First Reading
Genesis 9:8-15
1. God made a covenant with us, and “with every living creature … ” Does that reconfigure your attitude toward all creation––“our common home,” including the environment?––How ?
2. Why do you think God chose a rainbow to be a sign of this covenant? Was it a sign for future generations, us included, as well as Noah’s family?
Second Reading
1 Peter 3:18-22
1. Compare Noah with Christ: Noah brings people out of the flood into a new creation; Christ to a new life or transformative experience through the waters of baptism.
2. Baptism is about dying and rising. Do you have any Lenten plans that might impact your dying to self or, figuratively speaking, rising from the dead?
Gospel
Mark 1:12-15
1. “He was among the wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him.” What are the “wild beasts” today? Are they personal wild beasts or community ones? Climate crises? Pandemic? Racial discrimination?
What angels minister to you? To whom do you yourself minister?
2. “The Spirit drove Jesus into the desert and he remained in the desert for forty days.” Pope Francis calls the forty days of Lent an invitation to conversion. Do you need some kind of conversion? Is there something new within or around you waiting to be created?
With its invitations to conversion, Lent comes providentially to awaken us, to rouse us from torpor (sluggish inactivity). … Why must we return to God? Because something is not right in us, not right in society, in the Church and we need to change, to give it a new direction. And this is called needing to convert!
Once again Lent comes to make its prophetic appeal, to remind us that it is possible to create something new within ourselves and around us, simply because God is faithful, always faithful, for he cannot deny himself, he continues to be rich in goodness and mercy, and he is always ready to forgive and start afresh. With this filial confidence, let us set out on the journey.
Homily of Pope Francis
Basilica of Santa Sabina
March 5, 2014, final paragraph
