Fr. Jorge Miró shares with Exaudi readers his commentary on the  Gospel for Sunday, February 15, 2026,  entitled, “You shall worship only the Lord your God.”

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We have begun  Lent ,  the journey towards Easter,  to meet the Risen Lord who  passes through your life  every day   , to meet you.

This time is a  time of grace , a time that the Lord gives us to renew our Christian life.

It is a time when, as we have heard in the Gospel,  the Holy Spirit also leads us into the desert , as He did Jesus. As the prophet Hosea says: “  I will bring my people into the desert and speak tenderly to them .”

What is the desert?  The desert is the place where we are stripped of our security.  And that’s why the desert is different for everyone, because each of us places our security in a different place. The desert is the place where there is “nothing,” where one can cling to nothing but God. And that’s why the desert experience is a time of blessing, because  it is an invitation to cling to the Lord, and to the Lord alone.

And there  we hear his voice,  a voice, a word that is always a word of love, a word of life and salvation. And that is why  the Lord invites us to let ourselves be led by the Spirit  in this desert, so that we may encounter the Lord.

We began  the season of Lent  with the imposition of  ashes , a very eloquent sign  that reminded us that we are dust , that you are dust. That is to say, you do not give life to yourself, that everything you are and everything you have you have received; and you have received it freely. Therefore, it is a sign that invites you to live in grace, to cling to the Lord, because  only from the Lord does life come , only Jesus Christ is the cornerstone, only He can give you the life you are seeking.

This sign  also reminded us  of something very important and necessary in these times:  you are not God.  Amidst the arrogance, pride, and self-sufficiency we so often see in this world, this sign reminds us of that as well:  remember  that you are not  God, that you are not the master of your life , your history, or good and evil… that you do not belong to yourself, that your life belongs to the Lord, and that, therefore,  we are called to live for the Lord  and to live everything with the Lord.

And the Word also invites us to this conversion, to recognize that  this is the great sin that plagues us so often.  This is the original sin we heard about in the first reading:  wanting to be like God, without God.  Wanting to wrest sovereignty from God… And this is what leads us to death every day. Because without the Lord we are nothing.

And that is why  this word is a call to conversion :  Have mercy on us, Lord, for we have sinned.  It is  an invitation to surrender our sins to the Lord  and ask for forgiveness. With a certainty, as we heard in the second reading, that there is no proportion between grace and sin, no proportion between transgression and gift. And  where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more . Therefore, if you truly confess your sins, surrender them to the Lord, and live with a genuine desire for conversion, the Lord will always grant you his forgiveness, his mercy, because God loves you, he created you out of love, and God does not desire the death of the sinner; what he desires is that he be converted and live.

And the Gospel, moreover, has reminded us how  the Christian life is a battle , a serious battle, because  the devil, like a roaring lion, prowls around looking for someone to devour . Jesus experienced this battle, and we too are called to experience it. The Gospel has made this battle concrete in  three  important temptations that we encounter throughout human life.

The first  temptation is to  place our security in material things —money, bread, material possessions. And  today the Lord invites us to live in trust.  We need material things. We are not angels, we are not pure spirits; we need to eat. And the Lord has invited us to ask for our daily bread in the Lord’s Prayer. But our security is not in bread; our security is in the certainty that God loves us and cares for us every day. That is why He reminds us that  man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

The  second  is the  desire to manipulate God . It’s about living not in faith, but in a kind of natural religiosity, trying to get God to do what we want, our own plan. But the person of faith doesn’t live like that. The person of faith knows that God cares for them and therefore doesn’t want to manipulate God, but lives each day saying, “Thy will be done.” And that’s why this Gospel has reminded us of it as well: “You  shall not put the Lord your God to the test ,” you shall not manipulate God, but rather you shall enter into His will.

And the  third  is the desire  to find life in the idols  of the world : in money, power, pleasure, success, work, beauty—in so many things. But life isn’t found there, and that’s why the Gospel has spoken to us with such force: ”  You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him alone shall you serve .” Heaven is reached  by descending.

What are   the temptations in your life  today ? How do you fight against them?

The Gospel on Wednesday reminded us  of three  means  for spiritual combat:  prayer  and meditation on the Word of God,  fasting  , and  almsgiving .

Take heart! Ask for the Holy Spirit. Say to Him with the Psalm:  Create in me a pure heart, renew a steadfast spirit within me… Restore to me the joy of your salvation.

Come, Holy Spirit!