“To fulfil life and its freedom, it is necessary to stand the test that freedom itself implies, that is, temptation”. It was said by Pope Benedict XVI at the Angelus, in Saint Peter’s Square, yesterday morning. “On getting rid of the slavery of falsehood and sin – added then the Pope, commenting the Gospel on the first Lent Sunday,- the human person finds the full meaning of its existence and reaches peace, love and joy, by obeying the faith which paves the way for the truth”. The Pope recalled the image of the desert, which is “a quite clear metaphor of the human condition”. On mentioning the Exodus Book, which “narrates the experience of the Israeli people getting out of Egypt and wandering in the Sinai desert for forty years, before reaching the Promised Land”, he said that during that journey, the Hebrew “experimented the whole power and insistence of the Tempter, who encouraged them to lose their faith in the Lord and to go back; however, at the same time, thanks to the mediation of Moses, they learnt to listen to the voice of God, who invited them to become His holy people”.
