OMELIE / Omelie EN

27 feb 2022

06/03/2022 – 1st Sunday of Lent - year C

06/03/2022 – 1^st Sunday of Lent - year C

Reading 1 DEU 26, 4-10 Psalm 90 Reading 2 ROM 10, 8-13 Gospel LK 4, 1-13

“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved”: these are words with which the apostle Paul keeps our hope awake and safeguards our peace.

What does “calling on the name of the Lord” mean? This means we should not expect anything from men or earthly things, in the company of famous people, in our mastery, not even in the knowledge of our consultants. To invoke the Lord’s name means taking Him only as a warranty of our future and our deepest aspirations. Before this Paul wrote “you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that you will be saved”.

The salvation is a gift and grace: the fact that is a gift does not mean that is automatically granted. Salvation is not for ‘everyone’, but for those who believe and show their faith. Believing happens in the heart, where you place your faith in the Father, who we know thanks to Jesus. He who believes, who puts his faith fully in Jesus in order to give his life to the father, gets “justice”, he finds himself then in the right place, in the place of a son for God the Father. Those who keep the faith hidden in the heart is just, but is not safe from the temptations of the world, from the weaknesses of their humanity, from the seductions of the enemy. The apostle therefore is proposing a step further to us. In order to enjoy the salvation is necessary to make our standing clear, without being ashamed of our Saviour: : “one confesses with the mouth and so is saved”.

When we declare our faith in the open we are the strongest, more shielded from the temptations, and plus we allow Jesus not to feel ashamed of us, but to be able to vouch for us in front of the Father, as He Himself has said: “I will acknowledge them before my Father in heaven”. In fact, salvation has a double way to happen: in heaven and on earth.

Today’s gospel is talking about salvation from temptations: Jesus quickly and clearly is referencing God’s Word, and so the enemy is leaving Him. The tempter uses the Word of God to awaken in Jesus pride and rebellion, superiority towards God, but it finds Jesus simple and steadfast. The tempter is clever, but it cannot withstand Jesus' humility, a humility shown through obedience to the Father via the firm adhesion to His Word. That Word had been written by men surely less important than Him, Son of God, but He sticks to it without jealousy or superiority. This is amazing in the story of the temptations: Jesus is humble. The enemy’s words instead let see the pride that is typical of everything that comes from Satan, a pride which drags to rebellion, hidden behind «DIY faith». “If you are the Son of God”, then you decide… Jesus instead seems to answer: since I am the Son of God, I let the Father decide, I trust Him, I listen to Him. He speaks and I live of His Word, which for me is like bread, food safe and abundant, always available as the manna in the desert.

He continues to refine the way followed by Abraham, a way for a pilgrim of this world, a stranger who puts himself in God’s certain protection, the God who keeps His promises beyond every possible disappointment and difficulty.

We will call Lord Jesus’ name, and the tempter will get far from us. Let us show our faith in Him, and we will start enjoying the salvation in all its different dimensions.