10 March 2019 (1 Lent C).
In our life there are times when we must choose between two options. In the depths of our being we know which is the correct one, but we find more than enough reasons to choose the other, either because it is more attractive, because it is less onerous, because it provides better image, because it is less difficult… That is the temptation. The Evil One presents us with the other option in such a way that we feel impelled to choose it. We fall into the trap. We allow ourselves to be seduced by what is easy, the more immediate, the pleasanter.
Like Adam and Eve in Paradise. Like everyone throughout history. Well, not everyone. Not Jesus. Although he was the same as us, feeling the same way as us, he struggled and suffered like us, he had a very clear idea about what God was asking of him. Jesus is tempted in this way to fulfill his mission, to make it “in a different way”, more spectacular and better received by the people of his time. But that was not the will of God, who sent him as man, like us, so that he would be the Way, the Truth and the Life. His mission is to carry the cross, and he did not seek another way than to show us that God knows the hardness of this life, and that in the difficult times he asks of us the best of ourselves. And I hear his word and not that of the Evil One. He fought against and overcame the temptation.
Another year and Lent is an opportunity to follow the path which our heart tells us to, which we are impelled to follow by the Spirit of God. Let it be the Word of God which marks out the way for us and give us the strength and confidence to choose the correct path.
Juan Ramon Gomez Pascual, cmf
