March 4, 2014
Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, and we wonder since Christmas was such a short time ago, can it be Lent already? Well, Christmas is not that long ago, and perhaps we feel as though it was because of the way our winter has worked out. It has been horrific with snow, freezing temperatures and so many gray skies it might have seemed as though Lent would never come. In one sense, Lent is a harbinger of spring. At its end we have the Resurrection, and all the signs of spring help us to be aware of that Resurrection.
But before we get to Easter we need to work our way through Lent. And one of the things that Lent teaches us is that Jesus often had to withdraw from where he was in order that he could pray. He withdrew in order to be with God whom Jesus knew loved him deeply.
We will read in next Sunday’s Gospel about Jesus going away into the desert in order to pray to God and when he got there he was tempted – sorely tempted by the devil. The evil tempted him to eat –what can be wrong with that? He was tempted to throw himself from a high tower in order to prove just how much God loved him. He was tempted to worship Satan in exchange for power and glory. So, Jesus got pretty much the same treatment that you and I get when Satan comes tapping on our door. The evil that is laid out before us is cloaked in goodness.
Who doesn’t want to know that God loves him or her? Who doesn’t wish for a little power and glory in our daily lives? When we are hungry, who would not wish for a little food and drink? Normal everyday things tempt us and are shrouded in goodness. If the things that tempt us were shrouded in evil it would be easy to pick them out and reject them.
So what are we to do? Lent offers us a wonderful opportunity to spend more time in prayer and nurturing our relationship with God. Oh, yes. We will need to go to work, or to our volunteer activity if we are retired, or to do whatever it is we do each day of our lives. We who are crippled – either temporarily as I am with a broken leg or those who have suffered permanent injury – will need to be aware that we are offered a special time by God to reflect on the wonders of his providence and love; even in the midst of pain, and perhaps because of the pain.
Like Jesus we need to be able to reject the evil that the devil offers us in our lives, and we will do that if we continue to remain convinced of God’s never ending love for us, and open our minds and hearts to the goodness that is everywhere around us. Jesus trusted in God when he was tempted; he trusted God’s love. We need to be able to do the same thing – trust in God’s love because God will never let us down.
(Photo is of Father Gil Martinez, CSP, giving out ashes on Ash Wednesday 2013 at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle in New York City.)