First Sunday of Lent C.   February 21, 2010.  Our Lady of Grace 7:30, 9:30.  Deuteronomy 26: 4-10.Romans 10: 8-13.  Luke 4: 1-13.

When is the last time that you have been alone for a whole day?  I mean really alone, without the telephone, the computer, the TV and Radio.  Most of us find ourselves reaching for the button on the car radio to break the silence of the ride to work or to school.  When we have a spare moment we immediately begin text messaging a friend.  If we are unable to turn things on, we may break the silence by listening to the noise in our heads. We play our worries over and over again in our minds. We let our imaginations take us on a mental journey to the edge of hell or into the fantasy of an unreal world. Why are we so afraid of silence?  Why do we fill up our empty time with distractions of all kinds?

For many of us the most unexplored part of our lives and our world is the part that is inside of us.  Deep within us there are thoughts, feelings, desires, wishes, values and attitudes that silently run our lives.  I remember telling my spiritual director that I was feeling really depressed.  I was dealing with a deteriorating knee and the prospect of knee replacement surgery.  After listening to me for a long time my spiritual director said, “I don’t think that you are depressed at all.  I think that you are sad.  I think that you are sad because you are getting older.  I think that you are sad because your body doesn’t always work as well as it did.  Being sad is a normal part of life.  Depressed people have trouble working, eating and sleeping.  You don’t.”   Well, I left his office smiling and saying to myself – you are only sad, you are not depressed.  Many of us do not understand our inner world very well.  This may be truer of men than of women, but it is true of all of us.  Depression is also an extraordinarily real inner state of mind and soul.  As the signs by the highway say, “Depression Kills”. Many people do not realize that they are depressed. They don’t understand depression and they don’t face the fact that it is happening inside of them.  People who do not understand and do not face what is going on inside of them may not get the help and treatment they need until their depression has gone too far and they are in danger of taking their own life. It would appear that Tiger Woods is dealing with a severe sexual addiction. He was too popular and rich to take the time to look at his own inside; how his unexamined inner life has come very close to ruining his career.

It was not an accident that Jesus went into the desert for forty days to be alone with his inner life.   His time in the desert allowed him to claim the grace of being Son of God.   The first temptation presented by the devil questioned the most basic identity of Jesus: “If you are the Son of God.”   The devil says, “If you are so sure that you are the Son of God – well then prove it.  Prove it to yourself and to me. Command this stone to become bread.”   We have all experienced self-doubt.  We have all experienced crises of identity of one kind or another. “ Did your father and mother really love you?  Is your husband or wife faithful and loving?  Are your friends telling you the truth about how they feel about you?   Does God still love you even with your sins”?     Our identity is a gift from God.  It is a gift that we give to one another.  Our identity doesn’t need to be proven.  Jesus said, “We do not live by bread alone” – or by proof alone.  We live by trust and faith in God’s word to us.  We can not prove faith – But faith and trust are what give us security about our lives. Perhaps we run from silence because we don’t want to face and resolve our doubts about our identity. And running from inner silence we never strengthen our inner sense of identity either.  We have to be alone with ourselves long enough to trust the voice within us tell us who we are.

One of the hardest evil spirits to face is a gnawing sense of our own powerlessness and vulnerability.  Do I have the inner strength and resources to face the challenges of my life?  I have a young dog that will probably live another ten years.  I said to someone recently “What am I going to do with that big dog when I retire?”  The person I was worrying out loud to said, “Do we have to think about that problem today?  When the time comes you will know what to do.”   We don’t like to face our inner struggles and find out that we are powerless to solve them now.  The devil said to Jesus “I shall give you all this power and glory, for it has been handed over to me and I can give it to anyone I wish.”   Many of us flee from our fears about power and lack of power.  We may even make business deals with the devil to cover our fears rather than trust that reaching more deeply into ourselves and responding to fear with the words of Jesus, “You shall worship the Lord your God and him alone shall you serve.”   Trust allows us to live honestly with our fears. Trust allows us to rest in God.

The devil tries the identity move on Jesus one more time:  “If you are the Son of God – make a display of yourself – throw yourself down from the tower of the temple and force God to catch you – then everyone will know who you are including you!”   Self doubt seems to be a big issue in the way that the devil works with Jesus and the way that the devil works with you and me. Our sense of who we are in the very core of our being makes us both peaceful and the productive in the unfolding of our lives.  While people like our parents had a strong influence over our inner sense of ourselves, inner peace and a strong sense of identity is something we must claim for ourselves. Jesus tells the devil, “You must trust – you shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.”

Entering into silence with our thoughts, feelings, desires, attitudes and values and confronting our demons in silence is essential to a healthy, holy and wholesome life.   Give yourself desert time this Lent.  Spend an hour alone each week in our Adoration Chapel.  Go on a long, reflective walk by yourself.  Spend some time alone at home.  Go on a retreat. Talk about opening your inner life with a trusted friend or a counselor.  Make a good and thoughtful confession.  Many in our society are afraid of the desert.  Jesus teaches us that the desert is an important part of a full and meaningful life.  Perhaps it is time to stop chasing our tails and to face the depths of our own heart in silence.  For the grace to choose to spend time in the desert during Lent we give God thanks and praise.