by bro Francesco Dileo, OFM Cap.
“Jesus’ temptation reveals the way in which the Son of God is Messiah, contrary to the way Satan proposes to Him and the way men wish to attribute to Him. This is why Christ vanquished the Tempter for us: ‘For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sinning’ (Heb 4, 15). By the solemn forty days of Lent the Church unites herself each year to the mystery of Jesus in the desert” (CCC 540).
With these words the “Catechism of the Catholic Church” indicates to us the meaning of these days that we are now living in the liturgy. These words also contain interesting points we may reflect on, in relation to the global emergency we are now experiencing, and which we, Christians, must understand in the light of the Lenten mystery, this time of penance in which we celebrate and recall the passion, death and resurrection of the Messiah, a mystery that is the very fulcrum of our faith.
The recent and sudden outbreak of the coronavirus, has brought to the surface, in the media, two realities that our contemporary world tries very hard to hide and disguise because incomprehensible to it: the problem of suffering and death. The massive diffusion of this news communicated in a tone of ongoing alarm has naturally caused widespread fear and which is contrary to that faith and hope that we should have in a God who is a Father and all-merciful. In fact, we have seen emerge all the helplessness of those who still have a weak and immature faith in God who is all-powerful and whose lives are still not inspired by His unceasing call to conversion.
It was Jesus’ very passion, death and resurrection that restored the true meaning and value to all our suffering and inescapable reality of death. God the Father gave us the example of His very Son, who taking the form of a servant, “humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross” (Phil 2,8). It is Jesus’ very passion, death and resurrection that are the foundation of the faith we profess. And all this obliges us, believers, to proclaim this good news. Above all the Easter mystery. We have the duty to cry out to the world that Christ by His suffering has transformed suffering into the highest, truest and most credible declaration of love and that His resurrection has vanquished death for ever and opened wide the gates of heaven. We must cry out, so that we may be heard by those who do not listen or who do not wish to listen, because distracted and entrapped in what can give only empty and fleeting happiness. We must cry out to reawaken trust in the Lord, that sadly has been weakened in so many Christians because unable to make up their minds and choose between God or the false seductions of this world.
The proclaiming of this good news is an act of charity towards our brothers and sisters! And for us the opportunity of a renewed faith, hope and charity.