The Desert Road to Easter

1st Sunday of Lent Feb. 26, 2012 (Mk 1:12-15)

At once the Spirit drove him out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan. He was among wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him.

After John had been arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God: "This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel."

Being man, Jesus also experienced temptation. After being baptized by John, just before He began His public ministry, Jesus retreated into the desert, driven by the Holy Spirit. There He was tempted by Satan, as all men are tempted. But Jesus never fell into sin. He was tempted but He overcame temptation.

Jesus' victory over temptation tells us that even as men, we can overcome temptation. We are always tempted to sin but we do have the ability to refuse to sin. In the desert, Jesus was among wild beasts, but He also had angels there to minister to Him. As children of God in this world, we are also like lambs among wolves, but we have God with us. On our own, we'll probably fall victim to the devil and to his temptations, especially in our world today where the value of prayer and sacrifice is neglected and where committing sin and giving in to temptations are encouraged. But we have God to strengthen us and to help us live according to His will. He sent us His Spirit to lead us in holiness and His angels guide us in our earthly journey.

This holy season of Lent, the Church reiterates the importance of turning away from sin and turning towards God. Jesus Himself, after being victorious over temptation, proclaims the message: "The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel."

The whole Lenten journey is a preparation for the celebration of Easter. We die in our sinfulness in order to worthily and more meaningfully celebrate the joy of Christ's resurrection. Prayer, fasting and almsgiving are the practices which aid us in the challenge of repentance.

In prayer, we recognize that we need God and we ask for His help in order to change our lives and to turn away from sin. In fasting and abstaining, we practice control over our bodies and we learn discipline that helps us triumph over the urges and temptations to sin. In almsgiving, we practice selflessness in sacrificing for the welfare of others, as Jesus showed us. These practices, which we must learn to do even outside Lent, help us to turn away from sin and to turn to God.

The call to repentance is a call that we must heed constantly. But even if we falter and sin every now and then, God gives us the strength to come back to Him. Lent is a special time to repent, if we haven't already done so. A joyful and meaningful celebration of Easter requires a well-spent Lent.

May we all have a fruitful Lenten journey towards a triumphant Easter!

Set Apart from the World

3rd Sunday of Lent Mar. 15, 2009 (Jn 2:13-25)

Since the Passover of the Jews was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, as well as the money changers seated there. He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables, and to those who sold the doves he said, "Take these out of here, and stop making my Father's house a marketplace." His disciples recalled the words of Scripture, "Zeal for your house will consume me." At this the Jews answered and said to him, "What sign can you show us for doing this?" Jesus answered and said to them, "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up." The Jews said, "This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and you will raise it up in three days?" But he was speaking about the temple of his body. Therefore, when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they came to believe the Scripture and the word Jesus had spoken.

While he was in Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, many began to believe in his name when they saw the signs he was doing. But Jesus would not trust himself to them because he knew them all, and did not need anyone to testify about human nature. He himself understood it well.

Today, we see Jesus cleansing the temple by driving away those who sold sheep, oxen and doves, as well as the money changers. Jesus tells them to stop making the temple a marketplace. The temple is the dwelling place of God and as such, it should be treated with respect. Something holy is something set apart and blessed. Therefore, the temple, being holy, should be set apart, free from worldly activities like the cheating done by money changers.

This particular narrative reminds us that in going to church, we must not act in the same way as we would in going to malls. We must have the proper disposition, wearing the proper attire and ready to worship God and to listen to His Words. This is giving proper respect to God and to His dwelling place.

Yes, we ought to respect the temple of God. We should cleanse it free of worldly things.

In this season of Lent, this Gospel passage calls us to holiness of life. It tells us that God's dwelling place must be respected and treated as holy. And since, according to Saint Paul, we too are the dwelling places of God (1 Cor 3:16-17), we ought to be holy.

Of course, we cannot become holy by our efforts alone. We need the help of God. We need to ask Jesus to cleanse us from our sins just as He cleansed the temple of worldly activities. And that is what Lent is all about. It is a time when we remember the worldly things surrounding our hearts and ask the Lord to get rid of these for us. We must strive to keep ourselves free from impure worship and a corrupted relationship with God.

It is really quite a challenge to be holy when we live in a material world. But that is the challenge of this Lenten Season. We must separate ourselves from worldly activities, except of course, those necessary for our survival. We must deny ourselves worldly pleasures and set our eyes on the things above. We must not be of this world even if we are in it.

Our church edifices are comparable to malls, in the sense that they are both buildings. But the big difference lies in this: Malls raise their billboards and advertisements as high as they can in order to remind people to patronize them and their products. Our churches, on the other hand, raise crosses and crucifixes as high as they can in order to show us the Savior and to remind us of our call to be holy. This is how the Church, though in the world, is not of the world. It is set apart from worldly things. We too, must be separated from the world. A balloon cannot reach heaven if its string is anchored to the ground. Similarly, we cannot reach the heavenly Kingdom if we attach ourselves to the world.