Download first sunday of lent, a - SAINT LEO THE GREAT RC CHURCH

Today’s readings show what the foundation of our spiritual life is, but from
the flip side. Our spiritual life true foundation is God’s grace, but today we see sin
through the eyes of temptation. The fact that the Lord himself was tempted
showed his humanity but above all the reason why He came to the world: to save
mankind from the devil.
In the first pages of Genesis we see clearly the psychology of the devil in
temptation:
 First, the tempter comes, he gets close to us as he did with Adam and Eve.
 Then there is a first insinuation: “Did God really tell you not to eat
from any of the trees in the garden?” The devil brings up conversation in
his own terms.
 What is the soul’s response? If we cut it right away, the temptation fades,
but if we don’t, then we are in danger: “The woman answered the serpent:
“We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; it is only about the
fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘You shall not
eat it or even touch it, lest you die.’” This is the type of dialogue that leads
to fall into temptation.
 Then comes a direct proposition to sin: “You certainly will not die! No,
God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened
and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is evil.” The
devil presents an enticing panorama. In this way the souls looses its
strength.
 The next step is indecision: it is an interior struggle that so very often
ends up in sin: “The woman saw that the tree was good for food,
pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom.”
 Voluntary consent follows: “So she took some of its fruit and ate it; and
she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.” Our
sins may lead others to sin as well.
 And the result of all this is disillusion: “Then the eyes of both of them
were opened, and they realized that they were naked…” The soul realizes
that the happiness of sin is all fake and that all is lost.
 Finally comes shame and remorse: “The heard the voice of God in the
garden…” (Cf. Royo Marin, Theology of Christian Perfection)
St Paul provides the explanation for temptation and original sin in Rom 5, on
the second reading: “Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin,
death, and thus death came to all men, inasmuch as all sinned…” But he also
reminds us of the hope of salvation: “For if, by the transgression of the one,
death came to reign through that one, how much more will those who receive
the abundance of grace and of the gift of justification come to reign in life
through the one Jesus Christ.”
Christ, being truly human, suffered temptation to give us an example, but
there is more to it in Christ’s temptations. (From here I will follow Joseph
Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, chapter 2 on The Temptations of Jesus).
The Spirit took Jesus to the desert to be tempted by the devil (Mt 4: 1) Jesus
had to enter into the drama of human existence, for that belong to the core of his
mission: he had to do it to find the lost sheep and to bring it home. “For because
he himself has suffered and been tempted, he is able to help those who are
tempted.” (Hb 2: 18)
At the heart of all temptations is the act of pushing God aside
because we perceive him as secondary, if not actually superfluous and annoying,
in comparison with all the apparently far more urgent matters that fill our lives.
Constructing a world by our own lights, without reference to God, building on our
own foundation, refusing to acknowledge the reality of anything beyond the
political and material, while setting God aside as an illusion –that is the
temptation that threaten us in many varied forms.
Moral posturing is part and parcel of temptation. It does not invite us directly
to do evil… It pretends to show us a better way, where we finally abandon our
illusions and throw ourselves into the work of actually making the world a better
place… What’s real is what is right here in front of us –power and bread. By
comparison, the things of God fade into unreality, into a secondary world that no
one really needs.
Jesus’ forty days of fasting embrace the drama of history, which Jesus takes
into himself and bears all the way through to the end. “If you are the Son of God,
command these stones to become loaves of bread.” We will hear these words
again at the foot of the Cross, If you are the Son of God, come down from the
Cross.” Christ is being challenged to establish his credibility by offering evidence
for his claims.
And we make this same demand of God and Christ and his Church throughout
the whole of history. “If you exist, God, then you’ll just have to show yourself…
And if the Church is supposed to be yours, you’ll have to make that much more
obvious that it is at present.”
Let us move into Jesus’ second temptation. The devil cites Holy Scripture in
order to lure Jesus into his trap. He proves to be a Bible expert, he presents
himself as a theologian. The common practice today is to measure the Bible
against the so-called modern worldview, whose fundamental dogma is that God
cannot act in history -that everything to do with God is to be relegated to the
domain of subjectivity. And so the Bible no longer speaks of God, the loving God;
no, now we alone speak and decide what God can do and what we will and should
do. The theological debate between Jesus and the devil is a dispute over the
correct interpretation of Scripture, and it is relevant to every period of history.
We come now to the third and last temptation, which is the climax of the
whole story. (The devil shows Jesus a vision of the kingdoms but Christ has come
to establish a very different type of kingdom.) His presupposes the Cross.
Through history this third temptation is constantly taking on new forms. It is the
temptation to use power to secure the faith, and faith has risked being suffocated
in the embrace of power.
Jesus’ third temptation proves to be the fundamental one, because it concerns
the question as to what sort of action is expected of a Savior of the world… What
did Jesus actually bring, if not world peace, universal prosperity, and a better
world? What has he brought?
The answer is very simple: God. He has brought God. He has brought the God
who formerly unveiled his countenance gradually, first to Abraham then to Moses
and the Prophets… He has brought God and now we know his face. Jesus has
brought God and with God the truth about our origin and destiny: faith, hope and
love. It is only because of our hardness of heart that we think this is too little…
The earthly kingdoms that Satan was able to put before the Lord at that time have
all passed away. But the glory of Christ, the humble, self-sacrificing glory of his
love, has not passed away, nor will ever do so.
Jesus has emerged victorious from his battle with Satan. To the tempter’s
lying divinization of power and prosperity, to his lying promise of a future that
offers all things to all men through power and through wealth –he responds with
the fact that God is God, that God is man’s true Good. To the invitation to
worship power, the Lord responds with a passage from Deuteronomy: “You shall
worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.” (Mt 4: 10; Deut 6: 13).
Let us meditate on these truths, learn from our own experience of temptation,
and train ourselves to overcome temptation through the power of God’s grace.
That’s an excellent way to worship only him, and serve him alone. Amen.