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By Father Stefan Starzynski




How many times have we said at the end of Lent, “I wish that I had a better Lent”? Here we are at the beginning of a new Lent. We have another opportunity to begin anew. Lent is about preparing our hearts to receive Jesus on Easter Sunday.

We are told in the scriptures that the Spirit drove Jesus into the desert. The same Spirit drives us into the desert. The desert has two purposes in the scriptures. The desert is the place where we are tested and stripped of the illusions that we have created about ourselves. The Desert is the place where we can hear and meet God.

We find an example of this desert experience in the life of Moses. Moses went into the desert for forty years in exile, but Moses experiences God on Mount Sinai. Moses had to go into the desert for forty years before he met the Living God in the Burning Bush. The Prophet Hosea says that God in the desert comes to us as a Groom meeting His Bride. God prepares us to become his bride in the desert.

One of the titles of Mary is the Rose of Sharon. This rose is a desert Rose. It is small, delicate and beautiful. This Rose springs up in the desert.  In the morning the petals capture a single drop of dew. The rose protects the dew from the heat of the desert. The dew also gives nourishment to the rose. In the desert we meet God and God meets us. The Rose of Sharon is an image of the Blessed Mother and of every Christian. The Dew is an Image of Jesus.

We are called to be like Mary and receive the dew of God’s Word. In the desert of Lent our hearts are made more sensitive to the small ways that God comes to us.

How many people say that they have a hard time hearing God? In order to be able to hear God we first have to enter into the desert. May this Lent be a time when we make a journey into the desert in order to hear the still small voice of God.

May we come to know that we are God’s precious rose in the desert of the world.

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