𝑭𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑨𝒅𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒐𝒓’𝒔 𝑫𝒆𝒔𝒌
FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT, YEAR A
February 22, 2026
Dear Parishioners,
Grace and peace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you!
In the gospel text from Matthew, we see how the Holy Spirit – God’s life-giving breath – leads Jesus into the wilderness. This time, it is not the Garden of Eden but the desert. We all know that deserts are inhospitable places. If you have ever flown over a desert, you will have been struck by the harsh landscape below you. There is no order, no organized pattern no fences, hedges, or fields – only a vast wasteland of open space, with sand blown into wave-like dunes or rocks eroded into bizarre shapes. Many of us feel closer to our Creator when we experience at first hand the natural splendour of God’s creation, because we can feel far-removed from human society. Likewise, we try to take ourselves into our own inner spiritual desert, whenever we go on a retreat. It is to these same wilderness places that Jesus goes to test his attitudes and determine his course of action.
Matthew is not trying to give us a biography of Jesus, full of precise details about his life. His gospel is a reaction to what is happening in the Jewish-Christian community of the time, an attempt to counter its difficulties and answer its questions. He shows his readers that Jesus’ temptations are also the temptations of the Church. There is no time that separates the Church from Jesus. These are the same temptations facing every church and every Christian in every age. What we can learn from the story is how to manage our talents and gifts. There are three possibilities. All three are concerned with how we relate to one another, and also how we relate to God, the source of all goodness.
The first temptation is to think of ourselves in a purely materialistic way, concerned only with providing for ourselves and ignoring the needs of others. That is the way most of us live We concentrate on earning a few more pounds or making a quick profit (changing the stones into bread) and nothing else. The second temptation takes other people into consideration, but in the wrong way. This is the temptation is to use our gifts and talents in a way that makes other people praise us, so that we steal the honor that really is due to God alone. The third temptation goes a step further. The issue is here power: political, military, and economic power. We succumb to this temptation whenever we use our talents and gifts to exploit, plunder, and brutalize others.
Jesus does not give in to any of these temptations. In verse 10, he says: “You must worship the Lord your God, and serve him alone,” but he does not elaborate on this. What does it mean to serve God? In the reading from Romans, Paul gives us a theoretical explanation of sin, grace, and redemption, but in the gospel accounts of Jesus’ life we find a practical example of how to serve God.
What is required is not a new Adam and Eve who can live again in innocence without fig leaves. Instead of a return to our first naivete, we need something new: we need Easter and the risen life of Jesus.
Have a blessed Sunday and an amazing Lenten Season!
𝘙𝘦𝘷. 𝘛𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘴 𝘔𝘢𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘭𝘦𝘺, 𝘖.𝘗.
