With the reception of ashes on our foreheads, signifying repentance, renewal and a commitment to a more robust followership of Christ, we begin the Holy Season of Lent. Through fasting, prayer and almsgiving, we shall ascend to the Holy Mountain of Easter when we shall celebrate the triumph of our Lord Jesus Christ over sin and death and renew our hope in the resurrection of the body. Lent shall run from Ash Wednesday until the evening mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday, which then begins the Sacred Paschal Triduum.
The First Reading on this First Sunday of Lent recalls when and how our first ancestors were tempted to disobey God and how evil, as a direct consequence of their disobedience, entered the world which was good when God created it. The serpent, who represents Satan the Tempter, approached Eve and managed to convince her to eat of the Tree of Knowledge against Divine prohibition.
It is good to note that after Creation, the Creator had allowed man the liberty to eat of all the trees in the Garden except this one, and prior to their temptation, Adam and Eve had restrained themselves from eating of it. Notice, too, that the Tree of Knowledge became pleasant to their eyes and desirable to them only after the Devil had convinced them of the benefits of eating of it.
“The moment you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who know what is good and evil.” Although their disobedience was facilitated by a “suggestion” to sin, their desire for knowledge that would make them be like God, their search for independence and self-sufficiency that would exclude any need for God in their lives, conferred on them full responsibility for their disobedience. Temptation is never a compulsion, it is always a subtle suggestion to sin, an over-amplification of the perceived benefits of making a particular choice. However, the prerogative of choice-making is always ours, and this is why citing the severity of one’s temptation can never remove culpability. The immediate and unintended consequence of Original Sin was that Adam and Eve realized that they were “naked,” a symbolic representation of a felt absence of God in their lives, and they made coverings out of fig leaves for themselves. Thus, through one man, Adam, sin entered the world, and through sin, death. Through the transgression of Adam, judgment and condemnation reigned on Earth. Similarly, through the obedience of Jesus Christ, grace and justification has been made abundant for all who believe.What our first parents could not resist in the old dispensation, Jesus was able to triumph over in the Gospel passage for the First Sunday of Lent. Matthew recounts that in preparation for His eventual transition from His private life to His public ministry, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness where he fasted for forty days and nights. This evokes the memory of the forty years Israel wandered in the desert before entering the promised land, and the forty days and nights spent in fasting by Moses on Mount Sinai after which he brought with him the decalogue. The Devil tempted Jesus with selfish pleasure (lust of the flesh), sensationalism (greed), and vainglory (pride), and Jesus quoted the Scriptures (specifically Deuteronomy Chapters 6, 7 and 8) to defeat temptation and to show His willingness, as the Son of God, to rely on God alone for nourishment, protection and safety.
Through fasting, prayer and almsgiving every Christian, like Christ, is invited to overcome the threefold concupiscence. Fasting mortifies lust of the flesh or desire for physical pleasure, almsgiving mortifies our greed or avarice, and prayer mortifies pride (the reason for the first fall) by acknowledging our dependence on God for everything.
May we be aided to be faithful to our Lenten observances and so mortify effectively the threefold concupiscence frequently used by the Devil to ensnare us.
Please be kind and may God bless you.
Fr. Manasseh
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