First Week of Lent Reflection

most great just [Music] can peace [Music] every hour i need who bless me now my savior i come to think [Music] welcome to our lenten this is the first week of lent so let us begin as we do all good things in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen a reading from the holy gospel according to mark the spirit drove jesus out into the desert and remained in the desert for forty days tempted by satan he was among wild beasts and the angels ministered to him after john had been arrested jesus came to galilee proclaiming the gospel of god this is the time of fulfillment the kingdom of god is at hand repent and believe in the gospel the gospel of the lord praise you lord jesus christ as we enter the lenten season the importance of understanding the nature of temptation cannot be overstressed while you and i face temptations every day of our lives during the season of lent we make a deliberate effort to become more aware of them and seek to understand more about them and how to overcome them as we can see from this passage the holy spirit drives jesus with great force to go into the wilderness in order to be tried jesus was to be tried and tested not to make him fall but to make him stronger and better prepared to do the great things for god trials and tribulations are to be looked at as stepping stones not as stumbling stones there are opportunities for the spirit of god to use in making us stronger and more able to do greater things for god so just how does the experience of temptations make jesus stronger and more able to do greater things first by jesus being exposed to the various temptations in the wilderness he is able to fully identify with man he knows firsthand just how overwhelming the power of the flesh can be by his exposure to temptations he fully understands the plight of man he therefore can rightly say that if one is to follow him he must take up your cross daily and follow me secondly by being exposed to these temptations jesus knows the importance of learning to deny self even in small things so that when more threatening things cross your path like the impending passion you have the experience and wisdom needed to successfully engage in battle third by being exposed to temptations and by effectively dealing with the overwhelming power of the flesh jesus strengthens his interior self it would be analogous to an athlete training and preparing for an event fourth jesus knows full well that we need the intervention of god in order to fend off the evil nature and power of temptations temptation is a worldly experience it is of the wilderness and that it always comes from the evil one the prince of deceit god wills us to conquer the wild to triumph over the wilderness experience what his presence and power are needed to conquer and triumph as a way of helping us more fully understand the nature of temptations let us walk to the process of how temptations can take on two diametrically opposed trajectories let's say a temptation crosses your path let's say that a friend of yours did something that was very hurtful to you you heard to the grave find that this person was saying bad things about you behind your back immediately you have two choices one a more positive response or two a more negative response if you were to take the positive response you could have maybe simply dismissed the rumor you could have addressed the rumor by going right to the source and openly discussing the rumor or perhaps you could have decided to simply forgive the perpetrator and move on with your life if you were to take a more negative response to the rumor you could become very angry and revengeful in this case you could have chosen to confront the rumor in a more combative manner or you could have begun to own your own rumor intended to counter the rumor with your own hurts or perhaps you allow the rumor to ruminate in your mind now note a very important fact had you taken the more positive approach the problem could very possibly have been quickly resolved one way or the other on the other hand if you had taken a negative approach you have fallen prey to the temptation of anger revenge hatefulness combativeness and like if you took this negative path your hateful thoughts begin to ruminate in your your mind over and over and over again will you try very hard to dismiss dismiss dismiss but you continue to allow the negative thoughts to ruminate in your mind now you have a problem you have allowed a negative thought to linger too long now the negative thoughts begin to become come at you more and more frequently and with more intensity they begin actually to torment you they will not let you alone you have allowed them to begin to take on a life of their own they are beginning to grow roots they are taking on more and more of your mental energy they are beginning to define your mood and now your actions finally you have allowed the evil thoughts to manifest into sin it becomes sin when you're acting out your evil response in your mind or when you actually perform the evil thoughts that you had been harboring now if we compare this simple example to jesus experience in the desert look how radically different the negative response evolved compared to what jesus taught first in our example the person failed to deny self the person too quickly gave in to his inclination to fight back and consequently fell into sin furthermore the person in our example surrendered a valuable chance to deny self in a rather small situation thereby not learning or preparing self for a more challenging situation at some later dates finally the person in our example did not call on god to help out in the situation rather he entered into battle with the evil one all by himself and inevitably lost the battle so we can see that temptations have the capacity to help and strengthen us or the capacity to hurt us and eventually destroy us on the one hand the temptation turned into a grace filled experience on the other hand the temptations took on a life of its own and caused the individual to sin how was it that one person decided to take the positive approach and the other decided to take the negative approach it come down it comes down once again to what jesus taught us jesus often told us we need to pray and to pray often in so doing we gain the interior spiritual strength and wisdom needed to choose rightly in situations like this jesus also taught us that we need to practice denying self in various ways turning away from evil temptations fasting and mortifying the flesh again it is like a well-trained athlete who performed well in completion compared to another who did not train at all as we enter our first week of lent let us take note of jesus example lent is a time of deliberate prayer fasting and almsgiving the three pillars of lent may all of us grow closer to christ as we joyfully participate with him during his passion may the peace of our lord jesus christ be with you all [Music] can peace [Music] every hour i [Music] i come to this [Music] [Music] every hour i need [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] me my savior i come to [Music] think [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] me you

Channel: Canton Catholic Community

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Length: 12min 39sec (759 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 16 2021