The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today challenge us to trust the prompting of the Spirit to be open to the transition in our relationship with God and others that the journey of Lent prepares us to accept.
The reading from Genesis is the establishing of a Covenant with Noah.
* [9:8–17] God makes a covenant with Noah and his descendants and, remarkably, with all the animals who come out of the ark: never again shall the world be destroyed by flood. The sign of this solemn promise is the appearance of a rainbow. (Genesis, CHAPTER 9, n.d.)
Psalm 25 is a prayer for Guidance and for Deliverance.
* [Psalm 25] A lament. Each verse begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Such acrostic Psalms are often a series of statements only loosely connected. The psalmist mixes ardent pleas (Ps 25:1–2, 16–22) with expressions of confidence in God who forgives and guides. (Psalms, PSALM 25, n.d.)
The reading from the First Letter of Peter declares Baptism Saves.
* [3:13–22] This exposition, centering on 1 Pt 3:17, runs as follows: by his suffering and death Christ the righteous one saved the unrighteous (1 Pt 3:18); by his resurrection he received new life in the spirit, which he communicates to believers through the baptismal bath that cleanses their consciences from sin. As Noah’s family was saved through water, so Christians are saved through the waters of baptism (1 Pt 3:19–22). Hence they need not share the fear of sinners; they should rather rejoice in suffering because of their hope in Christ. Thus their innocence disappoints their accusers (1 Pt 3:13–16; cf. Mt 10:28; Rom 8:35–39). (1 Peter, CHAPTER 3, n.d.)
The Gospel of Mark describes the Temptation of Jesus and the Beginning of the Galilean Ministry.
* [1:12–13] The same Spirit who descended on Jesus in his baptism now drives him into the desert for forty days. The result is radical confrontation and temptation by Satan who attempts to frustrate the work of God. The presence of wild beasts may indicate the horror and danger of the desert regarded as the abode of demons or may reflect the paradise motif of harmony among all creatures; cf. Is 11:6–9. The presence of ministering angels to sustain Jesus recalls the angel who guided the Israelites in the desert in the first Exodus (Ex 14:19; 23:20) and the angel who supplied nourishment to Elijah in the wilderness (1 Kgs 19:5–7). The combined forces of good and evil were present to Jesus in the desert. His sustained obedience brings forth the new Israel of God there where Israel’s rebellion had brought death and alienation.
* [1:14–15] After John had been arrested: in the plan of God, Jesus was not to proclaim the good news of salvation prior to the termination of the Baptist’s active mission. Galilee: in the Marcan account, scene of the major part of Jesus’ public ministry before his arrest and condemnation. The gospel of God: not only the good news from God but about God at work in Jesus Christ. This is the time of fulfillment: i.e., of God’s promises. The kingdom of God…Repent: see note on Mt 3:2. (Mark, CHAPTER 1, n.d.)
Eileen Wirth invites us to view Lent as six weeks to meditate on who we are, who God wants us to be and how to take a few steps to get there. Contemplating who God wants us to be is different than making a New Year’s resolution because it speaks to who we ARE, not just something we think we should do, like going to the gym more often.
Set aside a mere 15 minutes a day for quiet time with God in which you open yourself to hearing his voice. Think you are too busy to find even an extra 15 minutes? Couple your meditation with something you do anyhow like walking the dog or taking a relaxing bath before going to bed. The payoff in serenity may start a rewarding habit while giving up candy ends with Easter.
There are so many ways to turn Lent into a season to look forward to. As a compulsive reader, I select a book on some aspect of spirituality to read for 15 minutes a day, nothing too heavy but something thought provoking. I’ve stumbled onto some great books this way. (Wirth, 2024)
Don Schwager quotes “The call to repentance,” by Chromatius (died 406 AD).
"The voice of the Lord urging the people to repentance - the Holy Spirit made it known to the people that they might take heed, saying, 'Today, when you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, as in the day of testing in the wilderness' (Psalm 95:8). In the same psalm above, he made clear that he was urging the sinful people to repentance and showed the state of a repentant soul, saying, 'Come, let us fall down before him and lament before the Lord who made us, for he is our God' (Psalm 95:6-7). The Lord urges the people to repentance, and he promises to pardon their sins, according to Isaiah's words: 'I, even I, am the one who wipes out your iniquities, and I will not be mindful of your sins. But you be mindful, declare first your iniquities that you may be justified' (Isaiah 43:25-26). Rightly then does the Lord urge the people to repentance when he says, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,' so that through this confession of sins they may be made worthy to approach the kingdom of heaven." (excerpt from TRACTATE ON MATTHEW 15.3)
[Note: Chromatius was an early Christian scholar and bishop of Aquileia, Italy. He was a close friend of John Chrysostom and Jerome. He died in 406 AD. Jerome described him as a "most learned and most holy man."] (Schwager, n.d.)
The Word Among Us Meditation on Mark 1:12-15 comments that beginning with his time in the wilderness, Jesus demonstrated that his kingdom was indeed at hand—and that the devil’s reign was coming to a decisive end.
As your own Lenten journey unfolds this year, keep the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness close to your heart. Especially when life gets hard or temptations arise, remind yourself that every desert experience can result in new life as you try your best to stay faithful to the Lord. Even if you fall, remember that you can stand up again and keep moving forward because of Jesus’ triumph over the devil. Sin no longer has the final word in your life; Jesus, your Redeemer, does!
“Jesus, I’m ready to enter the desert this Lent. I trust in your promise to walk with me and bring me into your kingdom!” (Meditation on Mark 1:12-15, n.d.)
Nicholas King SJ, a tutor in Biblical Studies at Campion Hall, University of Oxford, comments that the New Testament does not precisely outlaw fasting, though that is not where its main emphasis lies. For the heart of the New Testament is the resurrection of Jesus, not his crucifixion.
On the other hand, the Synoptic gospels are agreed on having Jesus fast for forty days in preparation for his mission (Matthew 4:2 and parallels), and that speaks profoundly to something deep in us. It is often called ‘delayed gratification’, and may simply have some prophetic value in our culture of instant gratification and excessive consumption. There is also at least one New Testament instance where fasting denotes a sense of solemnity. That is at Acts 13:3, where the ‘prophets and teachers’ of the Church in Antioch fast and pray before, at God’s instruction, laying hands on Paul and Barnabas in order to commission them for ‘the work which I have called upon them’. (King, 2014)
Friar Jude Winkler comments on the rainbow as an etiology, a story told to explain a great mystery beyond our understanding, The first letter of Peter shares the journey of Jesus to the underworld to the souls of those who had not heard of His Gospel in a space outside of time. Friar Jude notes that the temptations of Jesus in the desert and omitted by Mark who later reveals them through the response of the apostles to Jesus detailing His death on the Cross.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, uses the framework of the “hero’s journey” to describe the path of spiritual transformation. He points to The Odyssey as a powerful metaphor. After the hero leaves their castle or their stable home, they have to experience something bigger, something better, something that is more real and more demanding of their real energies. Of course, that takes different forms. In the Gospels, after his baptism, Jesus goes into the desert for forty days.
Surprisingly, the third stage of the hero’s journey is the return. The hero’s journey is not to just keep going to new places, making the trip a vacation or travelogue. We have to return to where we started and know it in a new way and do life in a new way. We are not somehow “beyond” the order and disorder of our lives; we’ve learned how to integrate both of them. This stage of return is so rarely taught. What is good about the order, what is good about the disorder, and how do we put them together? That is the “reorder” or the return.
We have the departure, then we have the encounter, which will always lead to some kind of descent away from status, away from security, away from ascent. Eventually something happens, something gets transformed, and then there’s the return. [2] (Rohr, 2024)
We begin the journey of Lent contemplating the promise of God to be in a Covenant relationship with us as we journey with the guidance of the Spirit to reject distraction and accept fullness in our lives.
References
Genesis, CHAPTER 9. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved February 18, 2024, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/genesis/9?8
King, N. (2014, April 4). Fasting in the New Testament. Thinking Faith. Retrieved February 18, 2024, from https://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/fasting-new-testament
Mark, CHAPTER 1. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved February 18, 2024, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/mark/1?12
Meditation on Mark 1:12-15. (n.d.). The Word Among Us: Homepage. Retrieved February 18, 2024, from https://wau.org/meditations/2024/02/18/897641/
1 Peter, CHAPTER 3. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved February 18, 2024, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/1peter/3?18
Psalms, PSALM 25. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved February 18, 2024, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/psalms/25?4
Rohr, R. (2024, February 18). The Hero's Journey — Center for Action and Contemplation. CAC Daily Meditations. Retrieved February 18, 2024, from https://cac.org/daily-meditations/the-heros-journey/
Schwager, D. (n.d.). Repent and Believe in the Gospel. Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations – Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved February 18, 2024, from https://www.dailyscripture.net/daily-meditation/?ds_year=2024&date=feb18
Wirth, E. (2024, February 18). Creighton U. Daily Reflection. Online Ministries. Retrieved February 18, 2024, from https://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/021824.html
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