother Immaculate, Saint Joseph, my Father and Lord, my Guardian Angel, intercede for me.
