A moment in a desert of Lent

By Modesto P. Sa-onoy

Catholics have entered the season of Lent with the imposition of the ashes last Wednesday. The usual call is for fasting and abstinence; the skipping of a meal for those who are required to fast. Abstinence is for those who fast and those that cannot, like the elderly, the sick and even those whose work demands that they have a complete meal. However, abstinence from all meat is necessary.

But we can abstain, as an additional act of penance for things that we like most. When we were in high school, we were told not to see the movie, attend parties and refrain from those we like most. Abstention is a sort of suffering.

The modern world is now hooked to the internet. Some people check their Facebook, Messenger, text messages and emails before they say their morning prayers or fix their beds.

Now the Holy Father in his catechesis in the Vatican last Ash Wednesday added, “Lent is a time in which to turn off the television and open the Bible.” He reflected on the 40 days spent by Jesus in the desert as He prepared for His public ministry and said that, in a sense, it is a time for us to imitate Jesus and seek a place of silence, where we are free to hear the Lord’s word and experience His call.

“In the desert one hears the Word of God,” he said, “one finds intimacy with God and the love of the Lord,” noting that Jesus taught us how to seek the Father, who speaks to us in silence.

The Pope made a new description of modern obsession: pollution of verbal violence. He remarked that for many of us it is not easy to be in silence as we live in an environment that is “polluted by too much verbal violence,” by so many “offensive and harmful words” which are amplified by the internet.

He recalled that when he was a child there was no television, but his family would make a point of not listening to the radio. Now with so many media of communication, the Holy Father suggested that “It is the time to give up useless words, chatter, rumors, gossip, and talk and to speak directly to the Lord. It is a time in which to dedicate ourselves to an ecology of the heart. In a world in which we often struggle to distinguish the voice of the Lord, Jesus calls us into the desert and invites us to listen to what matters.”

He added that when the devil tempted Him, Jesus replied “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.”

Thus, he said, “the desert, represented by the journey of Lent, is a place of life, a place in which to dialogue in silence with the Lord who gives us life.”

The Pope also reflected on an important part of our Lenten desert experience which is the practice of fasting, that trains us to recognize, in simplicity of heart, how often our lives are spent in empty and superficial pursuits.

“Fasting is being capable of giving up the superfluous and going to the essential. Fasting is not only losing weight, but it is also seeking the beauty of a simpler life,” he said and noted that the solitude of the desert increases our sensitivity to those who quietly cry out for help. “Even today, close to us, there are many deserts, many lonely people: they are the lonely and the abandoned. How many poor and old people live near us in silence, marginalized and discarded. The desert of Lent leads us to them. It is a journey of charity towards those who are weak and in need.

Pope Francis concluded that the path through the Lenten desert is made up of “prayer, fasting, works of mercy”, so that it may lead us “from death to life”.

“If we enter the desert with Jesus, we will leave it at Easter when the power of God’s love renews life, and just like those deserts that bloom in spring with buds and plants suddenly sprouting from the sand, if we follow Jesus, our deserts will also bloom.”

In the din of daily life, where can we find a desert for solitude? There’s one in every church – the Adoration Chapel.