Tag: Desert

Third Sunday of Lent (Year A)

March 12, 2023

First reading                       Exodus 17:3-7

Responsorial Psalm          Psalm 94(95):1-2,6-9

Second reading                   Romans 5:1-2,5-8

Gospel                                   John 4:5-42

Freedom is uncomfortable. We all desire it, we all value it, indeed many are willing to fight and even to die for it. And all of this seems to come fairly naturally, yet it seems to me that it doesn’t come naturally to know how to live with it. Freedom. We see this dilemma played out by the people of Israel in our first reading today, after God liberated them from their slavery in Egypt. Their newfound freedom saw them enter the desert where they underwent the consequences of their freedom– hunger, thirst, the need for order and structure in their community, and all the difficulties of having to be responsible for themselves no longer under the yoke of Egyptian rule. Their freedom was so uncomfortable in fact that they began to regret it and desire to be slaves once again: “Why did you bring us out of Egypt? Was it so that I should die of thirst, my children too, and my cattle?” They were even at the point of murdering the one who had led them into freedom: Moses appeals to the Lord, “How am I to deal with this people? A little more and they will stone me!” Indeed, not only is this the story of a nation suddenly liberated from oppression, but this is also the story of the souls of each one of us who have been regenerated by Baptism and given the glorious freedom of the children of God. For just as the Israelites, escaped from Egyptian rule, had to learn to rule over themselves, body and soul, or be ruled by the impulses of their bodies and souls, so each of us has to struggle against the tendency to be ruled by our freedom of choice and the desires that govern our choice.

For having been freed from the outward constraint of Egyptian slavery, upon entering the desert the Israelites had to contend with their inner constraints, their desires, their minds, their wayward passions and deep-seated attitudes. There’s nothing like the desert to bring out the real self, to show us how free we truly are. Try sitting alone in silence in order to pray for a prolonged period and observe what pops up. You see, the world presents to us a very shallow idea of what it means to be free: The limitless and unrestricted option for individual choice. Of course, we ought to be able to make our own choices. But is this really freedom in its truest sense? If we are presented with the choice between something we know to be good and something we know to be fundamentally sinful, and we choose the thing that is sinful (perhaps because it promises some advantage), have we acted in freedom? You might say, yes, I freely chose the bad. And that is true, no one else made the choice for you or compelled you to choose it – you exercised “freedom” in a basic sense. But what is it that so constrained me to choose what I know to be wrong and therefore to be destructive to my soul? In this case, though I had the free choice for whichever, there is a certain slavery in choosing what is bad, a slavery which lies in the perceived advantage that choosing the bad promised me. What about the case of the person who chooses the Good at great personal cost – the one who chooses to do what they know to be morally good according to God’s law, despite the fact that it will have an adverse effect on them for having chosen it? Surely this person, in choosing the Good at great personal cost, acts with a far greater interior freedom than the one who chooses what is sinful to great advantage. They are not constrained by the threat of the personal cost. The question arises, then, are we really free if we choose to do what kills the soul? Are we really free if we habitually live in a state of alienation from God? Are we really free if we live only according to what is pleasurable, to what makes us feel good? The Israelites were so dominated by their bodily hunger and thirst that they wanted to go back into slavery, where at least they had ample food and water. This suggests they were still living according to the flesh and didn’t yet have the interior freedom to trust totally in the God whose wonders they had already seen with their own eyes. Outwardly, they were free– they could make choices. But inwardly, they were still slaves. They had not yet been transformed.

Brothers and sisters, if you’ve made a serious attempt to live the Lenten season, you’ll recognise what I’m saying. When we begin to mortify our senses and our will by depriving ourselves of certain things and pleasures, by fasting, almsgiving, or by taking on extra devotions and spiritual practices, we learn how interiorly free we really are. How quickly does it last before you pack it in? How often do we choose not to fast or abstain from meat because it seems too hard or superfluous? You see, the desert, and indeed Lent, reveals to us our attachments, whether they be things, behaviours, foods, attitudes or certain sins – attachments which can ultimately enslave us in deeper ways that prevent the inner transfiguration of our nature. But the Gospel today holds the key for us.

The Samaritan woman comes to draw water from the well but ultimately ends up asking Jesus for “Living Water”. After her unexpected encounter with Jesus, we see her run back to the town to tell others about him. But to cut to the chase, perhaps the most telling detail of all is that she left her water jar behind, abandoned. Her whole purpose in coming to the well was to draw water. She left without water, and what is more she left without the means of ever drawing water again. This gives us a clue, indicating that she indeed received her Living Water from Jesus, and that after tasting his presence, the well was established within her. No longer does she need a bucket because no longer does she live according to the flesh, from now on she lives according to the Spirit, worshipping in Spirit and Truth. Brothers and sisters, this is the goal of our Lenten season. To drink from the fountain of Living Water that is the Holy Spirit himself, who will well up within us and establish in us the very source of his divine life. To receive this Living Water, we must learn to deny ourselves, putting away our slavery to sin and to the flesh which bids us have to constantly return to draw more water. And denying ourselves, we may then have the interior freedom to come to Jesus Christ with all our heart, mind and strength, whose freedom will release us from ever having to draw water again. In learning to deny ourselves and choose Christ, we leave our water jar behind and drink from the interior well of grace which alone can quench the thirst of the human soul. During this season of grace, may we seek him while he is still to be found.

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Second Sunday of Lent (Year A)

March 4, 2023

First reading                       Genesis 12:1-4

Responsorial Psalm          Psalm 32(33):4-5,18-20,22

Second reading                   2 Timothy 1:8-10

Gospel                                   Matthew 17:1-9

When Jesus was baptised, upon coming up out of the water, the Holy Spirit descended upon him, and a voice resounded on the waters. Do you remember what that voice said? Upon the waters of Baptism, the Father proclaimed, “this is my Son, the Beloved; he enjoys my favour.” Last weekend, while Jesus was fasting in the desert, we heard the devil cast doubt on these words: “If you are the Son of God”, he said, “tell these stones to turn into loaves” or “if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down…” With this phrase “if you are the Son of God”, Satan was either attempting to cast doubt on Jesus’ divine sonship revealed at the Baptism or, tempting him to abuse the power of that sonship. Well, today we hear God the Father reinforce those same words from the Baptism, crushing Satan’s twisting of those words. He proclaims before the transfigured Jesus, radiant with light, “this is my Son, the Beloved; he enjoys my favour – listen to him.” The repetition of this declaration ties together the scenes of the Baptism, the desert and the Transfiguration. After the Father’s first declaration at the Baptism, Jesus was led into the desert where he was tempted by Satan. We pondered this scene last weekend, but we would do well to recall some of its details today, for it will shed light on today’s Gospel of the Transfiguration.

In one of the three temptations, Jesus was taken up “a very high mountain”, from which the devil “showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.” He promised to give this glory to Jesus if Jesus would fall at his feet and worship him. In today’s Gospel, Jesus leads Peter, James and John up a “high mountain”, just as the devil did to Jesus. But in this case, they see not “the kingdoms of the world and their glory”, they catch a glimpse rather of the kingdom of heaven, seeing the glory of a transfigured Christ, radiant with light from his very person. They then see Moses and Elijah, telling us that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. They then hear the Father’s voice, the same declaration as at Jesus’ baptism. And, we are told, “they fell on their faces, overcome with fear.” This was not the kind of fear we experience upon encountering a snake or a shark, since they didn’t run away, but “they fell on their faces”. That is, they touched their foreheads to the ground in the gesture of worship. The fear they experienced is the reverential fear of God, one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit that allows us to worship God in spirit and truth. While Jesus refused to fall down and worship Satan for the glory of all the kingdoms of this world, Jesus’ disciples rightly fall down and worship him as they comprehend that Jesus is the Beloved, the Son in whom the glory of the kingdom of heaven lies open.

But what is it that the Transfiguration properly reveals? For a fuller picture, we must consider last week’s readings again. Jesus appeared in the desert where he fasted for forty days and was plagued by the same threefold temptation that caused humanity’s fall in the beginning. The desert, we remember, is the opposite to the Garden. It represents the loss of the Garden of Eden and the lasting effects of sin. Empty, lifeless, harsh and inhabitable, Jesus entered it and dwelt there with the ancient serpent, whom he resisted. In that place of death, temptation, aloneness and deprivation of the senses, Jesus clings to the Father alone. In doing so, this mortification gives birth to a new humanity, forged in the desert, in whom the effects of sin are reversed. This is revealed and exemplified in today’s gospel scene of the Transfiguration. His form is changed such that his face shines like the sun and his clothes become as light. The Father calls him “the Beloved”, that is, the one in whom all the love, which is the very essence of God the Father, resides. In other words, here he shows us a humanity that is perfectly united and permeated with the divinity. While this is who Jesus is by nature, the point for us is this is who we are being invited to become by grace! By traversing the desert and enduring all the effects of sin in absolute fidelity to God the Father, even unto death on the cross, Jesus shows us the path to our own divinisation, to union with God, which is our ultimate end and fulfillment. My friends, this is what salvation is! Salvation is not just a tick against our name and admittance to heaven like they admit you through the gate at a music festival! That has nothing to do with heaven! Salvation is the utter transformation of our nature after the pattern of the crucified and risen Jesus, unto complete and perfect union with God. It is to become, by grace, what Jesus is, namely “the Beloved” laid bare on the mountain of the Transfiguration!

Dear friends, the Lenten journey through the desert that we are currently on, which is a microcosm of the entire Christian life, ends in what we catch a glimpse of today. Our final destination is the glorified Christ who, having suffered, is perfectly transformed and united with the Father. This is our ultimate end and perfection. This is what it is we are trying to become. Dear brothers and sisters, let us hold the transfigured Christ before our eyes every day of our life, then, and pray the Holy Spirit to change us, and to make us, by his grace, more and more into the image and likeness of his Beloved Son, crucified and risen.
First Sunday of Lent (Year A)

February 25, 2023

First reading                       Genesis 2:7-9,3:1-7

Responsorial Psalm          Psalm 50(51):3-6,12-14,17

Second reading                   Romans 5:12-19

Gospel                                   Matthew 4:1-11

Today the Word of the Lord takes us to two very different but intimately related places. First, we find ourselves in the Garden at the creation of the first man and his subsequent fall from grace (along with his wife Eve). Second, we are taken to the desert with the new man, Jesus Christ, and his subsequent triumph over evil. These scenes are tied together in that they both present the human being tempted by Satan, who acts as liar and tempter. Even the temptations of Jesus mirror those of our first parents: First, Satan tells lies to sow mistrust of God: “Did God really say you were not to eat from any of the trees of the garden?… No! You will not die! God knows in fact that on the day you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.” In the case of Jesus, the Devil says, “if you are the son of God”, calling into question the Father’s words in the preceding verses at Jesus’ baptism, “this is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Then there follows a threefold temptation: “The woman saw that the tree was good to eat (the desire of the flesh) and pleasing to the eye (the desire to possess) and that is was desirable for the knowledge that it could give (pride– the desire to take the place of God). So she took some of its fruit and ate it.” In the desert we hear, “if you are the Son of God, tell these stones to turn into loaves (the desire of the flesh) … If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down (pride– everyone will see that you are God and will worship you) … I will give you all these [kingdoms of the world and their splendour] if you fall at my feet and worship me (the desire to possess) … Then Jesus replied, ‘be off Satan!’”

But aside from the similarities we see in these two scenes, the key, I believe, is in their difference. The story of the first man’s creation and fall takes place in the Garden, the Greek word for which is paradeisos– paradise. The story of the new man’s triumph, on the other hand, takes place in the desert, the complete opposite to the Garden. Just as the first man was created in the garden, here we have the new man, a new humanity, being created and forged in the desert. The first human beings were made to be together in paradise, a place teeming with life and abundance. Our Lord, however, appears alone in the dry and dead wasteland, the haunt of demons. There are several aspects to this. First, the desert is the consequence of the fall. When our first parents abandoned God, death and corruption came into the world just as St Paul teaches in our second reading: “sin entered the world through one man, and through sin death, and thus death has spread through the whole human race because everyone has sinned.” The desert is the death of the garden and the image of sin’s consequences. Second, Jesus enters the desert– our desert. Jesus, though he is without sin, enters the consequences of our sin and sojourns in the lonely, lifeless desert for us. Third, in his own person he reverses sin. He resists the lies and temptations of Satan, the very same that resulted in the fall and created the death of the Garden in the first place.

Dear brothers and sisters, our readings today are truly profound. In the person of Jesus, sin and death are defeated! In the person of Jesus, sin and death are reversed! In the person of Jesus, paradise is restored to us! In the person of Jesus a new humanity is created! And this season of Lent, the season of the desert, leads to the triumph of Easter if we so participate. I will say, it leads to nothing but a never-ending desert for those who choose not to be intentional about their faith or cling to the person of Jesus. In him alone is paradise restored. So, if the new life of the resurrection is to be ours, we must follow Jesus in the desert. In him we must resist the lies that the Devil tells us. And these lies are multiplied in our day. Today we live in an upside-down world where what is evil is celebrated and called good, while what is good and holy is reviled and called bad. In Jesus we must learn to walk alone in the desert. Modern people are so afraid of loneliness, silence and stillness. We busy ourselves so as to not have to face ourselves. We fill every moment with stimulation and input from televisions, computers, mobile phones, radios and entertainment because we are afraid to face the silence. We do anything to avoid a sense of being alone. But dear friends, no one else can make the journey for us. While Adam and Eve were together in their fall, Jesus was alone in his triumph. We too, though God gives us many helpers and companions to walk with us, are fundamentally alone and alone can make the decision to follow Jesus or not. In our aloneness with Jesus, we must also learn to resist the threefold temptation that still plagues us today: the desires of the flesh, the desire to possess and the pride of life that seeks to usurp the place of God in our lives. It is from these three things that every manner of wickedness proceeds, and by following Jesus’ example of fidelity and self-restraint that we become truly free. Free from slavery to our desires and addictions, free from idolatry and pride, and free for what is good and truly wholesome. Free to worship God in spirit and truth in whom is the fullness of life and love.

It’s no accident, dear brothers and sisters, that the Church calls us to prayer, fasting and almsgiving during the Lenten season. These are the weapons of choice that countless generations of Christians have used to enter the arena with Jesus and conquer our threefold fallenness. Fasting is a manner of resisting the desire of the flesh, an exercise in self-restraint. Make sure you integrate some manner of fasting into your week! Almsgiving is the opposite to that temptation to possess. It is to let go and to give rather than take. We must give alms! And prayer, this is the most important of all. Prayer, not just saying prayers, but the worship of almighty God and the loving adoration of him in recognition of his Lordship over us, the total submission of ourselves to love himself. This is the opposite to the pride which would rather usurp the place of God in our lives.

One final word. As I’ve mentioned, all this can only be done in Jesus Christ. We are not stoic philosophers. On our own power and merit, all the things I’ve mentioned will be fruitless and the desert will remain. But with the grace of Jesus, new life can begin to grow. In practice, that means every single one of us needs to go to confession during this Lenten season. You don’t have to come to me, I won’t be offended. But we need to receive the Sacrament of Penance. That means I myself will have to drive to another town to find a priest, as I often do. For without the sanctifying grace that Jesus gives us in confession, there’s no way that the power of the resurrection can be applied to our souls. My friends, this season of Lent is before us, and it has wonders in store for those who are willing to take it seriously. What will you choose?
Second Sunday of Advent (Year A)

November 30, 2022

First reading                       Isaiah 11:1-10

Responsorial Psalm          Psalm 71(72):1-2,7-8,12-13,17

Second reading                   Romans 15:4-9

Gospel                                   Matthew 3:1-12

“In due course John the Baptist appeared; he preached in the wilderness of Judaea and this was his message: ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand.’” Doesn’t it strike you as strange that John the Baptist preached in the wilderness (that is, the desert)? If you had an important message to spread, wouldn’t you go into the middle of the city to tell as many people as possible? Instead, this disturbing man, John the Baptist, goes to the most desolate, dead and unpopulated place possible, a place that was considered to be the haunt of the demons, in order to proclaim his urgent news. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand!” Why?

In order to answer this, we must note that there are many layers at work here. St Matthew himself gives us part of the answer: “This was the man the prophet Isaiah spoke of when he said: ‘A voice cries in the wilderness; prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight.’” St John is the lone “voice” crying out in the desert, which the prophet Isaiah foretold. Furthermore, God promised in the oracle of the prophet Malachi, “behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes” (Mal 4:5). Elijah was the greatest of the Old Testament prophets and was expected to return before the great and terrible day of the Lord. Elijah often dwelt in the desert, and he dressed in haircloth with a leather belt around his waist (2 Kings 1:8). John the Baptist’s clothing (camel’s hair and a leather belt) straight away evoke the appearance of Elijah and therefore the fulfilment of Malachi’s prophecy. But I suspect there’s more to St John’s preaching in the desert than the fulfilling of prophecies.

You see, the desert is the opposite to a garden. At the creation, human beings were originally made to be with God in a garden, the garden of Eden. But because of sin, death and destruction came into the world and they were removed from their original home in the garden. Furthermore, the curse that God pronounced because of sin included the earth itself:

“cursed is the ground because of you;
    in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you;
    and you shall eat the plants of the field.
In the sweat of your face
    you shall eat bread
till you return to the ground,
    for out of it you were taken;
you are dust,
    and to dust you shall return” (Gen 3:17-19).

The dusty desert, then, is a striking image of the curse and of the desolation that occurs when human beings turn away from God. Because of this, the desert was considered to be the dwelling place of the demons, which we see in Jesus’ forty-day temptation in the desert, as well as his own words about how a spirit that is cast out of a person proceeds to wander in the desert (Matt 12:43). St John’s ascetic appearance in the desert, then, wherein his preaching of the kingdom (i.e., reign) of heaven begins, signals the beginning of a great reversal. For the desert represents a kind of frontier, a territory that God must reclaim if he is to end the reign of Satan and establish his own domain on the earth. This reversal was also foretold by the prophet Isaiah:

“Behold, I am doing a new thing;
    now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
    and rivers in the desert” (Is 43:19).

We should ask, what else did John the Baptist do in the desert besides preach the nearness of the kingdom? He baptised people in the Jordan river with a baptism of repentance, while the people “confessed their sins.” The Jordan cuts right through the desert, and it is there that people confessed and were washed by John as a sign of their turning away from sin, the very thing that produces the desolate wastelands. The baptism of repentance conferred by St John would “make a way in the wilderness” for the “rivers in the desert”, which are the living water that Jesus would then give through his Baptism in the Holy Spirit. What is more, it’s Jesus’ baptism that literally establishes the kingdom of heaven in those who receive it, for the Lord himself comes to dwell and reign in those who receive his Baptism and remain in the grace it confers. By the repentance that John proclaimed and the Baptism that Jesus would offer, the desert frontier is reclaimed by God in those who heed John’s urgent call.

My friends, not only are the deserts of the world an expanding threat to human life, but the ever-expanding desert in the human soul is yet a greater threat. As more and more people turn from God in search of total autonomy, self-reliance, self-service, materialism, pleasure as an ultimate end, unhinged consumerism, rest without Sabbath, lives of distraction, alternative New Age spiritualities, and much more, the existential emptiness and desolation of the human heart increases, and Satan’s house of cards expands unto the eternal destruction of souls. What the Gospel reveals to us in St John the Baptist is that we need repentance. All of us! This prophetic message is all the more urgent today, for the desert within the human race is expanding. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand!”

Brothers and sisters, if Christmas commemorates God’s dwelling among us in the flesh, Advent is a time for reclaiming the space for him to dwell. The desert frontier of our souls, that which is created by our driving Jesus away from us, must be reclaimed and reserved for him alone to dwell in. If we make room for him dear friends, which will involve a courageous self-emptying and removal of obstacles, I have no doubt that he will follow through with his promise: “I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” And if Christ dwells in you, your soul becomes a literal paradise, a garden of Eden. But to have a garden, you need water. To have a garden of Eden, you need living water. And the only way to get living water is to seek Jesus in the way they did in the Gospel today: They heeded the voice crying out in the wilderness, they repented, and “they confessed their sins.” I guess it all boils down to a simple question. Are you thirsty enough?

Tag: Desert

Third Sunday of Lent (Year A)

Second Sunday of Lent (Year A)

First Sunday of Lent (Year A)

Second Sunday of Advent (Year A)