A reflection on the Scriptures based on the readings for the first Sunday of Lent according to the Latin liturgy
Fr. Jinu Jacob, Vatican City
To meditate deeply on the saving mysteries of Jesus Christ, Lent is a time when the Mother of the Church invites us to join our lives with His life. and the sufferings of the Messiah, and death on the cross, And then the resurrection of salvation which he obtained over the perishable, and that we may at this point understand and return to him personally., The advice given by the mother of the church is to prepare socially. Last Wednesday we entered this special season by drawing a cross on our foreheads with ashes, instilling in us thoughts of death and repentance. and transformation, Lent is also a time of return to God.
Prayers like this from time to time, and subreactions, The goodness of our older generation who made Lent effective by holding on to all the virtues is reflected in our lives even today. In the third millennium, this lack of recognition creates darkness within us, but we are invited to this divine experience again through the readings of Lent. After being freed from slavery in Egypt, and desert experiments, Between repentance and pilgrimage to the land of Canaan, And Moses, who lived in meditation for forty days on the mountain in the presence of God, And of the Prophet Elijah’s journey to Mount Horeb, Finally, this season of Lent reminds us of Jesus’ forty days and nights in the desert with his Father in the New Testament. and in the Old Testament, The distinguishing feature of this particular period in the New Testament is that it was a preparation for divine exaltation. This is what Lent reminds us of today, And inviting us personally. And prayer, and fasting,All other devotional practices should bring us to participate in the resurrection of Christ.
Benefits of fasting
Although apparently not in today’s readings, A great lesson given to us is that of fasting. The cremation ceremony is a reminder of this great goodness in our lives. If we want to share in Christ’s resurrection and pass from the ashes of this world to His immortal life, it is essential that we let go of many things in our lives. Otherwise, there is a great danger lurking within us that we will become worldly idolaters. Since the early centuries of Christianity, Fasting is voluntary limiting of our deep-seated needs, And to love God more, It leads us by the hand to the greater good of serving our brothers and sisters. As well as in the brotherhood of spirituality, It also instills in us the honesty of sharing. authority, Arrogance, defamation, A life of fasting leads us away from the hollow worldly expressions of useless reasoning and into the loving expression of the divine. The season of Lent also invites us to recapture the divinity that we have lost from ourselves due to sin.
and divine creation, And the human fall
It is a word we heard repeatedly in today’s first reading; God infuses His life into the nostrils of man created from dust and sends him to grasp all the blessings he needs. He places him in a garden planted by God himself as the Son of God. The presence of divine life breath is also mentioned as the difference between human creation and other living beings. The only thing that God the Father, who gives all freedom to his children, reminds him is not to eat the fruit of the tree that was established as a symbol of divine judgment. But when man tried to build the impermanence of creation above God, he fell into the darkness of sin. The first reading reminds us of our failures like this even today. It is from the conviction of this sin that the psalmist thus pleads with his tears. O God, have mercy on me, a sinner; Because I have sinned. The greatest spirit of Lent is to contemplate God’s loving creation., It is also making a decision to come back to Him by repenting of our distance from Him. The psalmist also reminds us to pray for God’s intervention for this. “Oh my god, Have mercy on me according to Your mercy”.
The grace that Adam lost is recovered in Jesus
God through the prophets to restore the grace of God that was lost due to man’s sin in the Old Testament, and by kings, He gives many opportunities through the priests to listen to the laments awakened by the sinfulness of man, but their fullness is revealed when he gives life to the New Testament by sending his only begotten Son to this earth. That is why Saul, who was a terrorist, after his conversion, calls out the truth of Christ that he experienced in his life to this world. Paul Schlieha reminds us that the spirit of Lent is the obedience of Christ on the cross to the disobedience of our parents. Paul Schlieha teaches us that the grace of immortal life over the death that came as a result of sin is the saving secret of Christ., Satan’s temptation.
A Lenten season of resisting temptation
Temptations are an inescapable reality for us who are in divine preparation. Especially when Mother Church invites us to the spirit of Lent, she reminds us of these temptations. The greatest example of this that the Gospel sets before us today is Jesus’ prayer life in the desert and his temptation at the end of it. We may have the impression that we have been freed from all kinds of evil because we have received baptism and become a daughter of God, but today the Word tells us that we must be constantly vigilant to preserve the grace of God that we received in baptism. Jesus’ trial in the wilderness was likewise after his baptism. The devil comes in with questions in the weakness of Jesus, who spent forty days in fasting and prayer. And the solitude of the desert, We must not forget the fact that emptiness also leads to temptations in our lives. And then in our weakness, In destitution and sprouting the serpents of desire, It is his work that leads us to evil. Jesus overcomes the first temptation to offer the bread of sin in the weakness of hunger, By giving the importance of God’s word. Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes out of God’s mouth. As well as the reading of the Word during Lent, This verse reminds us that the sacraments should also be a part of life. Then we see the words of the devil who misleads that the manipulation of scriptures are miracles. but warns against them in stern language not to tempt thy Lord God. In our lives too, we may have desires to build buildings on top of God who created us. Every moment we do not do according to His will, we jump at the words of the tempter. The spirit of fasting, It should create in us an interest to stand with Him and listen to His words.
In the third temptation the devil shows the kingdoms of the world, misleadingly in his power, and promises to give them to him if he renounces the state of the Son of God. This temptation is very evident in today’s world. Church for money and fame, forsaking spirituality, This verse invites us to self-reflection on whether we are becoming human beings who betray divine truths.
Dear brothers, The readings for this first Sunday of Lent leave us with a handful of thoughts for self-examination. In this way, we can strive to make Lent effective by sticking to the thoughts of Jesus. God bless.