​            Here in Australia we are sensitive when it comes to our privacy, aren’t we? However we have no right to individual privacy in Australian law. That’s why photographers, generally speaking, can freely photograph everyday situations, people and places providing they aren’t breaking any other laws. They would break law if without permission they took a photo of someone while being in a private property like a home or … a shopping center. Streets, public parks or public buildings don’t have this restriction. One could even take a photo of a person or people who were on their veranda or in their backyard if he or she stood with a camera in the public space. One however cannot photograph people inside their home.
            My Dear Sisters and Brothers! The Gospel passage for this Sunday may look like an invasion of Jesus’ privacy. He went to the desert to be on his own. It wasn’t meant to be. His intense time of prayer and fasting was interrupted by the devil. As we embark on our Lenten journey we need to be realistic. Whatever your Lenten resolutions are there is someone who will not leave you alone. The devil will invade your prayer, fasting or almsgiving not simply to tempt you to break them but so that you may start judging yourself of not worthy of God because of your weakness. This weakness can be evident when we don’t persevere in our Lenten resolutions but it is even more apparent when we sin again and again.
As we come to observe the first Sunday of Lent in the opening prayer, the collect, which followed immediately the penitential act as we don’t sing Gloria on Sundays during this season, we asked God: ‘that we may grow in the riches hidden in Christ.’ Being a Christian, a disciple of Jesus, I am determined to come ‘to know him more clearly so that I may love him more dearly and follow him more nearly, day by day’ as St Richard of Chichester, an English bishop from the twelfth, century prayed. St Luke the Evangelist had the same determination for himself and for other Christians. However we can be sure that he was not spying on Jesus in the desert hiding behind a bush. How do we know about Jesus’ temptations? The devil didn’t publicize it. He lost that battle. If we know about that event it is because Jesus shared the memory of it with his disciples. He invited his disciples and us as well ‘to grow in his hidden riches.’ The richness of his divinity and humanity as the beloved Son of God is the environment for our Christian growth.
My Friends! The way the devil tempted Jesus is a clue how the devil tempts us. The devil hadn’t had an experience how to tempt God as before God hadn’t become man. The ‘expertise’ the devil used was how he uually attacks people.
Before Jesus went to the desert he was baptized in the Jordan. There he heard the voice of his heavenly Father: ‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.’ As I said before that’s Jesus’ richness. That’s his treasure. That’s his motivation and his strength. He is the beloved Son of God. No one can convince him otherwise. However the devil didn’t know that. Why didn’t he know it? Because many times before he had succeeded in convincing people that they were not the beloved children of God. Do you remember Adam and Eve for example? So he went on with his well-rehearsed and practiced technique.
‘If you are the Son of God, - said the devil - tell this stone to turn into a loaf.’ Couldn’t Jesus do it? Of course he could. Bu he didn’t need to turn a stone into bread to prove that he’s the Son of God. Sometime later however as the Son of God out of compassion for us the lost and doubting, but still beloved, sons and daughters of God he would turn bread into his scared body.
‘Worship me – said the devil – and I will give you all this power and the glory of these kingdoms.’ Why would Jesus fall for that? He knew what it was to be the beloved sharer of the Kingdom of his Father. Sometime later however out of compassion for us the lost and doubting, but still beloved, sons and daughters of God he would kneel in front of Peter and other Apostles to wash their feet. He the only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father saw clearly who those people were, the beloved children of God. He saw it despite their shortcomings, their weaknesses and their sins.
‘If you are the Son of God – the devil said – throw yourself down from here, from the top of the Jerusalem Temple.’ Jesus didn’t need to fly like the Superman to prove that he’s the Son of God. He chose to walk firmly on the earth instead so that sometime later as the Son of God out of compassion for us the lost and doubting, but still beloved, sons and daughters of God, he took the cross to the Hill of Calvary and was raised above the crowd on that cross by the hatred of some people. The hatred was generated by the sins of all of us who are so easily convinced that we are not the beloved sons and daughters of God.
Beloved Daughters and Sons of God. We have no right to individual privacy in Australian law but we do have right to inherit the Kingdom of our Heavenly Father as his children. If anyone challenges this right of yours turn to Jesus Christ, your Saviour, your Messiah, your Redeemer but also you brother.

                       A few days ago an elderly woman visited our presbytery asking to see a priest. She was exhausted and sad. The reason she put herself through all this trouble to travel some distance, changing trams twice on a hot day, was the suffering she was going through after the conviction of Cardinal George Pell was made public. In her fragility caused by her age she became even more fragile because of the hurt, confusion and doubt she was experiencing.
            My Dear Sisters and Brothers in faith! The image of that fragile fellow believer of ours has stayed with me as a prophetic image of our Church today. Our Archbishop Peter Andrew Comensoli, in his letter to all of us, put it in this way: ‘Your heart is hurting; and your home of faith is hurting.’ Home of faith that’s our Church community. The words of our Archbishop and the image of that elderly woman I find as something I can recall as I pray and reflect on the events which have been unfolding. As we are hurting our Archbishop has invited us ‘to never forget those who walk with this pain every day, whose lives remain devastated by the impact of sexual abuse inflicted on them in their vulnerability.’ Suffering can damage people. We know it well. That’s why I turn to Our Blessed Mother who stood at the foot of the cross and looked at the suffering body of her Son Jesus Christ. She didn’t have power to change it. She didn’t have a means to change it. But she wasn’t hopeless. She loved that suffering body. She held fast to her faith that God was to bring salvation out of that. We call the Church the Body of Christ. Today this Body is severely hurt. It is suffering. At the heart of that suffering Body are those who were abused by the people who were called to show them the face of Christ. In this suffering Body we also see other holy People of God who are hurting because they love the Church, because they love Jesus Christ. You haven’t chosen this situation. You may be asking now how to deal with this situation. Let me tell you what I will be doing. The holy season of Lent is just a few days away. In our churches we will walk the Stations of the Cross. I will make it my Lenten practice to use so called ‘Mary’s Stations of the Cross.’ The reflections help us to look at Jesus’ way to Golgotha through the eyes of Our Blessed Mother. Some years ago I participated in such Stations of the Cross. The reflections were read by a woman who lost her son to a suicide. She carried a lot of suffering, as she led us through the prayers it all came back to her again, this time however she went through her suffering with the suffering Virgin Mary. I will walk this Lent with Mary praying to draw grace to look at the suffering Body of Christ, which are the suffering people of God, the way she looked at the suffering Body of Christ walking through the streets of Jerusalem to the Calvary.
            My Dear Fellow Believers! In the Gospel Jesus said to his disciples to ‘take a plank out of their own eyes.’ For a long time, far too long, such a blank was the blindness of some of our Church people to the tragedy of sexual abuse. This stigma will not disappear any time soon. However as I look with Mary at Jesus I see him carrying a horizontal beam. He also said to us: ‘Take up your cross and follow me.’ Thank God we are not blind to the suffering of the survivors of sexual abuse any more. Today at the verge of Lent maybe the Lord Jesus is pointing out to us the plank we have taken out of our eyes and invites us to take it up with humility and responsibility. I hope and I pray that it can bring healing and new life to each one of us hurting at the moment and to our hurting home of faith.