1st Sunday of Lent Year A 2026

" You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.” (Mt 4, 7)

On Wednesday last we stepped across the threshold of Lent, not into a season of gloom, but into one of the most hope-filled journeys the Church offers us. Lent is an invitation. Like the first breath that God breathed into Adam in the garden, Lent offers us an opportunity for new life, a fresh start, a chance to open our hands and receive again the extraordinary mercy and love that God never stops pouring out upon us.

We encounter Jesus in the desert after being freshly baptised, with the echo of the Father's voice still present: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." What a moment of grace! And yet, immediately, Jesus is radically tested. Each temptation begins with a sneer: "If you are the Son of God…...…" as though being beloved needed to be proved, earned, or defended.

But Jesus never takes the bait. He is urged to turn stones into bread — to rely on himself rather than trust in the Father's care. Jesus refuses. He is invited to throw himself from the Temple, to manipulate God's love into a safety net. Jesus refuses that too, already secure in the knowledge that he is held lovingly by his Father. Finally, he is offered power and glory as a shortcut, but Jesus simply walks away, choosing the humble, obedient path of the Kingdom. At every turn, Jesus answers not with spectacle or force, but by finding himself quietly supported by the Word of God.

A Lenten fast is not primarily about giving something up for the sake of it. It is about fasting from selfishness — stepping back from the noise of ones own agenda long enough to notice that God is near, and that God’s love is more than sufficient. Saint Paul reminds us that where Adam's self-reliance brought brokenness, Christ's faithful obedience brings restoration.

So let us embrace the quiet spaces that Lent opens for us. Silence is not emptiness; it is the place where God speaks. The desert is not a dead end; it is where transformation begins.

This Lenten season, let us fast from self-reliance and feast instead on trust, opening ourselves ever more fully to a God who already calls each of us his beloved, and who is always, joyfully and tenderly, ready to begin again with us.

By Fr. Thomas O'Brien a.a.