The
voice of the serpent? the voice of death? or the Voice of God?
THE
WORD IN LENT 2026 – FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT
February
22 – Genesis 2:7-9, 3:1-7; Romans 5: 12-19; Matthew 4: 1-11
We have begun this Lent with the two-word orientation of our Holy Father – Listening and Fasting. The Word this Sunday and that of the next, invite us to ponder on the first term – listening! Listening, we know, is the most fundamental disposition for our Spiritual life and our growth in it.
Let us begin with a metaphor, from our daily life experience…
listening to a radio, a FM: nowadays it is has gone to advanced levels of spotifies
and podcasts… although analogously even they can be considered, the classical
functioning of a radio is an ideal metaphor to understand. When we switch on a
radio, it is not automatic that it plays. It has to be tuned to a particular frequency,
in order to hear or listen to a particular content. And as we tune, we keep passing
by so many other frequencies that play too…probably what we have chosen not to
hear. This one of the primitive experiences of channel surfing, which later
applied to satellite TVs and then to the internet and so on. One experience while
radio surfing could be that we stumble upon a frequency where something
interesting, attractive or capturing draws our attention. Either we get stuck
to that stumble and forget the original destination, or we are two minds whether
to follow on to where we were originally destined or to continue listening to
this new voice stumbled upon!
That metaphor can help us understand many a phenomenon we experience
in the world today – there are myriad voices that clamorously claim our
attention every day. So much so, on our project to Listen, the crucial question
that emerges would be: listen, yes, but to which voice? This is the first plane
of reflection that Lent this year invites us to: are we listening to the right
voice?
The voice of the serpent: One of the
many voices that we have to beware of is that of the evil one; the enemy who
constantly speaks to us, shouts into our ears, nags our hearts, fills our minds
with information – most of the times false, fake and foul. Just as we see in
the first reading of this Sunday, where the first parents are deceived by the voice
of the serpent, so do we run the risk of being hijacked by the enemy, who is “prowling
round like a roaring lion” as would explain St. Peter in his letter.
The danger that subsists in the of the voice of enemy is its overlay;
it is so superimposed that it looks good, sweet, acceptable, real, caring,
practical and functional. But it takes the Holy Spirit to understand that it
only looks so… and it is truly not so! The first parents were deceived… they
thought it was care, it was concern, it was an intention to help that the serpent
expressed. They failed to notice that the evil one was merely attempting to pit
them against their loving Creator, making them suspect the “Will of God” for
them.
In our personal and social experience too, we hear a lot of voices
– such that whisper: ‘after all you can do this’, ‘who is really going to know
about it’, ‘who said this is not good’, ‘what if you can do it and still get away
with it’… and so on. How late is it going to be, before we realise that those
are the voices of the evil one, voices of the enemy, voices of the serpent who
wants us to remain as far away from our Creator as possible, hidden from the absolute
Truth and Goodness.
The voice of death: Another set
of voices to be careful about is that which comes from the principle of death,
death which is the most powerful instrument within the domain of the evil one! Death
in itself is not evil… of course it is not. But when it is handled by the evil
one, it becomes a treacherous instrument of fear, of meaninglessness, and above
all of negativity.
There is so much negativity spread all over in today’s world. If
we are not careful we would listen to those voices that speak from the negative
corners of darkness and succumb to death. St. Paul warns us of it in the second
reading today, speaking to the Romans. He speaks of the death that reigns over
people, instead of allowing our Saviour to reign over us. When fear rules over
us, when ego determines everything that we do, when insensitivity blinds our
perspectives… we are in the reign of death. This is what Pope Benedict XIV
often warned us of – the culture of death that prevails in the world of today.
The culture of death makes us look at every one else as an object
to be used, competition to be won over, a disturbance to be avoided, a foe to
be curbed, a danger to be terminated… that is negativity. At all levels we see
this at work in the society: persons who look at their own siblings and family
members that way, sections of people looking at “other” sections of persons
that way, nations looking at other nations, and the whole world looking at “some”
in that manner… if we are not careful we will fall for these voices, saying
they are after all true and factual.
The Voice of God: We have to
really train ourselves to single out the Voice of God from the cacophonic noises
that the world is house to. That is a Lenten task – because it is an exercise
of spiritual discipline, a an of surrender to the Spirit, who alone can help us
do that. Jesus in the desert, does exactly that – surrenders himself to the Spirit
of the Lord and arms himself with the Word of God, in order to win over the misleading
voices that tempted him and listen to that One Voice of God: this is my beloved
Son!
The Voice of God is liberating – it liberates me from egoism, from
competitions and from pride of proving myself. The Voice of God is life-giving –
it makes me look at possibilities and not problems, positivities and not
pitfalls, persons and not threats! The Voice of God is lifting – it lifts my
spirit and does not make me feel like I am a failure, lifts my attention from
the material needs to the transcendental truths, lifts my priorities from
self-centred satisfactions to a holistic and integral fulfilment.
The Voice of God is the Word of God, which is the lamp to our feet,
the light on our way, the guide to our steps. It guides us through life and death,
towards a life that is eternal – the Words of eternal life!
