BELIZE
Fr Jordan Gongora, Diocesan Administrator of the Diocese of Belize City and Belmopan, is urging faithful to embrace the desert experience as a path of spiritual growth and purification for the Lenten season.
In his message via The Christian Herald, Fr Gongora begins by referencing the Gospel of Mark (1:12-13), where Jesus, after His Baptism, was led into the wilderness by the Spirit.
Fr Gongora commented that the desert is always seen as an “inhospitable place, a place to avoid traversing.” However, he highlighted that this very place of challenge and discomfort is where Jesus confronted temptation, setting “the stage for His redemptive mission. It was not going to be easy.”
Fr Gongora drew from his own experience recalling, “it is about avoiding our own reality of confronting our sinful nature and allowing God to purify and save us.”
The desert experience, he said, offers faithful “a great deal” of self-assurance, purification and divine assistance.
The Lenten season, he emphasised, beckons faithful “to go into our own desert. The desert of our own temptations, to confront those temptations by God’s Divine assistance. Whether it be daily temptations or spiritual dryness, it is always good to go into the desert of our lives.”
Fr Gongora observed one’s attitude and habits are not easy to change and the natural human inclination to resist change.
He consequently invited faithful to face, acknowledge and reverse their bad habits and actions into righteousness, and ask, ‘How deep do I need to go into my own desert to face off with my temptations and grow in God’s grace?’
