Homily

We began Lent on Wednesday. These are forty days which prepare us for Easter. Jesus “was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil” for forty days. In this time we are lead to in the wilderness of our cities to fight against all division and enmity. The fight starts right in the heart of each of us. From there will come the change of this world. To change means to learn to love from the master of love. Lent is the right time to find again our heart and then to be able to love as Jesus did. The Lord asks us this because he knows that happiness and salvation depend on love. The Lord wants our life to be beautiful, full of brothers and sisters, not a boring life, hardened or sad, which ends with ourselves and obeys the terrible law of self-love. We should ask ourselves whether we are poor in love, cold, fearful, aggressive, unfaithful, inconstant, full of resentments, or controlled by instinctive pride. And we should question whether our hearts too easily fill up with fear and enmity, distrust and hostility. Living like that, we unfailingly fall into the sadness of a lonely life.
Man, who was dust, became a living being when the Lord God - as the Scripture tells us - blew into his nostrils the breath of life; and it was the same Lord who placed the man in the garden he had planted. This was the will of the Lord for human life: that everyone lives in a blooming garden. But humankind did not want to listen to the Word of God, preferring the deceitful and enticing voice of the serpent. Humankind lost that garden and dwelt in the desert, as the book of Genesis tells us. The garden of life is transformed into a desert when mankind prefers to listen to voices other than God’s. The world, our city, and our hearts are often similar to the desert because we prefer the suggestions of the serpent to the Word of God. And we thus find ourselves stripped of affection, stripped of friendship and dignity, stripped of the sense of life. And, as Adam and Eve did, we accuse others in order to save ourselves. When we do not listen to the Lord, even the most intimate friends become enemies. And life becomes a desert dominated by the ancient tempter, who, undisturbed, continues to push us to listen to ourselves more so than to the Lord, to accuse one another rather than love one another. In short, in the desert of this world, seeking our own interests becomes the supreme law.
Jesus has come to this desert so as not to abandon us, to show us how far his love can reach. Here, he, like us, submits to temptations. The Gospel lists three, the first one being bread. It arrives at a favourable moment, when Jesus, after forty days of fasting, is exhausted from hunger. We see here the temptation to satisfy oneself, to think only about one’s own well-being. Jesus, weakened by fasting, has more than plausible reasons to give in to the insinuations of the tempter. But he responds with the only true strength humans have, the Word of God: “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4). The devil takes Jesus atop the pinnacle of the temple and challenges him: “Throw yourself down! The angels of God will certainly protect you.” It is the temptation of the protagonist who sees nothing but himself, and pretends that everything is centred on himself, that everyone, even the angels, revolves around him. And finally there is the temptation of power: “Everything can be yours,” the devil says to Jesus while showing him the whole expanse of the earth from a mountain top. But Jesus proclaims his freedom from power, stating that one should bow before God alone: “For it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.” How many times have we thought we could use certain things, but then ended up as slaves! In the desert, dominated by the deceitful words of the ancient tempter, Jesus reaffirms each time, “It is written. …” It is with the Gospel, continuously presented anew, that Jesus defeats the temptations and keeps the devil away: “Away with you, Satan!” And that desert is transformed into a garden of life. Jesus is no longer alone and abandoned to hunger and dryness. The angels arrive, take their places beside him, and serve him.