Well rooted

When my family first moved to Canada, we settled in Sault Ste. Marie.  The yard that surrounded our home was entirely surrounded with a variety of trees and plants.  During the twelve years we spent there, we watched as those plants and trees grew: some of them to be very tall indeed.  We even had to thin out the trees as they continued to grow, in order to make room for the ones that remained to grow healthily.  On more than one occasion, we removed a tree only to find that its root system was intertwined with the surrounding vegetation.  On such occasions, it was almost impossible to decide which roots should be removed and which ones should be left, but this too was a valuable lesson for my brothers and me to learn.

On this first Sunday of Lent, the scriptures remind us that all of us belong to a family of faith that has deep and well-established roots.  The Book of Deuteronomy presents words that were spoken by Moses, almost 4,000 years ago.  Even then, he was reminding the people that our family of faith traces its roots even further back in time: to a moment when our ancestors went down into Egypt and lived there as aliens (Deut 26:5).  Like an old gnarled tree, our family has its share of scars, but there is great beauty too: the kind of beauty that can only be seen in a tree that has been weathered by time and experience.

It is the strength that we draw from our rootedness in this family of faith that helps us to appreciate the true beauty of this liturgical season of Lent.  Thanks to our connection to the life of this family of faith, we can also remain focused on our goal of being focused on Jesus, no matter what temptations might come along.

Even in these first days of Lent, we are often tempted to take our eyes off the focus that we first established on Ash Wednesday, but like Jesus did, we must take time every day to strengthen the bonds of faith and trust that exist between us and God.  If we do, then especially when we are tempted to turn our gaze away from him, we will remember that he alone can help us not to get lost.

In the case of Jesus, immediately after his baptism in the Jordan, he was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil (Lk 4:1-2), yet even in that time, he ate nothing at all so that he would not be distracted from the discipline of daily conversations with his Father.  Like Jesus’ experience in the desert, we too have been given this time of Lent as a privileged occasion to enter daily into the discipline of opening our hearts to the Lord and of listening for his gentle voice, a voice that speaks of his unbounded love and mercy.

Jesus’ temptations help us to see that even after spending so much time establishing the routine of constant prayer, the devil was still able to tempt him (cf Lk 4:3, 6, 9-11), and it seems as though each of the temptations was more difficult to resist, yet Jesus found strength to refute the devil’s temptations because he was so firmly rooted in God’s word.  This word is near to us, on our lips and in our hearts (Rom 10:8).  Firmly established with this word as our foundation, we can turn to God and ask him to open his merciful heart to us during this holy time of Lent