On this first Sunday of Lent, we at Our Lady of Silence begin again with the desert.
In the quiet of the cloister, we hear that the Lord was led away from the riverbanks of affirmation into a place stripped of comfort. The wilderness comes immediately after blessing. There is no lingering in consolation. For us monks, this pattern is familiar. After moments of clarity in prayer, there often follows dryness, distraction, and the surfacing of thoughts we would rather not claim. The Gospel reminds us that this is not failure. It is the terrain of purification.
The hunger of Christ in the desert speaks to our own. In monastic life, we fast not only from food but from noise, from self-assertion, from the restless need to justify ourselves. Yet beneath even these disciplines lies a deeper appetite — the desire to secure ourselves by our own strength. The first temptation touches precisely this point: to use what we have been given for self-satisfaction rather than for trust. It is subtle. It can look reasonable. But it shifts the heart away from reliance on the Father.
The second trial concerns spectacle and spiritual pride. To seek dramatic proof of God’s care, to place ourselves in danger so that we might feel chosen or protected, is a temptation that can visit even the cloister. It may not take the form of throwing oneself from heights, but it can appear as a hidden demand that God confirm our vocation through consolations, success, or visible fruit. The desert strips away such demands. God is not to be tested. He is to be loved in obscurity.
The final temptation reveals the most naked offer of all: power without obedience, glory without the cross. Every monk must confront this in quieter forms. The desire to control, to be admired for holiness, to shape the community according to one’s own vision — these are our kingdoms. Lent invites us to bow before God alone, to relinquish even the inward territories we guard.
What strengthens the Lord in the wilderness is not argument, nor force, but fidelity to the Word planted in his heart. For us, this is the daily labour of lectio divina. We return again and again to Scripture, not to master it but to let it master us, so that when testing comes, the truth already dwells within. In the desert of temptation, memory becomes salvation.
The Gospel ends not in struggle but in quiet service. After resistance comes peace. After obedience, there is consolation — not seized, but given. This is the pattern of Lent and, indeed, of monastic life itself.
As we begin these forty days, we do not seek heroic gestures. We ask simply for perseverance. May the wilderness within our own hearts become a place of encounter rather than fear. May hunger teach us trust. May silence reveal the false promises we still entertain. And may Christ, who walked this path before us, make of our desert a place where God alone is enough.