Archbishop of Sydney

First Sunday of Lent

St. Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney
Deut 26:4-10; Rom 10:8-13; Lk 4:1-13

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
25/2/2007

Today is the First Sunday of Lent, when we begin our period of preparation for the most important Christian feasts at Easter and in this season we should be about our major spring cleaning (although it is autumn), where we have the annual overhaul not just of our morals but also of our faith.  Is this likely to happen?

In our media dominated society the Christian rhythm of the seasons is regularly pushed to one side, although we do have public holidays at Christmas and Easter.  Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are promoted more than Christ and we have to work harder to find the proper emphasis in our preparations, or even to remember that we should be practising some penances and fasting from meat on Fridays of Lent.  Every one of us here who has reached the age of reason (7) should have committed themselves to some penitential practices.

While the gospel is about the temptation of Christ in the wilderness the first two readings remind us of the importance of faith and of the great things God has done for us his people.  Paul tells us: “By believing from the heart you are made righteous; by confessing with your lips you are saved”.

The refrain of the psalm runs in a similar direction as we prayed “Be with me, Lord, when I am in trouble”, while the verses sing God’s praises who protects those “who dwell in the shadow of the Most High and abide in the shade of the Almighty.”

Faith and morals are generally linked together closely in the lives of Christians, because the livelier our faith the more we shall struggle to lead good lives, follow the commandments and be generous and open to others.

All of this leads me to suggest that we examine the quality of our faith in the one true God and Jesus Christ his only Son at this time of Lent.  Faith changes as we grow up, receive more and more education, face life’s challenges and mature, but this need not mean that our faith becomes weaker.  For saints it becomes not only stronger, but more simple, radical in its fruitfulness.  For most of us, please God, our faith should become more rooted in our hearts as we grow old and overcome our doubts, hesitations and difficulties, so that our faith becomes leaner and tougher, but also richer.

We cannot click our fingers to make our faith stronger and many saints have endured periods of blackness when the consolations of faith were absent.  The Little Flower, St. Therese of Lisieux, went through such a dark night.  I once quizzed a priest friend of mine on his devotion to the Little Flower saying that I was surprised by his enthusiasm.  His reply surprised me, because he explained that it was precisely her struggle with doubt and despair which inspired him.

While we all know that a good life helps our faith, and on the other hand regular sin often produces moral and spiritual blindness.  Faith is best nourished by regular prayer and some sort of religious reading; ideally a slow meditative reading of the scriptures (perhaps a small or longer passage every day), but any sort of good religious reading.  We need to be nourished by God’s word, directly or indirectly, because if we never pray or read religiously outside Sunday Mass, this must increase the spiritual and psychological pressures against our personal faith.

Every priest is required to pray the prayer of the Church each day for himself and his people.  I am sure that this obligation also recognises the need of every baptised Christian including the priest, for spiritual nourishment.  A crop needs good rains if there is going to be any fruit for harvesting.

When Satan tempted Jesus to turn stones into bread, Our Lord refused telling him that “Scripture says: Man does not live on bread alone.”

This quotation is from chapter 8 of the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy, where the Jewish people on their Exodus journey from Egypt were locked in the desert, far from the Promised Land, sighing for the fleshpots of Egypt and whingeing about Moses and Aaron.  Despite this betrayal, God still fed them with manna, dew and quails.

While Israel stumbled, Our Lord made no such mistake and rejected Satan’s idolatrous suggestion and temptation.

We do not need to travel to any metaphorical Egypt to try and find fulfilment in materialism and pleasure; in other words through self-seeking, selfishness.  We need to remind ourselves that we too cannot live on bread alone and that a good Lent of extra prayer and some extra penances should strengthen our faith and also tone us up, make us better equipped to struggle against our fat relentless egos and for goodness in our Society.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.