1st Sunday of Lent
Gen 9:8-15
1 Pet 3:18-22
Mk 1:12-15
“Repent, and believe the Good News.”
So we begin Lent, with readings from the covenant between God and Noah and, in the second reading, we have our first Pope telling us that the flood is actually a prefigurement of our baptism, where we are made clean by being submerged into water, like the whole earth was, dying to our old selves and emerging from the water — a new creation made clean by the waters of baptism.
What stands out in the Gospel for me is Jesus saying to “repent and believe in the Good News”. Do we believe in the Gospel? The good news. How much of the good news have we accepted and tried to live out? I can’t help but notice here, how much of the good news I practice, only when it is convenient for me.
For us ‘good’ Catholics who profess that the Eucharist is the source and summit of our faith, do we really know what that “AMEN” means when we say it to the priest or extraordinary minister? This ‘Amen’ of Hebrew origin is to say “I believe” or “Let it be”. So, our Amen becomes an affirmation that we believe that bread and wine are transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit into the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ.
“If you are the body and members of Christ, then it is your sacrament that is placed on the table of the Lord; it is your sacrament that you receive. To that which you are you respond ‘Amen’ (‘yes, it is true!’), and by responding to it you assent to it. For you hear the words, ‘the Body of Christ’ and respond ‘Amen.’ Be then a member of the Body of Christ that your ‘Amen’ may be true.” – St Augustine from his confessions.
There are a few repercussions to this ‘Amen’. Firstly, we profess that we believe what we consume is, in fact, Jesus. Secondly, it invites us to be part of the mystical body of Christ. When we eat food, the food becomes part of us. When we eat the body of Christ, it is us that is metabolized into His body (again, from St Augustine). Thirdly, and this is where is gets harder, if we are to become part of the body of Christ, we are also saying that we will be members of the mystical body and, as the bible says in St Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, we cannot say to another body part, that I do not need you. We are one body and the lesser parts, we treat with greater dignity.
Have we treated our lesser parts with greater dignity?
This actually leads to 1 more little repercussion of our ‘Amen’. How do we live in harmony with the rest of the body of Christ? By, as Jesus tells us in the Gospel today, believing in the Gospel. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth; and not just what is convenient for us.
Let us take our ‘Amen’ seriously the next time we go to Mass, for it means that we are saying that we will try to live out every single aspect of our faith earnestly.
Brothers and sisters, I wish you a most blessed and holy season of Lent. May we draw ever closer to our Lord.
(Today’s OXYGEN by Daryl De Payva)
Prayer: May I learn what it truly means to be part of the body of Christ this Lent, and may we have a fruitful and Holy Lent.
Thanksgiving: I thank you Lord, for this time of prayer and for revealing the truths of the good news to us.
OXYGEN 
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