Here on the 1st Sunday in Lent we always hear about the Temptation of Jesus in the desert for 40 days. Mark’s Gospel is the shortest of the four, he gets right to the point, very succinctly, but maybe too succinctly, he doesn’t describe the Temptations at all, he just mentions that Jesus was “tempted by Satan” and moves right into His public ministry.  

 

When I am preparing for a homily, especially during these special seasons, I like to look at the prayers the Church gives us, because quite often they get to the heart of what they want us to consider and really take away with us. 

 

So I looked at the Preface Prayer - the Preface begins with the 3 part dialogue which includes the phrase “Lift up your hearts…” So you know that one, it is Prefacing the actual Eucharistic Prayer, and here is what it says this week:

 

“By abstaining forty long days from earthly food, He consecrated through His fast the pattern of our Lenten observance and, by overturning all the snares of the ancient serpent, taught us to cast out the leaven of malice…”

 

I was really struck by that last line “taught us to cast out the leaven of malice” - I had to go to Google to define these words. First, leaven, that’s typically yeast that makes the dough rise, so “rising up,” and second the word malice was defined as the “desire to do evil.” So here is what Jesus taught us by His fasting for forty days and the Church wants us to take with us, is that we are to cast out, or get rid of, whatever is “rising up” in us that “desires to do evil.”

 

This is what ideally our fasting during Lent should do.  I heard on the radio this week that the thing we should fast from is probably the thing that we bring up most often in confession, or figure out the root cause of that sin and get rid of it.  I thought that was really good advice, and even though Lent has already started, I figured I could still share it, “now” is always a good time to do what we know we should do.

 

If we are being honest with ourselves, we know we have to contend with evil, and we ask God quite frequently to “deliver us from evil” in the Our Father prayer, well, this is what God gives us to help us with that, He gives us Lent to get rid of it, especially through fasting.

 

You can think of Lent like “Spring Training for the Soul.” Yes, baseball season is here already again too. Coincidentally, somewhat ironically, the Pitchers and Catchers reported on Ash Wednesday, Position Players report today, and they’ve got to get back into shape, get rid of any bad habits, and get ready for the season, which starts the same day Lent ends. Our preparation seasons are exactly the same this year.

 

Our Lenten disciplines get us ready for Easter, but even moreso, they get us ready for eternity.  We should really be working all year long, but sometimes we grow complacent, and Lent gets us to focus again, really pushes us to grow in our faith.

 

And in baseball, really in any sport, it is important to know the competition, to scout them out, but first we have to work on ourselves.  The tricks and temptations of evil are always the same, maybe that is why Mark doesn’t spend any time on Satan’s temptations to sin. 

 

Sin looks good on the surface but never satisfies, often the “desire to do evil” “rises up” in us to obtain control or power or and pleasure amidst the circumstances or our lives, but they are empty promises of Satan in the end. 

 

So, as any good player knows, we have to learn some self-coaching techniques. Spiritually speaking, we have to learn to ask - what are the ways that we continue to repeatedly sin, and what are we trying to achieve through that sin? What is the desire or longing we have, and can we ask God to fill in that gap during this season of Lent?  

 

Thankfully we have a God who loves us and is very merciful toward us.  In that first reading we were reminded of the covenant He made with us through Noah, He remains faithful to us even when we turn away in sin.  And in the second reading we heard St. Peter say, “Christ suffered for sins once, the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, that He might lead you to God.”

 

This is the real goal, to be led to God, to grow deeper in our relationship with Him. Jesus Christ is victorious for us in our battle against evil, and He helps us to purify our desires, so that our only desire is to do God’s will in our lives and in the world. 

 

These 40 days will go quickly, make the most of it - Lent is a “sacred time” where we are called once again to change our ways for the better, to “Repent and believe in the Gospel,” the Good News that Jesus Christ loves us and has shown us the way to victory in our own lives.