First
Sunday of Lent, February 17, 2013
(Mt. 4:1-11)
"My son, when you come to serve God, prepare your soul for
temptation."
(Ecclesiastes - Sirach) 2:1
Today
is the first of the six Sundays of Lent, and today we will talk about temptation.
No matter how holy or charitable we think we are, if we resolve to serve the
Lord we will be tempted. Even our Lord,
in obedience to His Father, was led into the desert by the Holy Spirit to be
tempted. Jesus could not fall to the temptations of Satan, but He allowed
temptation to teach us how to handle them.
What
weapon did Our Lord use against Satan? It was none other than the weapon we
read about in Psalm 90, Verse 1: “He that
dwelleth in the aid of the most High, shall abide under the protection of the
God of Jacob.” Jesus told Satan, “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” (Matthew 4: 5) We cannot respond in those same words because we are not
God, but we can trust in the promises of Psalm 90, and when we are tempted we
can say, “I believe.” And Who is it we believe in? “God, the Father Almighty.”
When you are tempted, recite and pray the Creed and recite and pray Psalm 90 – “He shall say to the Lord: Thou art my protector, and my
refuge: my God, in him will I trust . . . His truth shall compass thee with a
shield: thou shalt not be afraid . . . He hath given His angels charge over
thee; to keep thee in all thy ways . . . Because he hoped in me I will deliver
him . . . He shall cry to me, and I will hear him: I am with him in
tribulation, I will deliver him, and I will glorify him.” What harm Satan do to us when we pray: “I
believe in God and He is my Almighty Father.” By saying this we say that we do
not trust in ourselves to resist, but we trust in God, and it is only with trust
in God that we undertake combat with the devil.
St. John tells us (1 John 2: 16) that we have three enemies to fight: “For all
that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence
of the eyes, and the pride of life . . .“ Concupiscence of the flesh refers to a love of
sensual things. When not curbed, this love leads us into unlawful pleasures. Concupiscence
of the eyes refers to a love of the things of this world, riches, possessions
and power. These things dazzle our eyes, and then seduce our hearts. Pride of
life is an excess confidence in ourselves that can lead to vanity and make us
forget that everything we have, our lives and every good gift, comes from God.
These are the three temptations that Satan presented to Jesus in today’s Gospel.
The
first temptation was to the flesh, change these stones into bread. If Jesus
consented and filled His stomach, the devil would know that he is just another
mortal man, giving in to concupiscence like other men. The lesson Jesus teaches
us here is temperance. Temperance is the mother of purity, and intemperance
excites our senses to rebel against God.
The
second temptation is to pride, cast Thyself down and angels will bear Thee up.
Satan wanted to know (in Satan’s thinking) if the favors of heaven had produced
in Jesus that haughtiness and ungrateful attitude that makes a man credit to
himself all good things in his life, and then to forget that God is his true benefactor.
Jesus’ humility foils the tempter when he is quickly and quietly told, “Thou shalt not
tempt the Lord thy God.” Note that the Lord quotes Scriptures appropriately,
but Satan quotes them inappropriately. Satan
quotes Psalm 90: “That he hath given his angels charge over thee, and in
their hands shall they bear thee up, lest perhaps thou dash thy foot against a
stone.” This passage refers to the assistance that angels give to just persons in
removing obstacles on the road to heaven. We know Jesus is God, so we also know
that God, who can hold the universe in the palm of His hand, does not need an
angel to lift Him up.
The
third temptation is to ambition through the eyes. From the top of a high
mountain Satan shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and promises them to
Him if only Jesus would fall down and adore him. With this temptation, Satan
claims to be the Creator and owner of all the kingdoms of the world as well as
of the whole universe, and this brings forth a rebuke from the Lord because
this is a sin against His Father. “Begone Satan!” Jesus says and drives the
devil away by the authority of His command. The lesson we should learn here is
to hate the riches of the world, if obtaining those riches means that we
worship Satan in order to get them.
Note
how our Lord teaches us to reject temptations without delay. Temptations
proceed along a set course: first the temptation presents itself to us; second,
is called delectation, where we consider the temptation and we delight in it;
the third is when we consent to the sin. The way to deal with temptations is the
way Jesus did – do not consider them even
for a second. Reject them immediately.
These Lenten days of fast and penance
are given to us to help us redeem our sins and save our souls. We fast for 40
days, as Moses (Exodus 34: 28) and
Elias (3 Kings 19: 7 & 8) did,
and as the Son of God did. But why did God’s Son fast? And why is there fasting
after Baptism? Fasting is the first law of God and goes back to the Garden of
Eden – abstain from eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil. We know that fasting is good for us because our Lord also fasted in the
tradition of Moses and Elias. Further, we know that fasting displeases the
devil, otherwise why would Satan have seduced Adam and Even to disobey God’s
precept to fast in the Garden? Pope St. Gregory reminds us that it was “not
unworthy of our Redeemer, who came to be slain, that he was willing to be
tempted.” Rather, it was right “that he should overcome our temptations by his
own temptations,” just as he came to conquer our death by his own death.
Remember
our Lord’s patience and calmness in the face of Satan’s temptations. The devil
will tempt all of us with lust, gluttony, greed, laziness, wrath, envy and
pride – the seven deadly sins. Fasting
will make us masters of our bodies and enable us to remain patient and calm in
the face of these temptations. +++
We Celebrate the Traditional Tridentine Latin
Mass
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