Gen 9,8-15; Ps 24 (25); 1 Pt 3: 18-22; Mk 1.12-15

On closer inspection, the desert that Mark tells us about is very populated: there is the Spirit, there is the humanity of Jesus, there are angels, there are wild beasts, and then – of course – there is also Satan. This journey of Jesus in the desert becomes for us an invitation to live Lent as an entrance into the complexity of our history and our humanity. The more we are silent, the more we realize how populated and complex our existence is. The devil tries to tear you apart, to lead us to absolutize one aspect of reality or of our heart, hiding others from us; he deceives us by showing us only one face of what we are and hiding the other … Jesus, on the other hand, builds bridges of communion between universes that we perceive as distant or opposite. Indeed, he “was with the wild beasts and the angels served him” (Mk 1:13). That rainbow of peace of which the first reading speaks to us, which God offers to Noah as a sign of his universal covenant, is now Jesus himself: he is the “bow” of the covenant that connects the world of God and the angels with the world human and animal. We must enter the desert by trusting the rainbow that Jesus placed there with the same presence as him. Only if we can keep together, in a harmonious and orderly relationship, God, the angels, our flesh, the wild beasts… can we truly defeat Satan, the great separator!

Commentary by Comunità di Dumenza

Translation by f. Mark Hargreaves, Prinknash Abbey