Sharing of life: If your group is a new group or your small community has new members for Lent, share your name, home state, how long you have been in the parish and what motivated you to join a Lenten small group. If you are an ongoing small community with no new members, share what you like most about the season of Lent.

Facilitator reads focus statement: For catechumens (unbaptized) and candidates (already baptized), the season of Lent is a time of final preparation, purification and enlightenment prior to their baptism and reception into Full Communion with our church. For us, the already baptized, Lent is a penitential season during which we prepare to renew our baptismal commitment to Christ and his church. In a spirit of solidarity we journey with our brothers and sisters who are preparing for baptism and/or entry into the church... We pray for them and for ourselves that this season may be a time of renewal, purification and enlightenment for all of us.

The scripture readings: We can look at the readings as about good and bad choices or look at the notion of testing as connecting the readings - especially the first and third readings. In the second reading, Paul reminds us that what Adam “undid”, Christ has “redone” and more.

If you have not read the commentary on the three readings prior to your meeting, consider reading it either before or after you read each reading.

FIRST READING: Genesis 2:7-9, 3:1-7

This is the story of Adam and Eve’s fall from grace - loss of an intimate relationship with their Creator. The reading begins with the creation of the man. The man is brought to life by God’s breath showing the absolute dependence of the creature on his Creator. Then God creates a beautiful garden, which the first man and woman are given to enjoy – with one stipulation, namely, not to eat the fruit from the “tree of knowledge of good and evil’ in the middle of the garden.

Enter the serpent, the most cunning of all creatures who tempts Eve to disobey her Creator. The serpent plants the seeds of doubt in Eve’s heart about God’s command and about God’s love for her. “If you eat the forbidden fruit, you shall become like a God.” This seems very attractive to Eve. When tempting us, Satan usually presents evil and bad as some desirable good. The forbidden fruit was ‘pleasing to the eye’ (the sensual dimension of temptation) and ‘desirable for gaining wisdom’ (the intellectual dimension). Having succumbed to temptation, the woman leads her man into the sin of disobedience. Sin always like company.

Having sinned, Adam and Eve’s ‘eyes are opened’ – they realize the wrong that they have done. They experience shame. Sin always leads to inner dis-ease with oneself. They cover themselves up with fig leaves (the first ‘cover up’ story). If we read the whole of the Fall story, (Gen 3:1-24) we will see that Adam and Eve’s sin of disobedience not only ruptures their relationship with God, but also with each other and with themselves. Harmony with God, each other and self is replaced with disharmony.

RESPONSORIAL PSALM: 51

This is David’s prayer of contrition after God has opened his eyes to the poor choices he had made in committing adultery and planning a murder to “cover up” his sin of infidelity.

SECOND READING: Romans 5:12-19

In these verses, Paul draws our attention to the universal consequences of the sin of our first parents. Sin is pervasive. It exists even when there is no law to convict us of it. Then Paul goes on to contrast the sin of Adam to the infinitely greater gift offered to us when Christ entered the world. If there is a ‘sin-force’ at work in the world and in us, there is an even greater ‘grace-force’ at work in the world and in us. While we may still struggle with sin and evil we must remember that our baptism into Christ has given us the divine power to say ‘no’ to the enticements of sin and the evil one.

GOSPEL: Matthew 4:1-11

At his baptism, Jesus became aware of his identity as God’s Son. In his gospel Matthew presents the Son of God as the new Moses who has the authority to bring the old law to its fulfillment.

In this gospel reading, Jesus resists every temptation to use his authority in any self-serving way. In each temptation, Satan seeks to tempt Jesus to abuse his power to prove that he is the Son of God. In two of the three temptations, the devil begins by saying: “If you are the Son of God . . .” The setting for the temptations of Jesus is the desert, where the Israelites spent forty years and frequently succumbed to temptations to disobey God.

The first temptation has to do with hunger. At the end of forty days of fasting, Jesus must have been very hungry. Satan tempts Jesus to abuse his power to transform stones into bread- use his power for himself. The temptation recalls the hunger of the Israelites in the desert when they rejected the bread God offered them. Rejecting Satan’s temptation, Jesus quotes Deut 8:3, “One does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Unlike the Israelites who argued with God about the bread he provided for them, Jesus acquiesced to be fed and sustained by the living bread of God’s word.

In the second temptation, Satan tempts the Son of God to abuse his power by using it in a sensational way. Refusing a temptation test God, Jesus once again refutes Satan by quoting a scripture that referred back to Israel’s rebellion against God: “You shall not put the Lord you God to the test (as the Israelites did at Massah (Deut 6:13).

The third temptation has to do with idolatry. Israel had failed this temptation many times, notably by their worship of the golden calf in the desert. Satan tempts Jesus to change his allegiance from God to him. With a touch of anger at his tempter, Jesus tells Satan to get lost saying: “The Lord, your God shall you worship and him alone shall you serve.” The temptations of Jesus remind us of a verse from Hebrews: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in everyway, yet without sin.” (4:15)

At the beginning of our Lenten journey, our church places before us stories of temptation and testing – temptations which Adam and Eve gave into and temptations which Jesus resisted. Like Jesus, we too are tested by Satan to abuse and misuse the gifts God has given us. We too are tempted to forget our true identity as beloved sons and daughters of our heavenly Father. During the forty days of Lent we pray, fast and do almsgiving so that we may have the strength to say ‘no’ to Satan and ‘yes’ to Jesus.

FAITH SHARINGS QUESTIONS

1. What verse spoke to you most and why?

2. Name some of the temptations that we, the children of God, face as we try to remain faithful to Jesus and his ways. What helps you to resist the temptation of the world, the flesh and the devil?

3. Looking at the readings with the eye of a steward, how might you be tempted to abuse and misuse God’s gifts to you?

4. Prayer, fasting and almsgiving are the three traditional practices placed before us at the beginning of Lent. How have you found these spiritual practices to be helpful to you as you seek to grow spiritually?

RESPONDING TO THE WORD

St. James tells us that we must be ‘doers of the word and not just hearers’. Can you name one way that you can act on today’s readings? Suggestions: Name one way that you think Satan tries to allure you into sin and daily pray (and maybe even occasionally fast) for the grace to say ‘no’ to that temptation. Also be on the look out for grace that is always ‘floating in the air’ drawing us to Christ.

CONCLUDE WITH PRAYERS OF PETITION AND INTERCESSION

Pray for our catechumens and candidates. Pray for all who are being tempted to abort their unborn child, leave their spouse, priesthood or religious life. ©