- Reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew (4,1-11):
At that time, Jesus was led into the desert by the Spirit to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting for forty days with his forty nights, he finally felt hungry.
The tempter approached him and said: “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves.” But he answered him: «It is written: “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God”.
Then the devil took him to the holy city, put him on the eaves of the temple and said to him:
«If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written: “He has given orders to his angels about you and they will hold you in their hands, so that your foot does not stumble on stones”». Jesus said to him, “It is also written: ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.'”
Again the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and said to him: “All this I will give you, if you prostrate yourself and worship me.”
Then Jesus said to him: “Go away, Satan, for it is written: ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and he only you shall serve.'”
Then the devil left him, and behold, the angels came and served him. Lord’s word
We have begun Lent: It is a strong time of preparation for the celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus, during which the Word of God will invite us to seriously examine the quality of our Christian life.
With the practice of fast we dare to give up what we consider necessary to live, food and, above all, we want to signify that we still live on what is most necessary, God; whatever it takes, we risk life before even our relationship with God. Doing alms more frequently, we exercise in detachment from what we have or the time and health that we enjoy, making them available to those who have received less; giving alms, especially, makes us realize how much we already possess, the goods we receive from Him make us forget that God is our only Good. intensifying the prayer, we recover God in our life, his presence becomes more evident to us and his closeness gives us security, we speak less about him in order to speak more with him, we keep silent more often so that he speaks to us more often.
Like Jesus in today’s gospel, Christians are subject to temptations, as constant as they are subtle, as so many – and so ‘good’ – present themselves to us in our days! opportunities to leave God and find the solution to our problems with our own means. Tempted like Jesus, he should encourage us to face our temptations with the certainty of overcoming them if we make his personal struggle and his fidelity to God our own.
First temptation:
nothing, no matter how necessary, must be made absolute, nor can it become the main reason for the believer’s decisions; if God is everything, the rest will be, at most something. Acknowledging God as God frees us from the blackmail of things.
Second temptation:
using God for one’s own benefit, as if it were an insurance policy; We serve him because he serves us and we believe we are indispensable, as if God himself had no other children than us to think of or as if only we were the best children of God… Not allowing God to act as God and Father, as He wants and if He pleases, would mean putting Him and us to the test by losing Him forever.
third temptation, the most serious:
Disposing of things and people, at any cost and regardless of the consequences, is the permanent temptation of the weak and insecure man. Surely none of us, thank God, are willing to risk so much; but it is no less true that we would like to put God and our neighbor at our service. Jesus passed the test by declaring himself an exclusive worshiper of God: Only God will you worship!
Jesus teaches us that every temptation can be overcome; and he tells us the way: clinging to God and his Word. We have this Lent to try.
#Sunday #February #1st #Lent #Cycle