First Sunday of Lent - C February 21, 2010

Deuteronomy 26: 4-10 Romans 10: 8-13 Luke 4: 1-13

A friend of mine who has been struggling with diabetes and thus has made a great effort to lose weight recently reported that he had been able to lose about 70 pounds. On a recent visit to his doctor, however, he was told to lose an additional 30 pounds or so. His response was to tell the doctor that this would reduce him to skin and bones. The doctor’s reply: “We need to have goals.”

In many ways, goals can be a strong motivation for all of us. Whether these goals might be for a particular day or week, for a semester or a year, or for life itself. Goals focus our efforts. Goals guide our choices. Goals suggest disciplined actions or demands made on ourselves in order to reach them.

We heard a goal stated for us today in the opening prayer of the liturgy. By observing Lent, it was said, we can come to a better understanding of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are to do this, or we set our goal in achieving this, so that we might better reflect this understanding in our lives . In other words, we are to use practically the different reinforcements that are around us during this time of the year, the reinforcements offered to us by Lent. The reinforcements or reminders can be such things that we do, such as a attending Mass more often, expanding role of prayer in our lives, or more spiritual reading, more time for spiritual reflection. They can also involve the distractions we remove from our lives in terms of food items, or drink or different recreational or social activities. These reminders seek to focus our thinking, focus our attention, in a way that, as the prayer suggested, we might better understand the fact that Christ died and rose and what this fact can mean for us.

To assist our thinking and keep us aimed on the goal that is suggested to us, we heard the message of God presented to us today in the Scriptures. If we wish to work toward this goal, and it is a worthwhile goal for us as believers, what is suggested to us by God in these reflections from the Scriptures?

In the comments that were made in what we heard from the Book of Deuteronomy, we are told that offerings are made to God, offerings that are a result of our work, as a simple recognition in our lives that we are not on our own, we are not alone. We are given life, we are alive, as a result of an act of love by the very source of life we call God. God, some way, remains with us. We offer a bit of ourselves, our efforts, simply in recognition of that, as a statement of our awareness that our lives are lived in a partnership with God.

Saint Paul, in writing to the Christians at Rome, remarks that no matter what our status I life might happen to be, no matter our background or our material standing, no matter how the world might measure us as successful or as a failure, we are all loved by God, the source of our lives. We can all respond to God in the choices we make. We are all objects of the efforts of Jesus Christ on our behalf. The meaning of the death and resurrection of Christ applies to all of us without exception, unless we make the exception and reject Christ.

In the story of Saint Luke about the temptations of Jesus, we hear, once again, that God who is with us, Jesus Christ, goes through what we do. He is tempted as we all are. Our lives, indeed, are full of challenges and distractions that can often lead us away from our goal, the goal of a relationship with God. What puts these difficulties in perspective is the realization that Christ faced even the ultimate challenge of death and overcame it be rising from the dead. This fact stands as a reassurance to us no matter what challenge or difficulty we face. No matter what, faith in Christ and his resurrection encourages us and bolsters us - such is our relationship of love with God.

Lent is an opportunity for us to achieve a better meaning and understanding of ourselves. In seek a deeper appreciation of the central belief of our faith, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we aim for a greater understanding of what it is that we celebrate at the end of Lent, when we recall the Resurrection. This is the goal that is before us, this is the goal that challenges us. It calls upon us to better direct the choices of our living in a way that gives honor and glory to our good and gracious God.