The season of Lent is a special gift, a time set aside to allow the rational soul to enter into the depth of its being. A journey of forty days and forty nights, Lent takes us away from the hustle and bustle of ordinary life so we can soul-search. The goal of this journey is to break away from a whole life of sin; to renew the grace of baptism, bringing back to us the joy of life in the Spirit, which sin destroys. Therefore, everyone should use this time to renew the covenant with God which we signed at Baptism; to make God the center of our life, serving him alone, striving to know him better and to love him more. Indeed, this journey will lead the disciples to deeper understanding and conviction that their dying to sin and rising to a new life is intimately connected with the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Jesus enters into wilderness to engage in a deeper relationship with God in prayer. His forty days and forty nights in the wilderness gave Jesus clarity about his mission. Basked in the divine presence, Jesus fought temptations with grace, clarity and resolve. During his public ministry, Jesus was profoundly aware of His Father’s presence, which he had deeply experienced in the wilderness. The wilderness experience is vital if we are to grow spiritually and to fight the temptations of the material world that entices us at all times. A constant awareness of divine presence through a profound relationship with God in prayer is crucial for all disciples to live as children of God, and to reject the devil. Hence, the Church invites all during the season of Lent to enter into a wilderness to renew Baptismal grace with true repentance for our sins with prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
The Israelites wandered forty years in the wilderness before they entered the Promised Land. Those forty years gave the people of Israel the opportunity to humbly acknowledge their unworthiness, to know and love the Lord better, to trust in his providence, and to walk the journey of faith with confidence. A sincere and true spiritual renewal requires a significant amount of time and effort. In fact, at the end of forty years, the people of Israel had acquired the confidence to take possession of the Promise Land. Such a spiritual journey allows a person to trust in the Lord with full confidence: “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that flows from the mouth of God.” Jesus came into the world not only to deliver us from sin, but to teach us how to avoid it. Jesus allowed himself to be tempted, thereby teaching us how to defeat the devil when he is trying to lure us into evil.
It is crucial for all to enter into wilderness for a spiritual renewal that will help us to face the devil, who seems to be more active in destroying the lives of people now than ever before. The material world is constantly filling society with false goals, and man is falling prey to its tactics. The darkness of sin is growing day by day, as society has rejected God from its public life. The repercussions of this stance are glaring, and evident for all to see, yet man refuses to notice them. When Jesus rejected the glitter of the material world, why should we embrace it? Therefore, let us enter into wilderness with weapons of prayer, penance, fasting and almsgiving to fuel a true spiritual renewal during these forty days and forty nights of Lent. Indeed, like Jesus, we will able to face the world with confidence as children of God strengthened by the grace of the Holy Spirit.