My Friends,
It is Saturday night here in Australia and I just got into my office to write a short reflection for tomorrow, the First Sunday in Lent. As you know this Sunday is the beginning of the 40 days and 40 nights our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ spent in the desert where he was temped a number of times by the devil. You can read this Gospel story in Saint Matthew, chapter 4 beginning at verse 1.
In spite of the fact that Jesus was the Son of God, it was still a very distressing time for him being isolated in the desert without too much to eat. Why was it difficult? Because although Jesus was the Son of God , He became fully human when He came to us a child in order to save us . So He would have been vulnerable being temped by the devil, but every time He quoted the word of God and resisted the temptation. When it was all over, He was exhausted and God sent His Holy angels to administer to Him.
In many ways the world that we live in is like a wilderness , lets say a desert.
It is a place of darkness, misery and pain. A world of war and cruelty committed by humans of this earth against other humans. Our daily lives are full of sadness and full of temptations, just like Jesus had to face in His desert. Because we are weak and also because we are sinners we find it extremely difficult to cope and often are lead into temptation because we are not equipped to resist them . Also we are longing in the season of Lent to have a quiet time somewhere and contemplate Christ's suffering on the Cross for our redemption. We need some quiet time to pray and ask that God will help us to live life as His followers, who love Him and serve Him and resist all the earthly temptations.
Let us therefore make time and retreat to our private desert to pray and meditate.
At the end you will see that God will sent us His Holy Angels to administer to us.
Father Ed Bakker,
Anglican Catholic Church/ Original Province
Mission of Saint Aidan of Lindisfarne,
Launceston
Tasmania
Australia
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