The explicit theme of the First Sunday of Lent each year is our struggle against sin and evil, and to this end we hear the Gospel story of Christ in the wilderness, undergoing trials by the evil one. Whereas Matthew and Luke report brief dialogues between Jesus and Satan, Mark simply states that “the Spirit drove Jesus out into the wilderness, and he was tempted by Satan.”
In each Gospel, the point is made: Christ overcomes evil. To the extent that we are in Christ, in union with the Holy One of God, we resist and overcome evil. To the extent that we depart from God and from Christ’s Spirit in us, we are ravaged by the forces of evil in one form or another. In Christ we find life, peace, joy; in yielding to forces of evil, we experience inner death, unhappiness, a loss of peace, loss of purpose, mindless wandering in the wilderness of sin.
All life is either conversion or diversion, either a turning the gaze of the mind and the heart’s love towards God, or a futile effort to escape from God, to ignore God, or simply to immerse oneself in this passing world and its “joys.” Truly God seeks us, but we must respond. God is merciful and forgiving, but either we respond to His mercy and resist sin, or we refuse His strengthening gifts and wallow a while in the pit. Although God’s mercy is freely given, we must make the effort to accept it and to live it, or our hearts become increasingly self-enclosed through lives of self-seeking.
Hell is complete self-enclosure: No communion with God, neighbor, creation, one’s better self. A man’s hell is of his own making: turning one’s back on truth, one chooses again and again what may look good--power, pleasure, money, fame--rather than the true good and beauty that is God.
When St. Augustine came to his senses, and turned to the living God, he lamented the lost years apart from God, the true Good. In his Confessions he wrote (paraphrasing): “Late have I loved you, Beauty ever ancient, ever new; late have I loved you. Behold, you were within, but I was outside, seeking there for you, and rushing headlong on the beautiful things you have made. You were within me, but I was not with you. They held me back far from you--those things which would not be at all, were they not in You. To me You called, shouted, broke through my deafness. You flared, blazed, banished my blindness. You lavished your fragrance, I gasped, and now I pant for You. I tasted, and now I hunger and thirst for You. For You touched me, and now I burn for your peace.”
In each Gospel, the point is made: Christ overcomes evil. To the extent that we are in Christ, in union with the Holy One of God, we resist and overcome evil. To the extent that we depart from God and from Christ’s Spirit in us, we are ravaged by the forces of evil in one form or another. In Christ we find life, peace, joy; in yielding to forces of evil, we experience inner death, unhappiness, a loss of peace, loss of purpose, mindless wandering in the wilderness of sin.
All life is either conversion or diversion, either a turning the gaze of the mind and the heart’s love towards God, or a futile effort to escape from God, to ignore God, or simply to immerse oneself in this passing world and its “joys.” Truly God seeks us, but we must respond. God is merciful and forgiving, but either we respond to His mercy and resist sin, or we refuse His strengthening gifts and wallow a while in the pit. Although God’s mercy is freely given, we must make the effort to accept it and to live it, or our hearts become increasingly self-enclosed through lives of self-seeking.
Hell is complete self-enclosure: No communion with God, neighbor, creation, one’s better self. A man’s hell is of his own making: turning one’s back on truth, one chooses again and again what may look good--power, pleasure, money, fame--rather than the true good and beauty that is God.
When St. Augustine came to his senses, and turned to the living God, he lamented the lost years apart from God, the true Good. In his Confessions he wrote (paraphrasing): “Late have I loved you, Beauty ever ancient, ever new; late have I loved you. Behold, you were within, but I was outside, seeking there for you, and rushing headlong on the beautiful things you have made. You were within me, but I was not with you. They held me back far from you--those things which would not be at all, were they not in You. To me You called, shouted, broke through my deafness. You flared, blazed, banished my blindness. You lavished your fragrance, I gasped, and now I pant for You. I tasted, and now I hunger and thirst for You. For You touched me, and now I burn for your peace.”
