General. The First Sunday of Lent introduces a period of forty days when we recall the Passion, Death and Resurrecton of Our Lord Jesus. It is somewhat of a chronology of our Salvation intertwined with the history and salvific events of the Jewish people from under the Phaorah’s clutches (the evil one who seeks money and power) that pass us through a period when we can understand the more fully the nature of Thanksgiving underlying the Eucharistic sacrifice we are about to celebrate. We can also be given enough grace and inner light to understand the mystery of Christ, the Anointed one, who as Priest, Prophet and Prince delivers man from sin and passes him from death to life, slavery to freedom, the yeastless bread of hard work to the sweet wine of the joy of life.

Deuteronomy. During Lent we basically understand God’s deliverance of His chosen people from a life of toil and servitude to one of abundance and freedom. To start with, this Lesson gives the background to the History of Salvation as wrought by God from the time of Abraham. It was after the people cried to God to deliver them that He took them out of Egypt with uplifted arm, fear and great wonders and led them to a country of abundance from where they now give thanks to Him. Briefly, this is the Easter story.

St Paul to the Romans. The Lesson gives us a clear explanation why before the reading of the Gospel the faithful make three signs of the Cross on themselves. The first Cross on the forehead signifies that the Word is with you, that It has entered your intellect through your senses. On thinking about It and making It one with you, you develop a bond of attachment with it, a feeling of oneness, a sentiment of faithfulness. That leads to the heart, hence the second Cross (as it should be done) on the breast. At this stage you are now in a position to relay to others what you have received, accepted and digested, by spreading the Word by mouth, hence the third Cross on the lips (again in this order).

St Luke. Jesus’ three temptations are our temptations too. Work, idolatry power and prestige. Yet the reply Jesus gives is most clear, God comes first and only Him should one adore and serve before work (modern pharoahs) and empty intellectual disputations. Jesus did indeed fulfil these words on the Cross. He was nailed to the Cross through hands and feet (seat of strength, work), had a crown of thorns placed on his head (intellect, power) and had his heart transfixed with a spear (sentiment, loyalty). As from the beginning of Lent the Christian is being told that he can achieve his personal resurrection with Christ only if he takes up his Cross, passes through his own passion and dies to the temptations of the modern world.

Homilies Index Page - Liturgy of the Hours - Home