Please read this passage before reading the homily.
My sisters and brothers,
It is Lent. In English Lent means Spring in old Middle English, while in Spanish it means forty, as in the forty days before the celebration of Easter.
For us it is a time of testing. The Holy Spirit has led us here. It is a time of renewal, a time of being cleansed of the dirt of winter. It is an announcement that we have to repent of our sins and turn back to God who is compassionate and merciful. It is good news.
We will feel hunger, but only our God can satisfy us and make us complete with God’s own word. We will want healing, but only God is the doctor who can heal us. We will want to be Number One, but only God can be Number One and God alone can make us princes and princesses.
Lent is the time for us to learn true relationships, that God is first and there is no other, that without God and God’s community we are nothing, and that we need one another, and that alone we are nothing, but that with everyone else including God, we are everything.
The Holy Spirit leads us into this desert, but in this desert the word of God will nourish us and God’s angels will watch over us lest we dash our hands or feet against a stone, and that we can worship only our Lord and God.
This Lent is a gift from God so that we receive the mercy of God and the life of God. This gift of God’s mercy will grow until Easter when it will reach its fulness in the fulness of God’s life.