Hunger for God

“He ate nothing during those days,
and when they were over he was hungry.”

Luke 4:2b

On the First Sunday of Lent we always hear the account of Jesus’s temptation by the enemy. This temptation by the enemy comes after Jesus fasted and prayed for 40 days after being led by the Spirit into the desert. We hear in Hebrews, “Son though He was, he learned obedience from what He suffered” (5:8). In His obedience, Jesus went into the desert where wild beasts and the enemy awaited Him, but He knew that the Father would be there too. During those forty days, the Lord probably prayed and communed with the Father and the Spirit, preparing for the start of His public ministry. Having been fasting, Jesus ate nothing and of course, He was hungry, and the devil saw it as the perfect time to tempt Him.

Seeing that Jesus was hungry and knowing that hunger weakens people and creates an opening for vulnerability, the enemy thought he could for sure tempt Jesus successfully and so he tried. The enemy tempted Jesus three times: change stone into bread, kingdoms and powers if He worships him, and to test the Father’s providence and protection. However, each time Jesus responded with the Word of God. The enemy used the three most worldly desires to tempt Jesus: power, possessions, and fame, but Jesus’s eyes were set on God. Yes, He was hungry from fasting, but He hungered more for God, more for the will of His Father.

During Lent we are called to focus on three things: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. We are called to fast from worldly attachments so that we might hunger for heavenly truths. We must remember that we are natural beings made for a supernatural end. We are in this world but are not of it. We are human beings but we were made for God. As such, our lives must be ordered towards that. We must not settle for temporal, fleeting worldly pleasures, but we must rather hunger for true joy, the joy that comes from God Himself.

This Lent, may we, like the Lord, be obedient to the Spirit allowing Him to lead us to the wildernesses of our hearts where yes our darkest secrets and deepest wounds lie, but also where the Lord awaits to meet us and heal us. May our prayer and fasting this Lent lead us to God, who alone can satiate our hunger.

Watch this week’s reflection below.

Duc in Altum

"Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch."

Luke 5:4

Duc in altum means “put out into the deep,” the command and invitation Jesus imparted unto Simon, the fisherman. This comes after Simon had been out all night fishing but was unable to catch anything. Here, on the surface, Jesus, probably an unexperienced fisherman, gives to Simon fishing advice! Yet, Simon entertains Him, saying, “Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing, but at your command I will lower the nets,” and when he did, the catch was unpredictably enormous.

Some may say it could be a coincidence, and others may call it a timing problem, and many more will doubt that it was providence or a miracle. But it was a miracle. It was the Son of God intervening in nature for the good of man, not simply for a catch of fish, but for a catch of souls, the salvation of souls. Jesus asked Simon to do something that seemed senseless and futile, putting his nets in the water he just did for the entire night that yielded nothing. Yet, knowing this, Jesus asked Simon to anyways because He knew what He was about to do. Jesus never asks us to do something that will be fruitless. Perhaps Simon spent his time in the shallow waters, and so Jesus asked him to try again in the deep waters. Maybe Simon had been unwilling to go into the deep, but rather settled for the safety of the shallow.

Similarly in our spiritual lives, if we constantly stay on the surface or even become content with the superficial, we will find ourselves unable to really connect with the Lord, becoming frustrated and later abandoning prayer all together. We must be willing to go into the deep with the Lord. We have to search and examine the depths of our hearts and bring before the Lord those areas we rather not show or visit. Going into the deep may sometimes be dangerous, but the Lord promises us that it will always be worth it. For to put out into the deep is to place our trust completely in God, and sometimes that can be scary. However, there is no need to fear, because we do not do this alone. Just as Jesus was in the boat with Simon as he cast his nets into the deep, so too will Jesus be with us when we go into the depths of our hearts.

To truly follow Christ, we must do so unreservedly, with our whole beings, with our whole hearts. And I promise you, when you do, your life will never be the same, your life will be filled with the joy and peace that Jesus comes to bring to us because when we live in such a way, it is not longer us who lives, but Christ who lives in us. Perhaps that is the life Jesus came to give to us, a share in His divinity, life with God Himself, and what a catch that is!

Long-Awaited Consolation

“Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon.
This man was righteous and devout,
awaiting the consolation of Israel,
and the Holy Spirit was upon him.”

Luke 2:25

Have you ever waited for something to happen, maybe even prepared a long time for it? Maybe it was a vacation you saved up for and planned for months or even years. Perhaps a reunification with a friend or family member you have not seen in ages. For the righteous man Simeon, he was waiting for the “consolation of Israel” and the Holy Spirit told him that he would not die until he had seen the Christ, and the day finally came — the day Mary and Joseph presented Jesus in the Temple.

This “Consolation of Israel” was the long-awaited Messiah who would save them from their suffering and persecution. For the Jewish People, the prophets reminded them time and again and God is faithful and that He will bring them out of slavery and into freedom and that there will be rejoicing once again (after the exile); however, not many of the Israelites remained faithful or trusted in the Lord, except for the “faithful remnant.” The descendants of this remnant would one day see this Messiah, and when the fullness of time came, God sent this “consolation of Israel” into the world for the salvation of souls, and this consolation was His very own Son.

Jesus is the consolation to the afflicted, the comforter to the persecuted, the light to those dwelling in darkness. Jesus is the long-awaited consolation of not just the Israelites, but of all peoples. Jesus is the answer to all our troubles, the hope in our despair, the joy in our sorrow, the light in our darkness, and the life in our death. Jesus has come to draw us to Himself so that where He is, we also might be, so that our sin remains no longer an obstacle to God, but that by His Cross and blood, we may come to share in His divinity. When in the depths of our hearts we search for meaning and for answers, and when we long for affirmation and love, although we may not know it, it is really Jesus whom we seek. This long-awaited consolation is in our midst, presented before us. Are we prepared to welcome Him into our hearts?

Watch this week’s reflection below.