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Are we afraid to go into the desert? Afraid to be hungry, alone, defenceless, or to have our weaknesses exposed? Are we afraid of Lent? That would be quite natural. But we are not alone in the desert—we followed Christ there. We are there to be with Jesus, the Bread of Life and the Good Shepherd. Following him means doing the things he indicates are necessary. Behold, now is the favourable time (2 Co 6:2).

We pray in the Collect for Ash Wednesday: “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.” In Lent we are not just fasting for bodily health or indeed punishment: we are doing “holy fasting”. Holiness means being in the presence of God and putting him at the centre of our life experience. All forms of restraint should be practised with the aim of lessening props and distractions that take us further from this goal—like putting away that phone and actually talking to the person we have gone out for a dinner with. In this way, practising any kind of restraint should also refocus us on our neighbour, thinking of others and ways to relieve their sufferings.

Our materialistic society doesn’t usually encourage restraint, but if we think for a moment of what lack of restraint does in the world and in our lives, it’s pretty clear that it leads to suffering. This is why Jesus calls us to train ourselves for spiritual combat by not being dominated by our bodies, but also by the ideas that harm the mind. Hatred, bitterness, resentment, greed, and above all the big one: pride. Of all the marks of the one who tempted Christ in the desert, pride is the most insidious. It’s the thing that alienates one human being from another, undermines community, and keeps war and violence going. Note that in the Gospel for Ash Wednesday, Jesus is warning us against the most insidious form of pride, the spiritual kind. Christianity is not a virtue-signalling race. The best efforts we make in our spiritual lives are hidden ones. Why? Because those are the ones that really change us from within. Also, not displaying our good deeds and practices prevents others from being discouraged.

O God, renew a steadfast spirit within me

The ashes imposed on our heads at the beginning of Lent are a harsh, abrasive reminder of what we must do to purify our hearts. If we don’t do this we will never have that “steadfast spirit” that Jesus requires of us if we are to be genuine Christians. It’s not that he wants us to be overwhelmed by shame at our sins, far less our inadequacies: You are merciful to all, O Lord, and despise nothing that you have made. You overlook people’s sins, to bring them to repentance, and you spare them, for you are the Lord our God (Ws 11:24, 25, 27).

Within days, the Gospel for the first Sunday in Lent will remind us of what’s at stake, by relating in detail the temptations that our Lord was subjected to by the evil one in the desert. The Devil plays on Christ’s vulnerability: the weakness induced by fasting can open us up to temptation before it strengthens us. This is pure realism, and we should pay attention to it. If fasting makes us bad tempered or contemptuous of the needs of others, it is not doing its job. Once again, we need to do everything in the company of Jesus, to respond the way he does. Let him make the answers to the challenges, let him be the strong one. So what does he point to? The true food that fills us up: the Eucharist.

The second temptation is particularly relevant perhaps to our times of political turmoil: And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve’” (Lk 4). We need to ask ourselves, every day, who are we serving when we act in the world? As Pope Benedict put it (page 136) “Being converted means not shutting ourselves into the quest for our own success, our own prestige, our own status, but rather ensuring that every day, in the small things, truth, faith in God, and love become the most important thing of all.” As the Lectio Divina preceding this Sunday points out, in the third temptation the Devil tries to use scripture itself against Jesus, proving that we need more than scripture alone in order to discern our way: we need the teaching of the Church, the experience of millennia. And we need the sacraments.

Allies and Advocates

By mid-month we are likely to be experiencing some weariness, so it is a great help that we hit the feasts of a few great and encouraging saints like Saint Patrick and Saint Joseph at that point. The former reminds us of the energy of the early church in our islands. Saint Patrick (17th March) was above all a superb evangeliser. He also left us one of the most effective tools for spiritual combat: the Breastplate prayer. “Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me….”

Saint Joseph (19th March) provides another reminder of the early Church: the protector of the Holy Family in Nazareth is of course protecting the first church that ever existed. The unknown, mysterious church stemming from his marriage to Mary and their devotion to the incarnate God who was entrusted to them as a child. Good preparation for our contemplation of where it all began, on the Feast of Annunciation (25th March). Whatever our Lent is turning out to be this year, this is the source: Let it be to me according to your word. If we can let God work in us, we too will be fruitful in this everlasting springtime of the liturgical year.