First Sunday of Lent

To The Lenten Pilgrims of the Epiphany 

Lent is the Desert Where Hunger is Purified: The Heart is Reunited with God 

(First Sunday of Lent, Mathew 4:1-11; 22 February 2026) 

The Gospel of this first Sunday of Lent presents to us Jesus in the desert, tempted by the devil (Mathew 4:1-11). Devil means divider. The devil always wants to create division, and it is what he sets out to do by tempting Jesus. Let us see, then, from whom he wants to divide him, and how he tempts him. At the end of this period of fasting, the tempter, the devil, breaks in and tries three times to put Jesus to the test. The first temptation arises from the fact that Jesus is hungry and so, the devil suggests: If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread (Mathew 4:3). But Jesus’ response is clear: Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God (Mathew 4:4). (Pope Francis, Angeus, 2020) 

The Desert as the School of the Heart-Brothers and Sisters in Jesus Christ Every year the Church leads us into the desert. Lent is not first a season of practices; it is a place — a spiritual landscape where God speaks again to the human heart. Scripture tells us that Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert. The desert, therefore, is not accidental; it is willed by God. It is the space where illusions fall away and truth becomes audible. 

The desert strips us of noise, distractions, and false securities. In the silence of the wilderness, we discover that much of what we thought we needed was only a substitute for the One we truly need. Lent invites us into this interior geography — into that place where the soul can remember its deepest belonging. The desert is not punishment; it is purification. It is where God heals our scattered desires and gathers our divided hearts. 

The Phone with No Signal-A priest once shared a simple experience from a retreat he made in a remote monastery in the desert. When he arrived, he quickly noticed something unsettling — his phone had no signal. At first, he felt anxious. He kept checking it, almost instinctively, as if connection might suddenly appear. But nothing changed. After a day or two, he began to feel restless. Without constant messages, news, and noise, he felt strangely empty. 

But by the third day, something unexpected happened. He began to notice the silence. He heard the wind moving through the trees, the sound of his own footsteps, and even the rhythm of his own breathing. He realized how much noise had filled his life — and how little space he had left for God. At the end of the retreat, he said something striking: I thought I was losing connection, but I was actually rediscovering the deepest connection of all. 

In many ways, Lent is like that place with no signal. It can feel uncomfortable at first because the usual distractions fall away. But in the silence, we rediscover the voice that has always been speaking — the voice of God who nourishes us more deeply than anything else. 

The Drama of Division: The Work of the Tempter-The Gospel tells us that Jesus is tempted by the devil. The word “devil” comes from the Greek diabolos, meaning the divider. The strategy of evil is always division — division within the self, division between desire and truth, division between humanity and God. 

The temptations of Jesus reveal the deep anthropology of the human condition. The devil does not begin with obvious evil; he begins with legitimate needs. Jesus is hungry. Hunger is real. But the tempter seeks to distort hunger into self-sufficiency: Command these stones to become bread. At its core, the temptation is not about bread — it is about identity. It is an invitation to live as if one’s life does not depend on the Father. Every temptation is ultimately a temptation to forget who we are. 

Hunger as a Path to God-Jesus responds with words that reveal the true meaning of Lent: Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Hunger, in the Christian vision, is not merely a lack; it is a sign. It points beyond itself. Our physical hunger reveals a deeper hunger — the hunger for meaning, for communion, for God. 

Modern culture often teaches us to eliminate hunger immediately, to fill every emptiness with consumption. But the Gospel teaches us to listen to hunger, to allow it to purify our desires. Lent teaches us that not every emptiness must be filled — some must be transformed. 

When we fast, we are not rejecting the goodness of creation; we are rediscovering the primacy of the Creator. We are learning again that the heart is nourished not only by what we consume, but by the Word that speaks us into being. 

The Temptation of Power, Spectacle, and Possession-The other temptations — throwing himself from the temple and receiving the kingdoms of the world — reveal the perennial temptations of humanity: control, recognition, and domination. They are temptations to seek glory without trust, power without obedience, and success without love. They are temptations to replace relationship with performance. Jesus refuses each one because he lives rooted in communion with the Father. His identity is not something to prove, but something to receive. This is the secret of his freedom. 

Living by the Word: The Unity of the Heart-If the devil divides, the Word unites. The Word gathers the fragmented self and restores interior harmony. To live by the Word means to allow God’s voice to become the center of our existence. Lent is therefore a journey toward unity — unity between what we believe and how we live, between our prayers and our choices, between our desires and God’s will. The saints teach us that holiness is not perfectionism; it is integration. It is becoming whole in God. 

Lent as a Journey Back to the Father-At its deepest level, Lent is a return — a reorientation of the heart toward its true home. Like Israel in the wilderness, like Jesus in the desert, we are learning again to trust. The desert reminds us that God is enough. When everything else falls away, we discover that the One who speaks is the One who sustains. The practices of Lent — prayer, fasting, and almsgiving — are not ends in themselves. They are ways of clearing space so that God can reunite our hearts with Himself. 

Cumulative Summary-Lent leads us into the desert, the sacred space where God speaks to the heart and strips away illusions, revealing that the desert is not punishment but purification, where scattered desires are gathered and the heart is healed. The Gospel shows that the devil, whose name means divider, tempts by creating division within us and separating us from God, beginning with the reality of hunger, which points to our deeper hunger for meaning and communion. Jesus teaches that true life is nourished not only by bread but by every word that comes from God, and the temptations of power, spectacle, and possession reveal humanity’s constant struggle for control and recognition. Christ’s response shows that identity is not something to prove but something to receive from the Father, inviting us during Lent to live by the Word so that God may restore unity between our faith, desires, and actions. Through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, we journey back to God and rediscover that He alone is enough. Ultimately, Lent becomes a movement from division to communion, where purified hunger leads the heart back into loving union with God. 

Concluding Words: From Division to Communion-Temptation in one form or another is an unavoidable part of life. If we honestly examine our daily experience, we can find many aspects of temptation: impulses or tendencies counter to the right way of doing things. To rationalize away these temptations, so that they become socially acceptable and politically correct — is itself an insidious temptation. We want to dictate for ourselves what is right and wrong, to draw for ourselves the boundaries of acceptable behavior, unencumbered by any notional commandments of God. This is rather like Adam demanding to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Our real growth to Christian maturity comes by acknowledging and accepting the vocation of struggling against temptation, to achieve the kind of behavior and attitudes Jesus expects. We ought to submit our behavior to His Gospel. Christ and Adam show the two opposite reactions in face of temptation: Adam, archetype of sinful, evasive, self-seeking humanity, finds plausible reasons to yield to it, and rebels against God’s will. Jesus, archetype of the new God-seeking man, resists temptation even repeatedly. It can only be conquered by this blend of patience and loyalty, supported by trust that what God requires of us is what is best for us. 

Dear Epiphany, the desert is not empty; it is full of God’s presence. It is the place where false voices grow quiet and the true voice can be heard. Lent invites us to allow our hunger to lead us to God, to let the Word heal our divisions, and to rediscover who we are — beloved children who live not by bread alone, but by the love of the Father. If we enter this desert with openness, we will discover that what seemed like deprivation is actually grace, and what seemed like emptiness is actually communion. For Lent is the desert where hunger is purified and the heart is reunited with God. And there, in the silence, divided hearts learn again to live by the Word. 

Fraternally, John Peter Lazaar SAC, Pastor