The First Sunday of Lent Year A.

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil (Mat 4:1) Interesting to notice that the first Lenten Gospel reading is always about the devil tempting Jesus to urge him to trade his oneness with God for selfish attention to created things. The Evangelists Matthew and Luke present a story which is more rich with details; while the evangelist Mark tells  the story very briefly. Matthew begins the story by saying that Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, an isolated and normal habitat of spirits, and remained there for 40 days and 40 nights fasting and praying. In that wilderness Jesus could be more alone than anywhere else in Palestine. Yes, He went into the wilderness to be alone. The time to start his mission had come, God has spoken to him; now he must think how he is to attempt the task which God had given him to do. He needed time to be alone in order to get things straightened out before he started. In the wilderness Jesus was in total solitude; and in this solitude Jesus learned to be compassionate. Compassion, which followed from his solitude experience, became the inspiration and the heart of the ministry  he was about to undertake. We must confess that we often go wrong simply because we never try to be alone. There are certain things which we have to work out all alone; there are times when we have to stop acting and begin thinking. We make many mistakes for we do not give ourselves a chance to be alone with God. Here is the key of Jesus’ power over the bad spirits, the devil, the tempter: it is his being alone with the God. The devil carefully, subtly and skilfully chose his time to attack Jesus; notice that the devil tempted Jesus when he was physically and mentally weak (hungry, tired, bored), and tempted Jesus by using Scriptural texts. Yet Jesus conquered him; Jesus was not using an amulet (juju) or even special formulas for protection. He rather confronted the devil in a direct way, in a personal scriptural contest. One thing is clear, the temptations are such as could only be won by a person who had very special powers and who knew that he had them. The temptations which came to Jesus could only have come to one who knew that there were amazing things which he could do. In other words, we are tempted through our gift. It is the grim fact of temptation that it is just where we are strongest that we must be at all time on the watch. Moreover, the temptations do not come only once in a lifetime, but rather they never cease but  wait to see which is the right time and moment to attack. Jesus did not conquer the devil for good so that temptation never came back to him again. From the beginning to the end of the day, Jesus had to fight his battle; he never reached the stage in which he was beyond temptation, that's why Jesus can help us  fight ours. Ongoing vigilance is the price of freedom, this is why we keep sober and alert, because our enemy the devil is on the prowl like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Stand up to him, strong in faith. (cf. 1 Ptr. 5:8) Yes, Jesus can help us to fight our temptation. The story of Jesus’ temptation is truly a sacred story that recalls to us what he went through. In the wilderness he was alone to fight against the devil,  yet he defeated him. The source of our strength to face temptations must be Jesus himself. Through this story Jesus shows us that he can help us when we are tempted because he himself was tempted. He does not hide from us his own struggles in order to help us in our   struggles  . Let us begin this new Lent as a great moment to create a solitude atmosphere within our hearts in order to be steadfast in our struggling with the devil. Have a blessed Lenten season. Kissy Dockyard, 26-02-2020@Marsel Rt