1st Sunday of Lent B - Homily 6

 Homily 6 - 2024

We are into Mark’s Gospel today, and Mark leaves us almost breathless as we listen to him. Let me begin two verses before today’s short Gospel passage. John the Baptist had just baptised Jesus. Mark wrote: “Immediately, as Jesus came up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn open and the Spirit descending, just as a dove does, into him; and a voice came from the heavens; ‘You are my son; I love you; in you I am delighted’. Immediately the Spirit drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by the Satan. He was with the wild beasts, and the angels looked after him.”

Those of you who were at Mass on Ash Wednesday might remember the Gospel of that Mass: “When you pray, go to your private room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in that secret place…”

Jesus did even better: he went out into the the total isolation of the Judean wilderness. As the Gospel unfolds later in the year, we shall hear of other occasions when Jesus spent the night in prayer, or went out early in the morning and prayed.

I find it fascinating that even Jesus felt the need to be alone with God his Father, to come to terms with and to integrate what was going on. The voice from the heavens that spoke to him just after his baptism: ‘You are my son; I love you; in you I am delighted’, seemed to have required six weeks of pondering. I am not surprised.

Mark’s Gospel then gave us, as we heard this morning, the outcome of his pondering and the insights that it stirred: “After John had been arrested [they were dangerous times!], Jesus went into Galilee. There he proclaimed the Good News from God. ‘The decisive time has come’ he said ‘and the kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent, and believe the Good News’.”

As Jesus gave himself forty days to ponder — to come to terms with and to integrate — the message of the voice from heaven, the Church suggests that we might spend these forty days of Lent endeavouring to come to terms with and to integrate and to bring up to date the present and immediately future implications of the reality among us now of the Kingdom of God.

We need to spend time alone, too, with God. Don’t be frightened. Give it a go. Try something new, if necessary. Perhaps even forget about the possible distractions attached to fasting. Don’t even call it prayer, if that is likely to put you off. As Jesus advised, just “go to your private room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in that secret place”. Just sit with God. No need to say anything. Just know, believe, that he is there with you in the silence, in the darkness. It will probably take no time for you to get distracted. Don’t worry. Just let the distractions float away, like a small branch floating along on the surface of a river, and return again yourself into the silence and the darkness. It won’t feel like what you probably expect prayer should feel like. That’s OK. Don’t call it prayer, if that worries you. God can, and does, communicate a bit like “osmosis”. You will possibly notice, however, a gentle “difference” happening to you later in the rest of your ordinary, daily life.

Make this Lent something different.