We begin our Lenten readings in a most appropriate place: the desert. In the desert, life is stripped to basics and everything, including our weakness, is exposed. We are forced to stand alone and vulnerable before God. Our faith is put to the test. Little wonder, then, that Jesus went to the desert to fast and pray before plunging into his public works. It's there, amid the rocks and reptiles, that the devil comes to him with three temptations.
During the Season of Lent, let’s develop a habit of doing the following: “a loving word a day keeps temptations away,” “a prayer a day keeps the devil away,” and “a Eucharist a day keeps Satan away.” By practicing these habits – we might have a “temptation free” week.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus lays out many of his basic life teachings. Several of them are extraordinarily difficult for us to understand, much less put into practice. Two of these are the famous "turn the other cheek" and "love your enemy" admonitions. To understand what Jesus is saying and what it means to us today, we first need to understand the context in which Jesus is speaking.
“Love your enemies… pray for those who persecute you…” Challenging words! If we embrace them, they empower us to become non-violence’s disciples; they energize us to become peace’s instruments; and they animate us to become reconciliation’s channels. But humanly speaking, the moment we hear those words, we instantly and vehemently snub them. We might be roaring: “Are you crazy? How can I love someone who murdered my family? How can I pray for someone who betrayed me, who destroyed my honor, and who hated me so much? IMPOSSIBLE!”
This week's Gospel is all about the Law. It starts with the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, which contains Jesus's teaching about loving your enemies, as well as the Beatitudes. We may never have given any thought as to why Jesus gave these teachings on the side of a mountain, but the time and place matter if we are to truly understand how radical Jesus's message was in his time.
Today’s gospel urges us to treasure forgiveness’ life-force. Jesus reveals to us the process on how forgiveness becomes a reconciling way of life; he said: “… if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”
In order to understand what Jesus is telling us in today's Gospel, we need to consider what salt and light meant in his time. Because we can buy all the salt we could ever need at our local grocery and we have light anytime we want at the flick of a switch, we may not realize how special both were in ancient Israel. Salt was so valuable it was part of the pay of Roman soldiers. Light came only in the form of fire or small oil lamps. In both cases, salt and light were valuable.
When Joseph and Mary came to the Temple forty days after Jesus was born in order to fulfill the ritual of the presentation of the firstborn, Mary was adjusting to life with a new baby and a husband. She probably wasn’t thinking about all the struggles and hard times that would lie ahead for her baby boy.