The daily Word of God

Dear brothers and sisters:

Those who find viruses on their computer know very well what it means to format the hard drive to remove them, reinstall the operating system, the programs, and download the files again. We want to do something similar during Lent, recognizing that the operating system of our Baptism is threatened by internal and external viruses. Lent is a time to revisit the path of our Baptism. The installation and reinitialization will take the entire forty days.

It is very important to do it well. At stake is the Covenant of God with us and our covenant with God. We go from Easter to Easter. If we were inhabited by this certainty and Easter were an atmosphere that enveloped and penetrated our lives, we would need nothing more. We would have the best antivirus. We would know where we come from, where we are going, how to deal with what happens to us, how to overcome the hard facts of life with an Easter face.

Every year, in the first week of Lent, the liturgy wants us to reflect on the temptations of Jesus. It presents how the Master faced them so that we too can recognize and overcome them.

One of the weapons always at hand is the Word. Scripture says: «The Word is near you: it is in your mouth and in your heart.» It refers to the word of faith that we proclaim to you. Saint Paul tells the first Christians in Rome that Jesus is the only Lord, both for Jews and Greeks. In the Jewish synagogue, only Jews could enter, but from the death and resurrection of Christ, there is no distinction between Jews and Greeks, because Jesus Christ is the only Savior of the world. This universality of the Christian faith that Paul preached is something we must also preach today, we Christians of the 21st century. No one is excluded from salvation because Christ lived, died, and rose again to save us all. That is why our Church is a Catholic Church, that is, universal. The temptation of political and religious exclusivism may have been a Jewish temptation, but it should never be a Christian temptation. The Easter of Christ changed everything.

Today’s gospel is all about Easter. Like in the final days, Jesus knows in his own flesh the trial, the struggle, the fatigue. But he also knows the victory. At first glance, he appears at the mercy of other powers: the Spirit leads him through the desert. And the devil takes him to the top, or to the edge of the temple. If we read the story more slowly, we will discover more elements that may help us understand it better. The scene seems strange to us. But it only dramatizes a battle that, whatever the framework or context defined by external circumstances, ultimately takes place inside Jesus and inside ourselves.

The Lord’s life was not a quiet Sunday afternoon walk. Before the serene Sunday afternoon, there is the night of Thursday and the morning and afternoon of Friday, when they take him from the Sanhedrin to Pilate, and from Pilate to Herod and from Herod to Pilate, and finally from Pilate to a small hill from where Jerusalem and the edge of the temple can be seen. The external scenario is different, but the internal trial is the same. These temptations are the model of any other temptation. For this reason, the devil withdraws, having completed all the temptations, «until the opportune moment.» That moment will be the hours of the passion, of darkness, the hour of the decisive trial, the hour of death on the cross.

What do we discover in these scenes and trials? Jesus is brought and carried by two spirits. The Holy Spirit and the evil spirit. But he is not simply a nutshell shaken by contrary winds. In him, there is a rudder: the rudder of his free will. And there is more: Jesus has a map or guide of that free will: the Word of God, which is the food of a Son of God, his polar star, the one that points out the forbidden directions and the dangerous stretches, the one that marks the true, though difficult, course. We see him choose between the two spirits; we see him deal with the evil one because in life we have to deal with the evil one.

He hears voices pulling him in one direction: tell this stone to become bread; throw yourself down from here, let yourself be served.

1st temptation: Man does not live by bread alone. «Do not go looking for bread. Cross your arms, and turn the stones into bread.» Because it is stones that he wants you to eat. They are stones (or apples with worms) that you insist on eating. And you know very well that stones do not nourish. But your eyes go after everything you see, and you insist on collecting clothes and whims, as if that made you more than others, as if that could cover your inner emptiness. And you feed on long hours of television, so you don’t have time to think, and pray, and listen to others, and ask yourself questions, and engage in something worthwhile. And you plug in all kinds of noises in your headphones so you don’t realize that many need you, so you don’t hear the suffering of people, to stay in your oasis, which is nothing more than a simple mirage. And you swallow your problems without wanting to solve them. And you gorge yourself on vulgarity and sensations.

Well, Jesus, who also knows about this, comes to give you a warning, to unmask the Tempter, and tells you: – Make room in your life for the Word, chew the Word, live the Word, change your life and open yourself much more to God. I sought my bread, I did not tempt God, and I had bread in abundance. I myself learned to become Bread.

2nd temptation: Service. Whoever wants to be the first of all must be the servant of all. How well the devil knows you! You complicate your life, you go down paths that lead nowhere; you let yourself be carried away by your impulses, by your feelings, by the easiest… And then God has to come to get you out of your messes. Live telling God to be at your service and to listen to your whims… Live asking that your life be a pure whim and that God bless your comfort. Ask for things for yourself, that you are the important one. If others have problems: their business! Let your prayer begin with «I» and continue with «for me,» and don’t even think about leaving the slightest chance for God to ask you for something. Live resorting to Him at every little bump and ask Him for a miracle to show you who He is. Let Him solve everything for you, and you: no life projects, no sacrifices, no renunciations: Live the present!

But Jesus, again, comes to unmask: «You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.» He is not at your service. He is not there to solve your problems. Will you learn, like me, to say to Him: «Your will be done»? Will you dare to say to Him: «Here I am, send me»? Will you put Him in your life once and for all? Or do you prefer to keep listening to the devil?

3rd temptation: What is the use of being a child of God? To be out of danger. It is a great temptation. To believe that being a child of God gives you the right to be above the limits of our human condition. To enjoy immunity; to be a superman; to be invulnerable; to live surrounded by guarantees and without risks. To throw yourself from the edge of the temple. Or to throw yourself from the edge of the cross, with healed wounds, assisted by a legion of angels who prevent you from stumbling when carrying the cross. To be above pain and impotence.

But Jesus’ reply is clear: being a child of God does not mean counting on that, counting on God for that, to be here and now above the limits of the human. And that means renouncing all spectacular signs. The signs of the Kingdom of God, of true messianism, are closeness to the marginalized, those somewhat artisanal healings of the sick, service to the lives of people mistreated by life, straightening hope. This is how he showed an unknown good face of God. Jesus bet on simple and poor means to make present and show that unknown good face of God. The vitality of a Church and the degree of its following of the Lord are not measured by the wealth of its means or its earthly triumphs. It is measured by fidelity.

Lent begins. You receive some invitations. To be a servant, not an opportunist; to let generosity overcome self-interest. Not to give in, to fight to be faithful to higher, more demanding, but more humanizing values. To depth over spectacle: an invitation to daily encounter with Jesus. It is up to each one to take advantage of it or not.

Your brother in faith, Alejandro, C.M.F.