God bless us and may the Virgin protect us! 

First Sunday in Lent (year C) 9 March 2025 

*First Reading from the Book of Deuteronomy (26:4 - 10)

Moses orders an offering gesture, as is the case in all religions, but for Israel it is a real profession of faith: "He shall take the basket from your hands and place it before the altar of the Lord your God, and you shall speak these words". Then follows a whole discourse on God's work for his people, which could be summed up in a simple sentence: everything we have, everything we are, is a gift from God. This is the great novelty of the entire Bible, especially of the book of Deuteronomy. If in religions the rite of offering is a gesture of asking the deities for benefits that they possess, for Israel there is a reversal of the meaning of the rite because this offering is an act of gratitude. To offer gifts is not to grant God something that belongs to us, but to recognise that everything is His gift and we do not present ourselves to Him with hands full of our own riches; rather, we recognise that without Him our hands would remain empty. In this spirit, bringing one's offerings becomes a gesture of remembrance. The book of Deuteronomy insists on this practice perhaps because the people seemed to have partly forgotten God and His benefits. In the desert, Israel had well understood that its survival depended on God and Him alone. However, having arrived in the Promised Land (the land of Canaan, the Israel of today) they ran the risk of forgetting the true God as there were widespread cults of the local Baal-worshipping peoples and the serious risk of contamination by idolatry posed a threat to the true faith. The prophets always sought to maintain fidelity to the Sinai Covenant (cf. Ex 20:2), repeating that there is only one God, the God of Moses, who delivered his people from the hand of the Egyptians, accompanied them throughout their history and, finally, gave them the promised land. It seems that the concern of our text is to preserve the memory of what God has accomplished and, indeed, the book of Deuteronomy could be called the book of memory. The rite of the offering of the firstfruits is therefore above all a gesture of remembrance, accompanied by the enumeration of the works performed by God on behalf of his people. The word 'firstfruits' contains the idea of 'first', the first fruits of the new harvest, the first sheaves of wheat, the first bunches of grapes, the first born of the new litter. All of this constitutes the beginning and the promise: by weighing the first sheaf, the first bunch, one could tell if the harvest would be abundant, and the ritual of offering already existed in the days of Cain and Abel to obtain the blessings of divinity. Moses had transformed its meaning: from then on, everything was lived in function of the Covenant and that is why one understands the discourse that accompanies the offering. One does not ask God for benefits for the future, but acknowledges the benefits one has had since Abraham's call, and the rite becomes a profession of faith that constitutes a summary of Israel's history: "My father was a wandering Aramean...". It all began with Abraham, the Aramean chosen by God to become the father of the people of the Covenant: a "wandering" nomad in the sense that, before his call by God, he had not yet discovered the one God, wandering therefore in a spiritual sense. The following sentence "My father was a wandering Aramean, who went down to Egypt" no longer refers to Abraham, the progenitor, but to his descendant Jacob: he and his sons settled in Egypt. The whole story follows, up to the entry into the promised land. At this point, the gesture of the offering takes on its full meaning: by offering the first sheaf, the first cluster, it is as if one were presenting the entire harvest to God.  The offertory in the Mass has the same meaning: to recognise that everything is God's gift: "Blessed are you, Lord, God of the universe, from your goodness we have received these gifts: from your goodness we prepare and offer gifts to God that are not ours but his.

 * Responsorial Psalm 90 (91) 1-2, 10-11, 12-13, 14-15

The psalm is presented as a dialogue with three voices.  Israel says: "He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will spend the night in the shadow of the Almighty. I say to the Lord: 'My refuge my fortress, my God in whom I trust'. The priests at the entrance to the Temple proclaim: "No misfortune shall befall you, no blow shall fall on your tent". Finally, God himself intervenes: "I will deliver him, for to me he has bound himself; I will put him in safety, for he has known my name."  In the first verses, if one pays attention, four different names are given to God: the Most High (Elyôn), the Almighty (El Shaddai), the Lord (YHWH) and finally God (Elohim). The deities of other peoples use three of these names: the Most High, the Almighty and Elohim. Israel uses these common terms to designate its God, but is the only people in the world who can call him by the fourth, the famous Name revealed to Moses in the burning bush: YHWH. As God himself says in the book of Exodus: "I revealed myself to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as God Almighty (El Shaddai), but by my name, YHWH, I did not make myself known to them" (Ex 6:3). These first verses develop the theme of the believer's security with the embrace of the Most High in the shadow of the Almighty.  In the language of the psalms, the embrace of the Most High recalls the Temple of Jerusalem and the shadow is that of the wings of the statues of the cherubim above the ark of the covenant. However, there is also an allusion to God's protective presence throughout the Exodus. As exegetes note, the "wings" recall those of the eagle that encourages the first flights of its young (Deut 32:10-11; cf. Ex 19:4). And the angel Gabriel will say to the Virgin of Nazareth: "The power of the Most High will spread its shadow over you" (Lk 1:35). The terms "my refuge, my fortress, my God in whom I trust" express a profession of faith and indicate a resolution against idolatry that always demands a commitment not to abandon the embrace of the Most High. Jesus is the one who never ceases to take refuge in God, as we see today in the gospel of Jesus' temptations. In short, the fight against idolatry is a theme that runs throughout the Bible and is a central point in the preaching of the prophets. Even in our time, there is food for thought because idolatry takes on different and ever new faces. Two stanzas follow in the psalm, which are a kind of catechesis addressed by the priests to every pilgrim in the Temple of Jerusalem: "no misfortune shall befall you, no blow shall fall on your tent" if you remain under the shadow of the Most High, for he will give orders to his angels to guard you in all your ways. Thou shalt tread upon lions and vipers, thou shalt crush lions and dragons. The message is twofold: certain is the victory - you shall trample down lions and dragons - and guaranteeing it is God who will never cease to protect his people who will give orders to his angels to guard all the pilgrim's steps, indeed they will carry him with their hands, so that his foot will not stumble over stones. At the end, in the last verse, God speaks: 'I will deliver him, for to me he has bound himself; I will make him safe, for he has known my name. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him" Note the final verse "in distress I will be with him, I will deliver him and make him glorious" which shows how Israel understood that God does not remove every trial with a magic blow, but is "with" us in difficulty and trial. In distress, 'I will be with him' is exactly the meaning of the name 'Emmanuel', which means God-with-us. Proposed at the beginning of Lent, this psalm invites us to find refuge in the embrace of the Most High, attending the liturgy in our churches where there is no longer the ark of the Covenant, nor the two statues of the cherubim - those winged beings with the head of a man and the body of a lion, whose wings joined together formed a throne for God -, but something much greater: the Presence of the Holy Trinity

* Second reading from the Epistle of Saint Paul the Apostle to the Romans (10:8-13)

St Paul makes an important point: whether you are Jews or pagans there is no difference because what you have in common is that you are Christians and you all invoke the same Lord, generous to those who seek him. The problem existed in Rome as elsewhere and the question was whether Jews and pagans should be treated equally. Although Paul wanted all Jews to accept Jesus as the Messiah, nevertheless only a minority of the Jewish people adhered to Jesus Christ, while it was the pagans who constituted the largest part of the Christian communities. One understands then that the coexistence of Christians of such different origins, Jewish or pagan, posed quite a few difficulties and endless discussions arose on issues such as the Law, circumcision and dietary rules. The problem was deeper as some Jewish converts to Christianity reluctantly accepted the entry of what they called 'the uncircumcised', Israel being the chosen people from whom the Messiah would be born.  The question was: is not accepting the non-Jews a betrayal of the Covenant and the election of the Jewish people? For Paul to prevent the Gentiles from receiving baptism meant that Jesus only saves the Jews, whereas in the Old Testament the prophet Joel had already said of the Messiah: "I will pour out my Spirit on every man. Your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your elders will dream dreams, your young men will have visions. On the servants and maidservants also will I pour out my Spirit in those days... Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." (Gl 3:1-5). Moreover, Paul's contemporaries found it strange that to be saved it was enough to invoke the name of Jesus while they believed one had to be circumcised and scrupulously observe the Law. The Apostle responds that since Jesus Christ is Lord (God), henceforth anyone who invokes him is saved as Christ himself told Nicodemus: "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life," specifying precisely: "God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him." (Jn 3:16-17) and the term "world" clearly means "all mankind". The Apostle does not hesitate to repeat: "If with your mouth you proclaim, "Jesus is Lord!", and with your heart you believe that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes to obtain righteousness, and with the mouth one makes the profession of faith to obtain salvation'.  In the Old Testament, 'to obtain righteousness' and 'to be saved' meant the same thing.  Moreover, the verb 'to believe' does not here have the sense of a personal opinion, and the parallel between 'mouth' and 'heart' on which he insists indicates that faith is a deep and total commitment of the person. Thus, according to Paul, what we read in the book of Deuteronomy is fulfilled: "This word is very near you: it is in your mouth and in your heart." While Deuteronomy speaks of the Law to be observed, now this word is the message of faith in Jesus Christ, and Paul reminds those who have received baptism: salvation is freely given to us by God without any merit of our own; we only have to accept it with faith and freedom: "If with your mouth you proclaim that Jesus is Lord, and if with your heart you believe that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. With the heart one believes to obtain righteousness, with the mouth one makes profession of faith to obtain salvation

* From the Gospel according to Saint Luke (4:1 - 13)

If we read this Gospel page in the light of today's responsorial psalm, we recognise the inner attitude with which Jesus began his public mission: "He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will spend the night in the shadow of the Almighty. I say to the Lord: My refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust'.  Jesus places himself in the shadow of the Most High, while temptation drives him to leave this refuge, to doubt his security and to seek shelter and security elsewhere: these are precisely the three temptations that have always marked the history of Israel and also our lives. The devil - in Greek 'diabolos', that is, he who divides - tempts him by instilling doubt and distrust. If you truly are the Son of God, you can do whatever you want and are able to provide for your own happiness. Tell this stone that it may become bread and so satiate your hunger immediately after such a long fast (first temptation); adore me and you will surely be able to realise all your plans and projects (second temptation). Finally, "if thou art the Son of God, cast thyself down; for it is written: "To his angels he will give orders concerning thee that they may guard thee"; and "they will carry thee on their hands that thy foot may not stumble over a stone (third temptation). Jesus, however, does not give in to satanic enticements because he is certain that only God satisfies man's true hunger and he has chosen to trust, in other words, to dwell in the shelter of the Most High, as the psalm says. In more detail in the first temptation, when the Tempter provokes him Jesus replies: "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone', an expression known to all the Jewish people because it is contained in chapter 8 of Deuteronomy, as a meditation on Israel's experience during the exodus under the leadership of Moses: "Remember all the way that the Lord your God made you walk these forty years in the wilderness...He made you experience hunger, then He fed you with manna that neither you nor your fathers knew, to make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but by everything that comes out of the mouth of the Lord." (Deut 8:2-3). The people know from experience what the blessedness of poverty means: Blessed are those who hunger, for they trust only in God to be filled, and Deuteronomy continues: "Acknowledge therefore in your heart that the Lord your God was educating you as a man educates his son." (Deut 8:5). In this way the Son of God, who now begins to lead his people, relives in his flesh the experience of Israel in the wilderness. In other words, when the Tempter challenges Jesus saying: "If you are the Son of God, prove it!", his answer is clear: My food is to do the will of the One who sent me and to do his works, as he will say to the disciples in the encounter with the Samaritan woman (cf. Jn 4:32-34). In the second temptation, to the Tempter who promises him all the kingdoms of the earth, Jesus replies: "The Lord your God you shall worship: to him alone you shall render worship", quoting this text among the best known of the Old Testament, which follows the Shema Israel, the Jewish profession of faith (Dt 6:10-13). In the third temptation, the devil provokes Jesus to throw himself down being the Son of God, for it is written that angels will come to guard him by carrying him on their hands, but he replies: "It has been said, 'You shall not test the Lord your God (Deut 6:16). Christ knows that he is always in the shelter of the Most High, no matter what happens. Faced with the provocations of the Tempter, Jesus draws from the word of God the strength to resist those who want to separate him from the Father; he never argues with him and his three answers are exclusively quotations from Scripture. In this he shows himself to be the authentic heir of his people and the phrase from Deuteronomy, taken up by St Paul in the Letter to the Romans (see the second reading), applies to him: "The Word is near you, it is on your lips and in your heart." (Deut 30:14). The three answers refer to the book of Deuteronomy, written precisely to remind the Israelites that God is their Father. Jesus, in his life, retraces the experience of his people in the desert, from Baptism, where he is revealed as the Son, to Gethsemane where the Tempter will return for the final attack. We read at the end of our text: "After he had exhausted all temptation, the devil departed from him until the opportune moment, but Jesus will always remain under the shadow of the Most High and, with this episode, Luke shows that Jesus is the only true model to follow.

+Giovanni D'Ercole