First Sunday of Lent
"During these forty days, much like the Israelites, we will journey through
the desert together and look forward to the Promised Land of Easter.
And like Christ, one should be encouraged to go into the desert alone,
a place set aside for personal prayer and silence.
Our Holy Father of happy memory, Pope John Paul II, defined
Lent as a time for "intense prayer" and for "serious discernment
about our lives" and our figurative desert is the place to do both.
In Matthew's version of the temptation in the desert, after Satan tempts
Jesus to turn a stone into bread, our Lord's response of, "One does not
live on bread alone" is continued with "but by every word that proceeds
from the Mouth of God" (Mt 4:4). On a translation note, in Luke's Gospel
the Latin Vulgate does include the words which translate as "but by every
word of God" even though it is absent from the liturgical text.
The bread that doesn't satisfy is the manna that was given to the Israelites
The bread that doesn't satisfy is the manna that was given to the Israelites
(cf. Ex 16). It's interesting, though, that in this exchange between our Savior
and the devil there are three words which are synonymous with Jesus.
He is the "Stone" which the builders rejected (cf. Ps [117] 118:22, Mt 21:42,
Mk 12:10, Lk 20:17, Acts 4:11, 1 Peter 2:4; 2:7), He is the "Bread" of life (cf. Jn 6:35; 6:48),
and He is the "Word" of God (cf. Jn 1:1).
And this spiritual diet of Word and Bread are exactly what
we receive respectively at Mass from the Liturgy of the Word
and the Liturgy of the Eucharist."
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