1st Sunday of Lent, C

Focus all attention on God alone

Luke 4:1-13

photo courtesy of Integrated Catholics

Moses is fully aware that it is the Lord who called Israel out of Egypt and brought them to the promised land flowing with milk and honey.  And as a sign of extreme thankfulness, he tells Israel to offer the first-fruits of the produce of the soil that the Lord has given.  If we are filled with greed, then we cannot even think about offering our gifts back to the Giver of the gifts.

It is the same as in the second reading when the salvation became possible only because God himself gave the solution by sending his only Son.

In the Gospel then, the three temptations simply lead our attention away from God through whom our lives totally depend.

They simply tell us any of them can be our gods.  Our grace therefore is to detect how they destroy our lives.  But the second point is more important - how do we place our full and total trust in the Lord?

The sins are materialism, power, and pride.  The three alternatives are poverty, humility, and embracing persecution for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven.  When we proclaim our poverty and emptiness, the more we rely on God.  The more we embrace humility, the more we place ourselves under God's service.  And the more we embrace persecution, the more we exult God in our lives.