Ars Praedicandi: First Sunday of Lent

By Edward Foley, OFM, Cap., February 20, 2026

A good friend has two sons.
When they were very young, 
the older loved school
while the younger disliked it with a vengeance.

       Thus, after his first day at kindergarten, 
              when his father asked the youngest how it all went,
              he declared his unhappiness with the whole affair
              and then with absolute seriousness asked 
              “Do I have to go back tomorrow?”

       The startled father masked his amusement
              responding with a firm “yes,”
              later confessing that he didn’t have the heart to tell him
                     that he’d have to keep going back
                      not just tomorrow but for the next 17 years.

 Sometimes I feel a bit like that kindergartener:
not when it comes to school, but when it comes to Lent.

This is not my favorite season,
And sometimes I ask God if I have to go back and do it again;
I am not sure God is amused.

While I could easily do Advent all year
with its spirit of joyful expectation
and uplifting readings from the great prophets,
              Lent requires serious work – 
the spiritual equivalent to enduring a Chicago winter,
demanding special energy to survive one more polar vortex. 

Fortunately, I recently found an admittedly odd motivation
for entering into Lent more willingly this year:
which is the unfortunate state of our country and our world.

Pope Leo summed it up well last month,
bluntly acknowledging that 
“War is back in vogue and a zeal for war is spreading.”

It also seems that man-made famine, 
the suppression of civil rights,
and a frontal assault on human dignity is also back in vogue.

In the US it increasingly feels, at least to me, 
as though we are at war with each other:
left against right
White against Black
even our government against its own people.

Recently, the U.S. consumer sentiment was reported to have fallen
to its lowest level in over a decade,
with well over 75% of us rating the economy
as “poor” or “not so good.”

I wonder what the parallel rating might be if we had
a “Civil Liberties Confidence Index”
or a “National Human Dignity Barometer?”

I fear that it would be so low
that no amount of media spin
could raise it above the state of miserable. 

While that could sound like an exaggeration,
consider this experience: a few weeks ago,
I returned to Ethiopia to teach at my community’s seminary. 

On February 8th, I concelebrated the English Mass 
at our parish in the capital, Addis Ababa: populated by 
several diplomats from the surrounding embassies. 

During the prayer of the faithful, after the usual intentions,
there was an explicit prayer for the US government.

I audibly gasped as this so-called third world country
with a gross national product similar to the state of Mississippi,
was praying that the all-powerful US
might respect the human rights of its own citizens. 

As the only US-onian in this packed church,
I was humbled by this difficult gift.

              And then it struck me: being humbled is an appropriate stance
for trekking back into the desert with Jesus
where the distractions are fewer,
the face of evil is unmistakable, 
and the Jesus way forward is uncompromising. 

Two powerful reflections on today’s readings 
were especially helpful 
in nudging me back into the Jesus desert. 

One was a brilliant exegesis of the Genesis reading 
by a favorite theologian,
who not only notes that this is our first biblical account of sin, 
but also that it distinguishes sin from its motivation.

She writes: “The sin itself was disobedience, 
but the inclination that gave rise to it was a form of hubris:          
the desire to be like gods…
It is admirable to want to be like God, 
But it is hubris to [try to act like God].

There is an ancient maxim that asserts that might is right,
but maybe with all that is unfolding in
Gaza and Ukraine 
Greenland and Venezuela 
Minnesota and Maine
  we are learning that might is not always right,
but is sometimes just unadulterated hubris,
wielding power in the hope of becoming some kind of god.   

Today’s gospel exemplifies might not simply as right 
but as an exercise in discerning justice 
as power wielded not to be like God but to serve God.

The New Testament consistently portrays Jesus as powerful,
 teaching with authority,
healing the sick,
even raising people from the dead.

But he never deploys his power
to diminish, humiliate or crush,
except if you were an evil spirit. 

 Jesus never exercises power to burnish his own reputation,
like demanding that the Temple Mount be renamed after him
in return for some miracle.

 Even when tempted to hubris
by a clever scripture-spouting demon,
he never gives in to self-aggrandizement, 
but instead offers a master class in kingdom living. 

Consider today’s spiritual tango
between the princes of peace and darkness.

The first demonic volley takes aim at Jesus’ vulnerable humanity.  
While the gospel does not indicate 
which Sunday in Lent the bread temptation was launched, 
the prince of darkness had been scoping out this rabbi 
ever since that thunderous voice proclaimed 
this raggamuffin teacher standing drenched in the Jordan
to be God’s Beloved. 

That was a proposition that must be tested.
So maybe on desert-day 23,
when this supposed god-man 
was sufficiently weakened by a lack of sustenance, 
it was time to pounce.

This wasn’t a “wanna cookie” bribe
or “how about a beer” invite.

No. This was a “wanna survive?” assault,
a feigned “you’re not looking well” concern,
a clever “your blood sugar is dangerously low” ploy.

 The devil was goading God’s beloved to stay strong
for all the tough messiah work ahead, 
reminding him what his and every mother says:
“you have to eat…”
“So, Mary’s son, conjure up some grub,
just a small miracle for the new Wunderkind from Nazareth!”

But Jesus wasn’t so easily duped,
and made it clear to the tempter 
that he didn’t need to fill his stomach 
by conjuring a pepperoni pizza out of thin air.

More precisely, he had no desire to be full of himself.
Instead, he proclaimed his mission
not to fill his stomach, but to fill his soul:
saying “no” to hubris but “yes” to humility;
“no” to pretense but “yes” to holy presence,
reminding the dark angel
that the true nourishment provided by his Mom,
since she herself was “full of grace”
was the sustenance that only comes from God. 

Thus, the pointed Jesus retort that nothing compelled him 
to practice a little magic,
to amuse the purveyor of evil,
or silence his grumbling stomach,
feed his ambition,
or boost his reputation.

On September 26^th, 1983
Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrove of the Soviet Air
Defense Forces was the officer on duty
at the Serpukhov-15 bunker near Moscow.
The world was a powder keg;
the Soviet Union had recently shot down
a Korean passenger jet,
and Cold War tensions were at a breaking point.

Suddenly, the sirens wailed.
Satellite screens flashed red with one word: “LAUNCH.” 
The system reported that the U.S. had fired five nuclear missiles,
now screaming toward Soviet soil.

Petrov’s standing orders were clear.
He was a cog in a rigid military machine,
required to report the launch immediately
to his superiors.  
If he followed the rules, the Soviet leadership—
operating on a “launch on warning” policy—
would have initiated a full-scale retaliatory
nuclear strike against the U.S.

Petrov knew that his system was top-of-the-line,
but he knew that something was wrong.
He reasoned that if the Americans were
going to start World War III,
they wouldn’t do it with just five missiles;
they would send hundreds to overwhelm Russian defenses.

Petrov told his superiors it was a false alarm,
despite having no concrete proof
other than his own intuition.
He effectively gambled his career, his freedom,
and potentially millions of Soviet lives on the hope
that the computer was wrong.  

The world did not experience a nuclear winter
because Petrov’s instincts and hopes for humanity were correct:
The “missiles” were actually sunlight reflecting off the tops of high-altitude clouds, which the satellite had misinterpreted.  

However, Petrov wasn’t a hero in the eyes of the Soviet military.
He was interrogated, rejected for promotion,
and eventually reassigned to a less sensitive post before retiring.
He lived out his life in relative obscurity and poverty
because he exercised his power for the common good,
not for the glory of his homeland, later reflecting
“I was just doing my job.
But they were lucky it was me on shift that night.”

And so with the poet we pray:

We drag our feet like children to the sand, 
Reluctant in the cold and biting gale, 
While hubris seeks to grip the weary hand 
And whispers that the “mighty” must prevail.

But in the waste, the Raggamuffin King 
Rejects the crown that hollow power hides, 
And teaches us that Lent is not a sting,
But where the Spirit’s breath alone abides.

So let us trek where Jesus leads the way, 
Beyond the spin, the hatred, and the pride, 
To pray for foes and neighbors in the fray,
With nothing but the Spirit as our guide. 

Like one lone man who stayed the hand of war, 
We seek the peace that God has made us for; 
To leave our hubris at the desert door 
And walk as humble children evermore. 

Through Christ our Lord.

Edward Foley, OFM, Cap, Duns Scotus Professor of Spirituality Emeritus and retired Professor of Liturgy and Music at Catholic Theological Union, has authored or edited 33 books. His works are translated into 9 languages. A celebrated preacher and presenter, he received a major grant from the John Templeton Foundation for Preaching and the Sciences and another from the Lilly Endowment. A recipient of lifetime achievement awards from the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions, the North American Academy of Liturgy, the National Association of Pastoral Musicians, Aquinas Institute, and Barry University, as well as a preaching fellowship at Notre Dame University, he has lectured in over 70 dioceses throughout the English-speaking world.