Every few years, Lent would fall on Valentine’s Day. Many have asked what to do: Celebrate Valentine on the 13th or mix and match them? We don’t need to do any of that, because there’s Lent in VaLENTine, and St. Valentine would want us to be aware of that. Ash Wednesday falling this year on the 14th of February shouldn’t ruin your Valentine. It should enhance it, because Valentine’s Day presents an opportunity for us to reflect on the true nature of love, which involves giving all and losing all for the sake of the beloved. Love stripped of sacrifice loses its meaning and turns into mindless obsession and prevarication. We can truly look to Jesus to show us the true meaning of love, which His death on the cross thoroughly unravels. And so we begin our Lenten journey this year with the theme of love.
Six weeks into the Ordinary time season, we’re putting a hold on it to contemplate the events that brought about our redemption, namely, the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ. We’re given this opportunity to lift our hearts to God on high; that “in all we do and say, He may keep us free from being harmed by our enemy.” But more importantly, we enter into the deepest mystery of the life of Jesus. Between now and Easter, we’ll re-live the spectacularly important events that brought about our redemption in Christ.
This first Sunday, the focus is on our covenantal relationship with God. Covenant is a word that has got lost in our language and almost expunged from our lexicon. A few times during wedding ceremonies the word covenant will appear, but I bet that not many couples think of their union as a covenant. For if they knew, understood and appreciated their relationship as covenantal, they certainly would work harder to preserve and protect their union more than they currently do. When a man and a woman, for example, enter into the covenant of marriage, it isn’t a matter of saying “I do,” which quite too often ends in “I don’t,” or exchanging some expensive rings, it is rather question of an exchange that touches the core of their being—an exchange of persons. Today, we hear of God’s covenant with Noah, which was but one among the six major covenants that God entered into with His people. In this covenant, God makes all the promises and asks nothing of Noah and his family in return. St. Peter alerts us in the second reading that this covenant prefigured baptism, in which God promised us salvation—free of charge. On our part, we only have to agree to be loved by Him and live as His sons and daughters. He sends His Son to show us the way to His eternal kingdom. Several failures in the covenant with God by our ancestors in the faith made God seal an everlasting covenant where the merits of His Son’s death would be the “marker” for the expiation of our sins. Only those who trustingly approach Him by faith will receive this gift.
As Jesus begins the journey toward our salvation, He first confronts our ancient foe—the devil. He knew Lucifer still retained, after his fall from grace, the distinguishing intelligence that made him heaven’s light-bearer. He knew that he would need a long preparation to face the evil one. The temptation of Jesus by the devil shines a light on the tactics of the devil, who definitely would use similar tactics to trick us. By toeing the line of Jesus, we’re able to protect the precious gift of salvation that God bestows upon us. In the words of a Morning Prayer hymn, keeping our gaze on Jesus, “Would guard our hearts and tongues from strife; from anger’s din would hide our life; from all ill sights would turn our eyes; would close our ears from vanities.” Continuing, the words of the hymn turns to the absolute value of penitential discipline:
Would keep our inmost conscience pure; Our souls from folly would secure;
Would bid us check the pride of sense; With due and holy abstinence.
May this Lenten period lift us from the darkness of sin to Christ’s bright glory!
Fr. Chukwudi Jo Okonkwo