Wild beasts, fasting and almsgiving in the Year of Prayer
Homily for the First Sunday of Lent, 2024
When we think about Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness, being tempted by Satan, we think of course of the three temptations related in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke: turning stones into bread and all that. This year, though, we read from the Gospel of Mark, and Mark tells us only four things: that the Spirit that descended on Jesus at his baptism drove him into the desert; that he was tempted (or tested) by Satan; that he was attended by angels; and that he was among wild beasts, wild animals.
Matthew and Luke tell us about the tests or temptations; Matthew also mentions the angels—but only Mark mentions the wild animals. Only Mark reports Jesus being driven into the desert: literally, “driven out” or “cast out” into the wilderness. Matthew and Luke more gently describe Jesus being led by the Spirit into the desert, but Mark uses a more forceful word—the same word he uses when Jesus casts out demons!
If that seems odd, consider this: In the Old Testament, in Genesis, when Adam and Eve are “cast out” from the garden of Eden, the same word is used in the Greek translation, the Septuagint, that Mark and other New Testament writers quote from. That’s important, that connection to Adam and Eve—but, I think, even more important is a connection to the exodus of God’s people from slavery in Egypt in a passage in Deuteronomy, which uses to same word to describe how God “brought out” his people from Egypt, leading them “through the great and terrible wilderness, an arid wasteland with poisonous snakes and scorpions.” God did this to “test” his people, Deuteronomy says, “and in the end to do them good.”
So just as God forcefully “brought out” his people into the wilderness with snakes and scorpions to be tested, Mark tells us that the Holy Spirit “brought out” Jesus into the wilderness with wild beasts to be tested. Is Mark using the same word as Deuteronomy coincidence? Is it a coincidence that it’s the very same passage of Deuteronomy, chapter 8, in which we find the words that were just sung in the verse before the Gospel? “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.” The words, of course, quoted by Jesus in response to the devil’s first temptation in Matthew and Luke. In fact, all three of Jesus’ rebuttals to the devil are from this same book, Deuteronomy.
No, it’s no coincidence. God is doing again, with Jesus, what he did with Israel: bringing his Son into the desert to be tested among wild animals. Jesus’ forty days in the desert echo the forty years that Israel spent in the wilderness. Forty years, of course, because Israel was stubborn and disobedient, failing test after test. Where Israel failed, our Lord succeeds.
He also succeeds where Adam and Eve failed in the garden of Eden, where they too were tempted or tested by a snake, by Satan. See the reversal: Adam and Eve start out surrounded by animals in paradise, but after they fail the test, they’re “cast out” of the garden—and the way back is guarded by cherubim, by angels. Jesus is first “brought out” into a harsh desert, also surrounded by animals, and then tested by Satan—and once again there are angels, not as guards, but as servants. The failure of Adam and Eve brought sin and death; our Lord’s triumph brings grace and life. Jesus is the new and final Adam, and in the desert, surrounded by animals, served by angels, we can catch a paradoxical glimpse of paradise lost and a first glimpse of creation redeemed.
By the way, did you notice who else is surrounded by animals in the first reading from Genesis? Noah, emerging from the ark after an ordeal that included forty days of rain and forty days of waiting for the flood waters to recede. Noah also is a new Adam, a second start for humanity and for creation after the sin of Adam and Eve and everything that followed. Of course the waters of the flood couldn’t remake the sinful human heart, but you know what can? The gift of God in Jesus that each of us received first in the waters of Baptism that Saint Peter in the second reading says the waters of the flood prefigured, just as Jesus is prefigured by Adam and Noah and Israel.
The forty days of Lent call each of us to follow Jesus into the desert. These are days of testing. It’s a desert, not a garden! But God has brought us here, like Israel, “to do us good.” The Spirit has brought us here—the same Spirit that descended on Jesus at his baptism, that was given to each of us at our baptism. And forty days from now—more precisely, six weeks—each of us is invited, at the Easter Vigil Mass, to renew our baptismal promises. Six weeks to prepare for that renewal of our Catholic identity! How can we make these weeks of Lent count?
Do you want to pray with greater devotion?
In this Lenten season, devote yourself to fasting and almsgiving.
The way of Lent, of course, is threefold: prayer, fasting, almsgiving. Every Ash Wednesday we hear Jesus’ teaching on these inseparable, indispensable pillars of the spiritual life, prayer, fasting, almsgiving. In this Year of Prayer 2024, as I mentioned in a recent homily, we are called in a special way to prayer in preparation for the coming Holy Year, 2025.
I mentioned in that last homily one first step toward a fuller prayer life: just seeking to begin each day by offering to God, as nearly as possible, our first deliberate thought of the day. Here’s a second step forward: Do you want to pray with greater devotion? In this Lenten season, devote yourself to fasting and almsgiving. Hear the words of Saint Peter Chrysologus:
These three are one, and they give life to each other. Fasting is the soul of prayer, almsgiving is the lifeblood of fasting. Let no one try to separate them.… If you have only one of them or not all together, you have nothing. So if you pray, fast; if you fast, show mercy [to the poor]; if you want your petition to be heard, hear the petition of others.… If you want God to know that you are hungry, know that another is hungry.
It’s always all about the two great commandments: love of God and love of neighbor. Fasting in the right spirit counters our tendency toward complacent self-centeredness and reminds us that we have deeper needs. Prayer reorients us toward our ultimate need for God, and almsgiving orients us toward the needs of others. Love of God and love of neighbor.
Most of us can fast more than we do. Abstain more than we do from meat (and really nice seafood!) … caffeine, alcohol, snacks … television, social media, election news … whatever it is. Appetites and habits that we always give in to are like … wild animals. They need to be tamed. And often a wayward appetite or habit can’t be gently led in the right direction. It has to be forcefully brought into line.
For almsgiving, it’s easy to drop some extra money in the poor boxes at the doors of the church—and we should! Can we do more? Some of us may be able to volunteer at a soup kitchen or food pantry or another local charity. It’s easy to find local volunteering opportunities online, and even online ways to volunteer. For those who are eligible, and not everyone is, donating blood or blood components is a profound form of self-giving.
We are called to days of testing. To a desert, not a garden! But God has brought us here “to do us good.” Do you want to pray with greater devotion? Devote yourself to fasting and almsgiving.