First Sunday Of Lent, February 25, 2007

Deuteronomy 26: 4-10

Romans 10: 8-13

Luke 4: 1-13

Lent is a Time to Test our Liberty

In the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses tells the story of the People of Israel, born in the experience of the Exodus and the flight from Egypt. That event marked the beginning of a new relationship with his God; it was the place where he knew his liberty.

The Gospel proclaims a new Exodus, the Paschal drama which will take place in Jerusalem where Jesus will meet his death. In Jesus, the Messiah, humankind is tested by temptation and findsits helpin the Word of God. We have to become like Him, led by the Spirit to the nth degree of love in his death. All takes placein fidelity tothe Covenant where we are invited to enter and to abide.

Jesus, by his testing and victory, reveals that our sinful liberty which can be tempted to break the Covenant, is, with the help of grace, a liberty on its way to being truly free. It is the trials and testing of the desert -- where we measure the distance between our desires and the desire of God for us -- that Christ calls us to follow Him. The Law of filial liberty consists in a triple acknowledgment: that only the Father is the source of life, that the Fathers sole power is love and forgiveness, that our human identity is in a filial relationship and resemblance to the unique Son of the Father in whom we have the full assurance of our salvation. Caught up in the dynamism of absolute and radical hope, let us prepare ourselves for the decisive choice of living our human condition as a vocation to be a child of the Father.

-- Sr. Sophie Ramond, R.A.