The season of Lent focuses upon a very interesting place, a place of trial, temptation and testing, Jesus was driven there by the Holy Spirit as we just heard, and we, too, are driven there, spiritually, in our search for Christ. It is a place that many saints retreated to in order to flee the world, as it were, and it is also a spiritual battleground upon which countless souls would daily battle, which is why, physically or spiritually, the desert is, indeed, an appropriate place for us to begin our Lenten journey.

In fact, St. Anthony of Egypt, after losing both of his parents, and entrusting his younger sister to a convent, fled to the desert, and there he learned as he put it: “One who lives in the desert keeping stillness is delivered from three wars: that of hearing, that of speech, and that of seeing.”

If we think about it, in the desert we are essentially alone, we have left behind family, friends and even the world itself. During Lent, spiritually speaking we, too, are asked to do the same, putting all of our efforts on our own spiritual well-being and ourselves, not, of course, neglecting our family, friends and the world, but focusing on those things that will help us to grow in holiness and allow us to get closer to Christ.

In the desert, too, everything looks the same and we don’t necessarily know where it is we should go. During Lent, this same feeling is what helps us to trust in God more, to follow His Will rather than our own, so that we can have some sense of direction and see that, indeed, not everything does look the same when we look at it through God’s eyes.

In the desert when we walk, we may walk for miles or days, amidst nothing but the desert sands. The heat can become unbearable and since there is no cover, the only relief is from the wind, a wind which burns our eyes. During Lent our primary search is to find God and sometimes it feels as if He cannot be found, our vision becomes clouded and things may get unbearable, but we persevere, because our perseverance is based on love, and our continuing the journey is based on the faith that we have and the hope that when we find Him it will far outweigh any of the struggles we may endure.

In the desert our thirst can become unquenchable and the pangs of hunger constant, both of which making us weak and vulnerable, both of which wanting us to quit. During Lent, when we voluntarily give up those things we desire most in our lives, those things that we may want, or performing a penance that we may do, we remind ourselves that those things pale in comparison to the necessities of food and water and even more so, they remind us that any sacrifice we may make can never compare to Jesus who made the greatest sacrifice for us.

This is why when we are in the desert, with all of those things working against us, at our most vulnerable, we are then faced with our greatest temptations, lured by their empty delights. And the more we continue to fight, the stronger those temptations will become. Yet, during Lent, while we may realize that temptations will always exist, we also become more aware that while God has allowed us to get to that point, He will also give us the strength to carry on, reminding us always that, as it says elsewhere in Hebrews 12:4: “In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.”

This is why the desert is, indeed, such an appropriate place to begin our Lenten journey, because it brings us face to face with all of these realities and it causes us to explore our own spiritual lives more than we have or might have ever done. This is why many saints and scholars would say that in the desert there are only three people: you, God and the Devil, and, indeed, it is only there where this becomes most evident.
In fact, when I was still in the seminary and we had to attend the Institute for Priestly Formation, we began with a silent retreat of 5 days. Experiencing that level of silence allowed me to hear those voices very distinctly, and when I asked my spiritual director why I am hearing these voices, thinking I may have been going a little crazy, he said, that is what happens when you are in the desert.

That is, indeed, why Lent begins here, why so many saints have retreated there, and why we are invited, like Jesus, to enter that desert and remain there until Holy Week. 

Knowing that by, doing so, when we emerge, at the end of these 40 days, we might emerge victorious, having fought the good fight, as St. Paul says elsewhere, changed by our Lenten journey and, in the end, more fully conformed to Christ, whom we were looking for from the beginning.