Stripped

In today's Gospel from St. Mark, Jesus goes to the desert and stays there for forty days, and he is tempted by Satan.
To stay in the desert is to stay before God, free from distractions and bereft of our securities. We remain by ourselves with God. And it is only then that we recognize the lures of the tempter. We see clearly the essentials and how the journey to disillusionment is always sugarcoated, passing off as desirable to our senses. We are called to make a choice.