FROM THE DESK OF FATHER PETER My Friends Reflecting on God’s Word Twice a year the Gospels take us to the desert. John the Baptist cries out on two Sundays every Advent, and Jesus encounters Satan every Lent. What makes the desert so ideal a setting as we prepare to celebrate the two great mysteries of our faith? The desert is a place of testing, as God’s people learned when they wandered around it for forty years. With hardened hearts, they had rejected the God who had liberated them from slavery in Egypt, losing faith even while God was talking to Moses and setting down the conditions for their adoption. Up went the golden calf and out went the memory of what God had just done for them. Even Eden wasn’t enough to keep the human heart open. Even there it was clear that we could be seduced by anything that looked good and promised more than it could deliver. But Jesus showed that one of us could measure up to the test and reveal Himself as the “beloved Son” that He had been called at His baptism (Matthew 3:17). The desert is also for wooing. The prophet Hosea quotes God saying, “So I will allure her [Israel]; I will lead her into the desert and speak to her heart” (Hosea 2:16). And when Satan left Jesus, God sent “angels [who] came and ministered to Him” (Matthew 4:11). So we come to this Lent and the possibility that God wishes to draw us out into a quiet, lonely place to have us meet the One who made us, redeemed us, and continues to shape us into temples of the Holy Spirit. Living God’s Word We pray that this Lent will be a time of deeper understanding of what it means to be God’s beloved child. We ask God to open our eyes to recognize those things that draw us away and to be open to how God might be drawing us closer. Loving you always, Fr. Peter
Posted on: Sat, 08 Mar 2014 17:09:50 +0000
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