Pope Francis devoted his Angelus address on February 18, the First Sunday of Lent, to the wild beasts and angels that were present with Christ in the desert.
Our disordered passions, he told pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square, are akin to wild beasts; the angels, on the other hand, are “God’s messengers, who help us, who do us good: indeed, their characteristic, according to the Gospel, is service.”
The Pope continued, “We can ask ourselves, first, what are the disordered passions, the ‘wild beasts’ that agitate in my heart? Second question: to permit the voice of God to speak to my heart and to preserve it in goodness, am I thinking of retreating a little into the ‘wilderness,’ am I trying to dedicate space in the day to this?”
“May the Holy Virgin, who kept the Word and did not let herself be touched by the temptations of the evil one, help us on our Lenten journey,” he concluded.