Leon Bent –
Jesus prepared himself in arid land for 40 days for his public ministry. The hermit yearns for a indwelling Jesus-presence in him, as his reason for withdrawing into the desert. For you and I, it is to flash Christ-likeness, by a solemn Christian religious observance, according to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, before beginning Jesus’ public ministry.
In essence, the fast was Jesus’ intentional, spirit-led preparation, a time of testing and purification, that solidified His identity and power. Yes, Jesus’ fast in the wasteland at the start of His ministry was a symbolic act of intense spiritual preparation, purification, and reliance on God, mirroring Old Testament figures like Moses and Elijah, and setting the stage for His public mission by overcoming temptation and demonstrating total dependence on His Father.
The symbolism of “40”: In the Bible, often marks significant periods of transformation before a new phase, such as the Noah’s Flood, Israel’s (Moses’) wilderness-wandering, and currently, Lent.
In its deepest form, Catholic theology views Lent as a profound journey of an intensely spiritual desert, it’s temptation, focused on radical conversion (metanoia) through deepened prayer life, to detach from sin and worldly distractions, preparing believers to fully enter the life-giving celebration of the glorious and solemn Maundy Thursday and Good Friday Services, and more particularly, Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday.
The Three Sources of Jesus’ Temptation have been described as:
1.The World — “indifference and opposition to God’s design”, “empty, passing values”;
2.The Flesh — “gluttony and sexual immorality, … our corrupt inclinations, disordered passions”;
3.The Devil — “a real, personal enemy, a fallen angel, Father of Lies, who … labors in relentless malice to twist us away from salvation”; and viewed in opposition to the Three Persons of God, that is, the Trinity.
The 21st Century is an extremely turbulent and tempestuous place to live in. Materialism, Globalization, Greed, unhealthy Competition, living life at lightening-speed, the often-misleading influence of the Digital and Print Media, the craving for status, fame, dignity, wealth, the craze to live “King-Size,” relativism and their ilk: If you believe in subjectivism, then you think different people can have different views about what’s moral and immoral, and everyone is right. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI was very vocal about this decadence, and erroneous attitude to life, why, even a habitual, almost perennial sinful way of thinking.
What is the solution? ‘Great are you, O Lord, and exceedingly worthy of praise; your power is immense, and your wisdom beyond reckoning. And so, we ‘earthly creatures’, who long to praise you – carry our mortality with us; the evidence of our sin and with it, the proof that you thwart the proud. You arouse us, so that, praising you may bring us joy, because you have made us and draw us to yourself,’ and “our heart is restless until it rests in you.” This is the famous quotation from St. Augustine’s “Confessions,” in which the Saint states “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
In today’s modern age, the season of Lent is, when one flees to the hermitage within, where there is ferocity in everything: ‘Far away would I fly, and make a new home in the wilds’ Psalm 55:7. ‘He turns her desert into an Eden, her wasteland into the garden of Yahweh…” Isaiah 51: 3. “Living in the desert does not only mean, living without people, but living with God and for God” Serge Bougakov.
As the contemplatives’ memorandum to the First Episcopal Synod admirably puts it, ‘if the hermit withdraws from the world, he is not deserting either it or his fellowmen; he is still entirely rooted on earth where he was born to the resources, which he is the heir of and the preoccupations and aspirations, which he does his best to make his own. No, indeed, he withdraws, the better to contemplate that divine source. The desert, in fact, is where the soul often finds its deepest inspiration. There it was, that God fashioned his people, “to lure them away and speak to their hearts” (Hosea 2:16).
The People of God must be reborn and renewed through Lent by a similar experience, generation by generation, of having the ‘love-life of God inside each one of them.’
The nameless author of “The Hermitage Within” warns us, not everyone can and should live within monastery walls. But no Christian can do without an inner haven and a nourishing harbor. Eremitism (Derived from the Greek erēmos [desert], represents a withdrawal from the world to focus on inner peace, self-awareness, and divine devotion). The practice of living in solitude, which involves withdrawal from society to focus on prayer, meditation, and inner reflection, historically prominent in Christianity with figures like St. Anthony the Great, the founder of Christian monasticism and the “Saint of Desert Spirituality ,” and Thomas Merton, a renowned American Trappist monk, and Bede Griffiths, another towering monk.
The desert is pitiless; it invariably and necessarily rejects all self-seekers. However, it is, both, fascinating and terrifying. It is also pure and cleanses. The whole spirituality of the wasteland is summed up in the words of St. John of the Cross: “An eternity of silence!” When the ascetic renounces everything he will be face to face with the living God forever. Lent is a time to inch closer to this privileged, ‘heavenly’ state. Humble and detached, go into the desert. God is waiting for you there without your earthly, human baggage. You must be content to lose yourself entirely in Him.
Mount Carmel – the name means vineyard or orchard – has become the symbol of spiritual accents, the culmination of which, on the mountain peak, is repose with God in the delight of absolute union. The spiritual opulence and magnificence of Carmel represents the soul enjoying the full joy of contemplation. Prayer is eternal questioning: ‘Do you really love me?’ – asks God.
Transcendental prayer represents a spiritual, often solitary, plea for guidance, sustenance, and endurance during times of profound emptiness, desolation, or testing (the “desert experience”). It focuses on trusting in divine provision, finding strength in silence, and clinging to faith when, one is metaphorically or physically, in a dry land.
The Christian anchorite may rightly consider himself as already taking part in the glorious liturgy of eternity. Heaven, in Revelation, is described as the New Jerusalem: A radiant city with gold streets, pearl gates, and walls of precious stones, where God’s glory provides light, eliminating the need for sun or moon, and where there is no more death, sorrow, crying, or pain, featuring a river of life from God’s throne and the Tree of Life. It’s a place of perfect joy, eternal worship, and unhindered presence in God’s and the Lamb’s sacred aura, a restored paradise free of mundane earthiness.
May the lovely acclamations of the ‘Glory to God in the highest’ at the Easter Vigil/Sunday Mass, and The Exultet or Easter Proclamation, at the Easter Vigil Service, which is a lyrically-exquisite, joyful hymn sung at the beginning of the Easter Vigil in the Roman Catholic Church, as well as in Anglican and Lutheran traditions, ring out increasingly in the temple of your soul, where the love of God in you, can ‘Go, Grow and Glow.’
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Leon Bent frequently contributes researched articles to numerous newsletters, Catholic magazines and theological journals across India, and digital online portals in India and worldwide, sometimes with a reach of 40 million readers.