As we still trudge through snow, slush and some mud, we think about the warm south where spring training has begun. Spring training features getting back to the basics of the game, what is most fundamental, what is most necessary, what are the best moves. Those tried and tested methods of the games don’t change.

Well, as Catholics: Welcome to Lent, to spring training. The first week of Lent: the ashes will wear off from our foreheads, but hopefully they have not worn off from our spirits. In church, we hear readings that, just like spring training, relive for us the basics of our faith. The story of the fall of Adam and Eve, the temptations of Christ in the desert, and Paul’s words about sin, condemnation, disobedience and righteousness all bring us back into the core realities of our faith and of our human condition and tell us the truth about human reality and the value of divine intervention into the history of humanity in the person of Jesus Christ.

The garden story of Adam and Eve portrays not so much an event as much as an attitude. This attitude existed in them and continues to pervade humanity today. In a nutshell: I do what I want; I am a better judge of right and wrong than anyone else; I decide the best route to follow.

The story of Adam and Eve clearly tells us the wrong of Adam and Eve because they wanted to be so right. In discovering their nakedness they revealed their sin. Covering their bodies, they try to cover their guilt. We sometimes do the same when we are guilty of doing wrong. We cover our guilt or blame someone else as they blamed the serpent.

Adam and Eve fell victim to temptation. Then, in the Gospel, Jesus faces three different temptations. All three contain a common core: misusing power for one’s own purposes rather than God’s purposes. Adam and Eve fell into that trap. They wanted the power that could come to them from the forbidden tree. Jesus does not give in to the temptations.

All three temptations of Jesus involve the misuse of power. Bread symbolizes the misuse of ordinary human power for food, shelter and clothing. The second temptation focuses on the misuse of religious power. Jesus can have all the nations of the world. The third temptation revolves around the political power Jesus could have if he worshipped the devil.

In all three temptations: human, political and religious, Jesus says no. One word characterizes Jesus’ reaction: fidelity. Adam and Eve displayed infidelity to God. Jesus responds to all three temptations with fidelity, commitment to the Father, commitment to truth and integrity.

So, in Lent, we begin our spring training by returning to the basics of our humanity and our faithfulness to God. We must never imitate Adam and Eve and pretend that our will supersedes God’s will. We need to imitate the same level of commitment as did Jesus. Like Jesus, our strength is not situated in power and control. We find our strength in commitment and fidelity to the basics of our faith in God.

In this Lenten season we can imitate the words of Jesus: “Get behind me, Satan. I do not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. I can listen only to the word of God. I shall worship only the Lord God and serve him alone.” AMEN.