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1st Sunday of Lent Year B - 18/2/2018 - Gospel: Mk 1:12-15
Reborn in Christ
During Lent we asked to grow in our understanding of Jesus more and more and that's our final goal for Lent. The more we understand Jesus the better we understand ourselves and the purpose of our pilgrim on earth becomes clearer. Understanding the purpose of life means understanding the riches of God's love hidden in each one of us because we are part of God's love when God creates us out of his love. The key to unlock Christ's riches is through prayers and fasting and act of charity and that is what we are invited to do during Lent. The Church hopes that Lent observance eventually will help us to form a pattern of life, a life time of prayers and of providing service for others.  It is the life time commitment we have made at the Baptismal- to love God, deny evils and serve others. Through prayers we are united with God and come to understand the mystery of God's love in us. Through daily prayer we will experience that our heart is calm and our mind is clear and that helps us to see clearer our inner life; through act of penance we take control of our behaviour. We have discipline ourselves better, according to the teaching of Jesus based on Christian love; through act of charity we embrace the humanity which we are part of it and be aware that we are made after the image and likeness of God. Prayer and penance and charity helps to grasp something which is beyond the reasoning realm and see Christ in others.

The Gospel tells us that Jesus journeys into the desert, not alone, but he was being led by the Spirit. The Bible has indicated that the Holy Spirit would not leave Jesus alone but she was his constant companion and guided him during his forty days of fasting. It would make sense because we do fasting to invite the Holy Spirit into our life. We open ourselves to be guided by the Spirit on our way toward God's love and mercy. Without the guidance and help of the Spirit we alone are incapable of making such a move. The Spirit is our strength. She is our guide and the infinite source of our wisdom that helps us to learn more about God's love and mercy and about our weakness. The Gospel of Mathew recorded that at the temptation of Jesus, the evil spirit confessed the presence of God's angels when they say

'He will put you in his angel's charge and they will support you on their hands' Mat 4,6.

Wherever Jesus is there would have been the Sprit of God accompanies him, sometime  the text made it very clear the role of God's Spirit; other times the text mentioned nothing but I believe Jesus would have never be alone but the Spirit of God was somewhere on the background. 

Lent invites us to journey in the desert of life in faith. It invites us to experience what Jesus had experienced. It teaches us to respond to temptations in the same way Jesus did, not fighting the battles alone but relying on the strength of the Scripture to resist against temptations. Our temptations include addiction of substances, greedy habits and self focussed. During Lent, we ask to see the image and likeness of God in others. We ask to be the hands and feet of Jesus for others and we ask God to give us a heart of flesh which shows compassion and love. We ask to do what is right and good and loving and avoid what is wrong and bad and uncaring.

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