First Sunday of Lent/C
Massimo Palombella
In today’s Gospel (Lk 4,1-13) Jesus leaves the Jordan and spends forty days in the desert, guided by the Holy Spirit and tempted by the devil.
The desert and temptation are part of our lives and, at certain times, are capable of destabilising us and making us lose all certainty. In adulthood we are tempted into our weaknesses, in what we tend to keep away from our lives. We are tempted with things that are true, absolutely true, but ordered in a false way, just as Eve was tempted by the serpent in the Garden of Eden (Gen 3:1-8). Going after the deception of a false order of things leads us, imperceptibly, to find ourselves alone and naked with the risk of losing and ruining the most precious things in our lives. But through temptation we learn to know ourselves, and in Jesus, tempted like each one of us in the desert, we can overcome temptation, meet our weaknesses and transform them into the best of our resources.
The Gradual of today’s celebration is taken from Psalm 90 (Ps 90:11-12) with the following text:
Angelis suis mandavit de te, ut custodiant te in omnibus viis tuis.
In manibus portabunt te, ne unquam offendas ad lapidem pedem tuum.
(To his Angels he has given a commandment concerning you, to keep you in all your ways.
On their hands they will bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.
The attached music, in Gregorian Chant, is taken from the Graduale Triplex published in Solesmes in 1979. The interpretation is by the Consortium Vocale conducted by Alexander M. Schweitzer. The music track can be found on the CD ‘Exaudiam Eum – Gregorian Chant for Lent and Holy Week’ published by Lindberg Lyd in 2007.
A blessed Sunday and heartfelt greetings.
