1st Sunday of Lent 2026
In the Book of Wisdom, we read: ‘God created mankind for incorruption and made him in the image of his own character, but through the devil’s envy death entered the world, and those who belong to his party experience it.’ These words raise a question in me – perhaps scandalous to some: what would have happened if Jesus, fasting in the desert, had succumbed to even one of the devil’s tempting proposals? Death would gain terrible power. It is not easy for a person to accept freedom, which forces them to face the desert of their own powerlessness, the desert of their own lust, the desert of their own small-mindedness, the desert of their own vanity, the desert of their own self-will, the desert of sin that lures people like fruit in paradise. It is not easy, and we all experience this without exception.Who among us has not found themselves, at least once, in the situation of Eve reaching for the tempting but forbidden fruit, or in the situation of the Israelites wanting to change the path to freedom into a path to renewed slavery for pots full of food?
The Israelites did not see the work of the covenant of true freedom being accomplished, because the whole mountain was covered with mist. This mist hid not only Moses from them, but also God. This fog also covered their hearts. In foggy conditions, it is very easy to get stuck in a bog, from which it is very difficult to get out later. How much of this fog covering God is there in our hearts and minds? We allow it to envelop us. It is the fog of our reluctance to take up the burden of freedom for the One God. This aversion begins to carve out an idol of ‘do whatever you want’ within us. God’s law becomes inconvenient, and He Himself becomes inconvenient, so man puts himself in God’s place and tries to replace His perfect law with human laws.
The evil spirit knows very well where to strike human vanity, tempting us with the prospect of living in complete freedom. It is easy to convince people that the Church’s teaching on morality is outdated, that its demands are absurd in today’s world, that the law restricts human freedom and dignity, and that we must adapt to the requirements of modern times.
And so, in the name of conceived human freedom and dignity, in the name of replacing God with an idol and God’s law with the law of an idol: idolatry is called the realisation of life plans; idols – life goals; fortune telling and magic – help for the frustrated; sacraments – magic; Mass – a waste of time; religious services – performances; God’s word – boredom; a child – a nuisance and a burden; motherhood – a break in one’s career; abortion – a procedure; drugs and alcohol –a moment of relaxation and relief; old age – useless vegetation; euthanasia – a humane gesture towards the suffering; elderly parents – a burden; marital infidelity – an adventure; parental admonition – stressing the child; piety – an activity for older people; life without God – a sign of progress.
An old man was lying in a hospital bed, his wife sitting beside him. Gently stroking his hand, she whispered, ‘You are still as handsome as you were when I first saw you sixty years ago.’ Looking at the man’s wrinkled and emaciated face, I understood what it means to say that love is blind. Even when man lost his original beauty, intended by God, through sin, he never lost it definitively in God’s eyes. The flawless humanity of Jesus Christ was given to us so that our lives – in all the deserts we experience – the devil left, and angels stood by us.