Make Known to Me Your Ways, O Lord!

 In today's responsorial psalm, Psalm 25, we pray:  Your ways, O Lord, make known to me; teach me your paths, guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my savior. Remember that your compassion, O Lord, and your love are from of old. In your kindness remember me, because of your goodness, O Lord, thus [you show]sinners the way. [You guide] the humble to justice, and [you teach] the humble [your] way."

God's compassion is revealed to us, also, in today's first reading, Genesis 9: 8-15, where God promised Noah never again to destroy the earth and all that is in it by a devastating flood: "When I bring clouds over the earth, and the bow appears in the clouds, I will recall the covenant I have made between me and you and all living beings, so that the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all mortal beings."

The flood waters from which Noah and eight other people were saved prefigured our baptism. In that sacrament, a sign of our redemption, we were saved by Christ Jesus, who "suffered for sins once, the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, that he might lead [us] to God. Put to death in the flesh, [Jesus] was brought to life in the Spirit"  and you and I with Him (compare today's second reading: 1 Peter 3: 18-22).

In today's Gospel, Mark 1: 12-15, the "Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert..., [where] he remained...for forty days, tempted by Satan. He was among wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him."   Like Jesus, you and I are often driven out into the desert of our lives. At those times it can feel like we are "among wild beasts."  It is in those deserts that God send angels to minister to us, guide us, comfort us and teach us that we do "not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God," (the Gospel Acclamation of today's liturgy).  

Lord, when the Spirit drives me out into a desert, please "make known to me" your ways. In those moments of difficulty, when the light seems to have gone out, or at least is seriously dimmed, "teach me your paths, guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my savior. Remember that your compassion, O Lord, and your love are from of old. In  your kindness, remember me, because of your goodness, O Lord" (Psalm 25).