9 March, Sunday — Pray, fast, give more? You choose

1st Sunday of Lent

Deu 26:4-10
Rm 10:8-13
Lk 4:1-13

My God in whom I trust.

Lent is upon us.

For this first Sunday of Lent, the following themes resonate with me: Giving Alms, Faith and Confession, Temptation and Resistance and Trust in God’s help.

Today’s first reading from Deuteronomy offers a good lesson on giving alms. There, Moses instructs his people to offer their first fruits to God. It meant giving their best as a way to remember their deliverance from Egypt and the gift of the Promised Land. As Catholics, we can apply this message by being generous during mass collection. Let me share a story.

Before COVID in 2020, I helped run the lunch time Wednesday mass in Raffles Place area. There were three masses, and we usually collected S$100 to $200 each time. Without fail, this amount ballooned during Lent. We always collected more than S$1000 collectively. Ash Wednesday alone was like ‘bak kwa’ sales for Chinese New Year. We easily surpassed $2000 for that one service alone. Sadly, this elevated bounty never lasts and things revert to the norm after Easter. By God’s grace, the Lenten collections were somehow enough to make up for the rest of the year, in order to meet the annual rental and miscellaneous expenses. With little reserves, we always looked forward to Lent!  

Turning to the second reading, St Paul extols us to believe, without fail, that God raised Jesus from the dead to eternal life. He is our Lord and Saviour. As we believe, we must take action and confess this fact. To confess means to talk to anyone about our faith, especially fellow Catholics. Let Lent be a great time for us to have stronger faith to become an evangelist for God!

Finally in the gospel reading, we have the extremely well-known episode of Jesus’ temptation in the desert. This took place after he was baptised by John the Baptist. As he came out of the water, the Spirit of God descended on Jesus like a dove. Then a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, with whom I am well pleased”. Today’s readings start after this, with Jesus being led by the spirit to the desert where he spent forty days. He ate nothing and was very hungry. Satan tempted him three times. As a man, Jesus had all our human frailties, so he really suffered during this trial. During these extreme tests, Jesus relied on scriptures and faith in God as a powerful tool to resist the devil. Faced with any temptation to sin in our lives, we must do the same. My favourite scripture is Genesis 4:7 — Sin is crouching at your door. You must rule over it.

In rebuking Satan, Jesus laid down three clear rules that we Catholics should revisit often to remember. We must not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. We must worship the Lord our God only and in Him shall we serve. Lastly, we must not put the Lord our God to the test.

Brothers and sisters, let’s all make this first Sunday of Lent a special beginning to remember the three rules given by Jesus. With 40 days to practice, we can develop good habits to carry on after Lent for more prayer, fasting and almsgiving. If nothing else, I guess the easiest way to continue would be generous almsgiving. Do it, as it really does make a difference.

(Today’s OXYGEN by Andrew Sia)

Prayer: Jesus, let your grace be sufficient for me. Help me to make sacrifices during this season of Lent.

Thanksgiving: Thanks be to Jesus, who brings eternal hope for all sinners.