Desert Silence — Prayer — Transformation = Identity

εὐαγγελίζω (euaggelizo)
“to announce the Good News of victory in battle”

“Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan
and was led by the Spirit into the desert (ἐρήμῳ, erēmō) for forty days,
to be tempted (πειραζόμενος periazomenos) by the devil.
He ate nothing during those days,
and when they were over he was hungry.”

Matthew 4:1-2
First Sunday of Lent

θεωρέω (theoreo)
(“to perceive, discover, ponder a deeper meaning”)

Prior to being “led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days to be tempted by the Devil,” (Matthew 4:1) Jesus was baptized in the Jordan. Saint Matthew records Jesus’ Baptism as an event that “to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15), in other words, an event that brings one into proper relational living with the Divine Persons, one another, the true-self and all creation. That relationship is experienced when “the heavens were opened [for Him], and He saw the Spirit of God descending life a Dove [and] coming upon Him. And a voice came from the heavens, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:16-17) What happened at the Jordan is vital to help provide a context for Jesus being “led by the Spirit into the desert.” As “beloved Son,” Jesus goes into the desert like His ancestors did in their journey from the slavery of Egypt to the freedom of the “land flowing with milk and honey.” (Deuteronomy 26:9)

More than just a place, the ἔρημος (erēmos, “desert”) in the Gospels is also an experience or an event. Something happens in the ἔρημος that is essential for living the life of Jesus. As an experience, the desert (ἔρημος, erēmos) offers deliverance from danger and sets one on the path to safety. Admittedly, it is hard to fathom how the hostility of the desert can offer safety. After all, life in the desert is a continuous struggle just to survive, let alone grow, prosper and flourish. But this is precisely what Israel discovered in the silence of the desert as she was drawn from slavery to freedom, from Egypt to the Promised Land. The struggle to live in the ἔρημος along with the vicissitudes of fidelity and infidelity to the Covenant way of living ultimately “tempted” [or “tested, examined, tried true”] (πειραζόμενος, peirazomenos) Israel to receive her identity as the Chosen People. For the Hebrew people, the desert became the way she learned, was formed and experienced her identity: the Chosen People.

For Jesus, He is grounded in His identity as the Divine Son of God and in His human nature, He teaches with His life the desert as a place and an experience for the intensifying of that identity in desert silence. On this point, Cardinal Sarah writes in The Power of Silence:

“Silence is of capital importance because it enables the Church to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, imitating his thirty silent years in Nazareth, his forty days and forty nights of fasting and intimate dialogue with the Father in the solitude and silence of the desert. Like Jesus, confronted with the demands of his Father’s will, the Church must seek silence in order to enter ever more deeply into the mystery of Christ. The Church must be the reflection of the light that pours out from Christ.” Silence transforms all aspects of our being: body, mind and heart.

This solitude, as Fr Henri Nouwen wrote in The Way of the Heart, changes us at our core:

“In solitude I get rid of my scaffolding: no friends to talk with, no telephone calls to make, no meetings to attend, no music to entertain, no books to distract, just me—naked, vulnerable, weak, sinful, deprived, broken—nothing. It is this nothingness that I have to face in my solitude, a nothingness so dreadful that everything in me wants to run to my friends, my work, and my distractions so that I can forget my nothingness and make myself believe that I am worth something. That is the struggle. It is the struggle to die to the false self. But this struggle is far, far beyond our own strength.”

Nouwen’s last point about the struggle is crucial. Lent is not a time to enter the spiritual olympics and attempt to prove to God ‘I can do it.’ Lent, as all aspects of faithful living in Jesus Christ must be lived in the mode of response. We need the assistance of our Lord in every step of life. Even the penance we undertake during this Season is a response - we can only ‘do’ these acts because of the Grace given to us as pure gift. For that reason, Jesus’ desert experience is the model for Lenten (and beyond) living. In silence, we come to know who we are in the One Who loves infinitely and showers each with all that is needed. (By the way, both these books: The Power of Silence and The Way of the Heart are highly recommended for one’s library of spiritual reading.)

It is therefore no coincidence that in-and-around these early days of Lent the Church celebrates the Rite of Election and the Call to Continual Conversion. This joyful Season is the time of intense, proximate preparation for Baptism-Confirmation-Holy Eucharist wherein the soon-to-be-designated Elect receive the Gift of Divine Adoption – a whole new identity, a whole new creation. It is in this context of Baptism that those who are already configured to Jesus Christ in the waters of rebirth are thrown by the same Spirit into the ἔρημος to have that configuration, that Baptismal identity intensified. That is the reason we RESPOND (in other words, we don’t initiate the holy works) with attentiveness to the works of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Works, not in the sense of ‘earning points,’ not in the sense of a Pelagian spiritual Olympics attempting to prove to God what “I” can do and how good I am. Rather, like Jesus, we permit ourselves to be available to the Spirit who drives us into the testing, the experience, the desert to come to grips with what it means to be a “child of God” who is being formed for immersion into the Water of Life or the renewal of that Baptismal life and identity this Easter.

First Sunday of Lent

“The woman saw that the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eyes, and the tree was desirable for gaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.” (Genesis 3:6.)

Saint Gregory of Nyssa (part 2 of the background of Saint Gregory of Nyssa is found here) offers the following insight on this verse from today’s First Reading:

“Those who have been tricked into taking poison offset its harmful effect by another drug. The remedy, moreover, just like the poison, has to enter the system, so that its remedial effect may thereby spread through the whole body. Similarly, having tasted the poison, that is the fruit, that dissolved our nature, we were necessarily in need of something to reunite it. Such a remedy had to enter into us, so that it might by its counteraction undo the harm the body had already encountered from the poison. And what is this remedy? Nothing else than the body that proved itself superior to death and became the source of our life.” (Catechetical Oration, 37.)

Collect

Grant, almighty God,
through the yearly observances of holy Lent,
that we may grow in understanding
of the riches hidden in Christ
and by worthy conduct pursue their effects.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 

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In Christ we suffered temptation and in him we overcame the devil

Saint Augustine of Hippo

Bishop and Great Western Father of the Church

An excerpt from his Commentary on the Psalms, Psalm 60.

First Sunday of Lent

Hear, O God, my petition, listen to my prayer. Who is speaking? An individual, it seems. See if it is an individual: I cried to you from the ends of the earth while my heart was in anguish. Now it is no longer one person; rather, it is one in the sense that Christ is one, and we are all his members. What single individual can cry from the ends of the earth? The one who cries from the ends of the earth is none other than the Son’s inheritance. It was said to him: Ask of me, and I shall give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession. This possession of Christ, this inheritance of Christ, this body of Christ, this one Church of Christ, this unity that we are, cries from the ends of the earth. What does it cry? What I said before: Hear, O God, my petition, listen to my prayer; I cried out to you from the ends of the earth. That is, I made this cry to you from the ends of the earth; that is, on all sides.

Why did I make this cry? While my heart was in anguish. The speaker shows that he is present among all the nations of the earth in a condition, not of exalted glory but of severe trial.

Our pilgrimage on earth cannot be exempt from trial. We progress by means of trial. No one knows himself except through trial, or receives a crown except after victory, or strives except against an enemy or temptations.

The one who cries from the ends of the earth is in anguish, but is not left on his own. Christ chose to foreshadow us, who are his body, by means of his body, in which he has died, risen and ascended into heaven, so that the members of his body may hope to follow where their head has gone before.

He made us one with him when he chose to be tempted by Satan. We have heard in the gospel how the Lord Jesus Christ was tempted by the devil in the wilderness. Certainly Christ was tempted by the devil. In Christ you were tempted, for Christ received his flesh from your nature, but by his own power gained life for you; he suffered insults in your nature, but by his own power gained glory for you; therefore, he suffered temptation in your nature, but by his own power gained victory for you.

If in Christ we have been tempted, in him we overcame the devil. Do you think only of Christ’s temptations and fail to think of his victory? See yourself as tempted in him, and see yourself as victorious in him. He could have kept the devil from himself; but if he were not tempted he could not teach you how to triumph over temptation.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 

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Saturday after Ash Wednesday

“If you lavish your food on the hungry
and satisfy the afflicted;
Then your light shall rise in the darkness,
and your gloom shall become like midday...” (Isaiah 58:10)

Saint Gregory of Nazianzus reflects on this verse from today’s Gospel proclamation:

“[My father] actually treated his own property as if it were another’s, of which he was but the steward, relieving poverty as far as he could and expending not only his superfluities but his necessities — a manifest proof of love for the poor, giving a portion not only to seven, according to the injunction of Solomon, but if an eighth came forward, not even in his case being stingy but more pleased to dispose of his wealth than we know others are to acquire it… This is what most people do: they give indeed, but without that readiness that is a greater and more perfect thing than the mere offering. For he thought it much better to be generous even to the undeserving for the sake of the deserving than from fear of the undeserving to deprive those who were deserving. And this seems to be the duty of casting our bread on the waters, since it will not be swept away or perish in the eyes of the just Investigator but will arrive yonder where all that is ours is laid up and will meet with us in due time, even though we think it not. But what is best and greatest of all, [my father’s] magnanimity was accompanied by freedom from ambition.” (On the Death of His Father, Oration 18)

Collect

Almighty ever-living God,
look with compassion on our weakness
and ensure us your protection
by stretching forth the right hand of your majesty.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 

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The friendship of God

Saint Irenaeus of Lyons

Bishop, Father of the Church and Martyr

An excerpt from his Against Heresies (Book 4)

Saturday after Ash Wednesday

Our Lord, the Word of God, first drew men to God as servants, but later he freed those made subject to him. He himself testified to this: I do not call you servants any longer, for a servant does not know what his master is doing. Instead I call you friends, since I have made known to you everything that I have learned from my Father. Friendship with God brings the gift of immortality to those who accept it.

In the beginning God created Adam, not because he needed man, but because he wanted to have someone on whom to bestow his blessings. Not only before Adam but also before all creation, the Word was glorifying the Father in whom he dwelt, and was himself being glorified by the Father. The Word himself said: Father, glorify me with that glory I had with you before the world was.

Nor did the Lord need our service. He commanded us to follow him, but his was the gift of salvation. To follow the Savior is to share in salvation; to follow the light is to enjoy the light. Those who are in the light do not illuminate the light but are themselves illuminated and enlightened by the light. They add nothing to the light; rather, they are beneficiaries, for they are enlightened by the light.

The same is true of service to God: it adds nothing to God, nor does God need the service of man. Rather, he gives life and immortality and eternal glory to those who follow and serve him. He confers a benefit on his servants in return for their service and on his followers in return for their loyalty, but he receives no benefit from them. He is rich, perfect and in need of nothing.

The reason why God requires service from man is this: because he is good and merciful he desires to confer benefits on those who persevere in his service. In proportion to God’s need of nothing is man’s need for communion with God.

This is the glory of man: to persevere and remain in the service of God. For this reason the Lord told his disciples: You did not choose me but I chose you. He meant that his disciples did not glorify him by following him, but in following the Son of God they were glorified by him. As he said: I wish that where I am they also may be, that they may see my glory.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 

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Friday after Ash Wednesday

“Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your wound shall quickly be healed; Your vindication shall go before you, and the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.” (Isaiah 58:8)

Saint Cyril of Alexandria reflects on this verse from today’s First Reading, writes:

“This oracle has great force. For it does not simply say, “Light will be given to you by God,” but it will be like lightning whose course and progress is sent by God, through which is clearly shown the desire of those who pray. By saying “first light,” it instructs us that it will appear before time. For God, the guardian of all things, knew, as the giver of spiritual gifts, the time suited to each person for his blessings. But if anyone is fair and good and also caring and benevolent — to that person a reward will be given as a “first thing,” so that in him there will arise just like an ear of corn his health (that is, the departing of all infirmities and the returning of good health). For the one who is free of diseases is fruitful in all ways, with an easy and cheerful production of good things. So the light of the divine understanding and our healthiness both arise within us, as God removes the burden of all sickness and also sets in us in its place the will to do good works and to abound in righteousness.” (Commentary on Isaiah, 5)

Collect

Show gracious favor, O Lord, we pray,
to the works of penance we have begun,
that we may have strength
to accomplish with sincerity
the bodily observances we undertake.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

Prayer is the light of the spirit

Saint John Chrysostom

Bishop and Father of the Church

An excerpt from his Homily 6: On Prayer

Friday after Ash Wednesday

Prayer and converse with God is a supreme good: it is a partnership and union with God. As the eyes of the body are enlightened when they see light, so our spirit, when it is intent on God, is illumined by his infinite light. I do not mean the prayer of outward observance but prayer from the heart, not confined to fixed times or periods, but continuous throughout the day and night.

Our spirit should be quick to reach out toward God not only when it is engaged in meditation; at other times also, when it is carrying out its duties, caring for the needy, performing works of charity, giving generously in the service of others, our spirit should long for God, and call him to mind, so that these works may be seasoned with the salt of God’s love, and so make a palatable offering to the Lord of the universe. Throughout the whole of our lives we may enjoy the benefit that comes from prayer if we devote a great deal of time to it.

Prayer is the light of the spirit, true knowledge of God, mediating between God and man. The spirit, raised up to heaven by prayer, clings to God with the utmost tenderness; like a child crying tearfully for its mother, it craves the milk that God provides. It seeks the satisfaction of its own desires, and receives gifts outweighing the whole world of nature.

Prayer stands before God as an honored ambassador. It gives joy to the spirit, peace to the heart. I speak of prayer, not words. It is the longing for God, love too deep for words, a gift not given by man but by God’s grace. The apostle Paul says: We do not know how we are to pray but the Spirit himself pleads for us with inexpressible longings.

When the Lord gives this kind of prayer to someone; he gives him riches that cannot be taken away, heavenly food that satisfies the spirit. One who tastes this food is set on fire with an eternal longing for the Lord: his spirit burns as in a fire of the utmost intensity.

Practice prayer from the beginning. Paint your house with the colors of modesty and humility. Make it radiant with the light of justice. Decorate it with the finest gold leaf of good deeds. Adorn it with the walls and stones of faith and generosity. Crown it with the pinnacle of prayer. In this way you will make it a perfect dwelling place for the Lord. You will be able to receive him as in a splendid palace, and through his grace you will already possess him, his image enthroned in the temple of your spirit.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 

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Thursday after Ash Wednesday

“See, I have today set before you life and good, death and evil.” (Deuteronomy 30:15)

Saint Ambrose of Milan offers the following insight on these verses from today’s First Reading:

“Let us ponder the nature of life and of death. Life is the enjoyment of the gift of breath, death the deprivation of it. Further, this gift of breath is considered by most people as a good. And so life is this, the enjoyment of goods, but death is the divestiture of them. And Scripture says, “Behold, I have set before your face life and death, good and evil,” for it calls life good and death evil and attributes to each its proper deserts.” (Death as a Good, 1)

Collect

Prompt our actions with your inspiration,
we pray, O Lord,
and further them with your constant help,
that all we do may always begin from you
and by you be brought to completion.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

Purification of spiritthrough fasting and almsgiving

Pope Saint Leo the Great

Bishop of Rome and Father of the Church

An excerpt from his Sermo 6 de Quadragesima

Thursday after Ash Wednesday

Dear friends, at every moment the earth is full of the mercy of God, and nature itself is a lesson for all the faithful in the worship of God. The heavens, the sea and all that is in them bear witness to the goodness and omnipotence of their Creator, and the marvelous beauty of the elements as they obey him demands from the intelligent creation a fitting expression of its gratitude.

But with the return of that season marked out in a special way by the mystery of our redemption, and of the days that lead up to the paschal feast, we are summoned more urgently to prepare ourselves by a purification of spirit.

The special note of the paschal feast is this: the whole Church rejoices in the forgiveness of sins. It rejoices in the forgiveness not only of those who are then reborn in holy baptism but also of those who are already numbered among God’s adopted children.

Initially, men are made new by the rebirth of baptism. Yet there still is required a daily renewal to repair the shortcomings of our mortal nature, and whatever degree of progress has been made there is no one who should not be more advanced. All must therefore strive to ensure that on the day of redemption no one may be found in the sins of his former life.

Dear friends, what the Christian should be doing at all times should be done now with greater care and devotion, so that the Lenten fast enjoined by the apostles may be fulfilled, not simply by abstinence from food but above all by the renunciation of sin.

There is no more profitable practice as a companion to holy and spiritual fasting than that of almsgiving. This embraces under the single name of mercy many excellent works of devotion, so that the good intentions of all the faithful may be of equal value, even where their means are not. The love that we owe both God and man is always free from any obstacle that would prevent us from having a good intention. The angels sang: Glory to God in the highest, and peace to his people on earth. The person who shows love and compassion to those in any kind of affliction is blessed, not only with the virtue of good will but also with the gift of peace.

The works of mercy are innumerable. Their very variety brings this advantage to those who are true Christians, that in the matter of almsgiving not only the rich and affluent but also those of average means and the poor are able to play their part. Those who are unequal in their capacity to give can be equal in the love within their hearts.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 

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Ash Wednesday

“Perhaps he will again relent and leave behind a blessing, grain offering and libation for the LORD, your God.” (Joel 2:14)

Saint Gregory of Nazianzus reflects on this verse from today’s First Reading:

“We should enter his house in sackcloth and lament night and day between the porch and the altar, in piteous array, and with more piteous voices. [We should] cry aloud without ceasing on behalf of ourselves and the people, sparing nothing, either toil or word, which may propitiate God. [We should] say, “Spare, O Lord, your people, and give not your heritage to reproach,” and the rest of our prayer; surpassing the people in our sense of the affliction as much as in our rank, instructing them in our own persons in compunction and correction of wickedness, and in the consequent longsuffering of God, and cessation of the scourge. Come then, all of you, my brethren, “let us worship and fall down, and weep before the Lord our maker”; let us appoint a public mourning in our various ages and families; let us raise the voice of supplication. Let this, instead of the cry which he hates, enter into the ears of the Lord of Sabbaoth. Let us anticipate his anger by confession; let us desire to see him appeased, after [his wrath]. Who knows, he says, if he will turn and choose again, and leave a blessing behind him?” (On His Father’s Silence [Oration 16], 13)

Collect

Grant,
O Lord, that we may begin with holy fasting
this campaign of Christian service,
so that, as we take up battle against spiritual evils,
we may be armed with weapons of self-restraint.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 

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