Sunday-Homilies
Reflections of Most Reverent Eugene Joseph, Bishop of Varanasi on first Sunday of Lent, fifth of march 2017.
Reflections of Most Reverent Eugene Joseph, Bishop of Varanasi on first Sunday of Lent, fifth of march 2017.
At the start of lent we are called to confront temptations that come from within ourselves and lead us to sin. We learn of how temptation to evil led Adam and Eve to an act of faithlessness and sin. In St. Mathew’s Gospel we are told of the temptations before our Lord, submission to which would have destroyed his mission. Jesus faced three temptations posed before his personal power of being Son of God. These temptations are archetypes of the ones we experience: temptation to material possessions, temptation to worldly power and temptation to vain glory. Had he succumbed to them, his identity of being Messiah would have been destroyed. Forty days of fasting and prayer rented strong precedence to the conquering of the temptations. In this act of conquering he corrects the wrong committed by Adam; as sin came through Adam, grace and life came through Christ. He regained for us the right relationship with God; through his faithfulness he merited for us the privilege to be children of God.
Our Lord Jesus serves as a model for us to conquer temptations through prayer and active life in the Word of God. Assurance of Paul must become our belief, “God will not let you be tested beyond your strength” (I Cor. 10:13). The ‘desert experience’ of Son of God holds the key that can enable us to save ourselves from the many noises that bombard our inner lives, to listen to God’s Word, to rediscover who we are before God and to make right choices in our journey towards intimacy with God.
(Readings:1 R Gen 2:7-9, 3:1-7; 2 R Rom 5:12-19 (or 12:17-19); Gos Mt 4:1-11)
