Lent has begun! I hope you’re all brimming with enthusiasm! This is the first
Sunday of Lent, and only another six weeks to go to Easter Sunday. Some of
you might be wondering what all the fuss is about – it’s not that difficult, you
might think. Others might have already faltered in keeping some of their
Lenten resolutions; maybe if we struggle then it could be that we have chosen
an important area to work on, as long as it’s not something too impossible.
Sometimes, if we have chosen a penance that is just too difficult, we may need
to change it. The one year I thought it would be good to wake up at three in the
morning as the monks do and pray, just for around ten minutes, before going
back to sleep again. After a few days I had to abandon it, as I wasn’t getting
the depth of sleep I needed and was constantly falling asleep all the time.
But whatever we have chosen, Our Lord had a much tougher ordeal. We might
find it difficult enough fasting on Ash Wednesday, the Cafod Fast Day in Lent
and on Good Friday, never mind a solid forty days. Often in Scripture we come
across statements that are exaggerations to make a point, such as when Our
Lord says that if your eye causes you to sin, it is better to tear it out than to go
to hell with two eyes. He’s just making the point of how seriously we need to
work to resist temptation and not treat it as harmless. But here in today’s
Gospel we have something more like an English understatement: “he ate
nothing during those days. And when they were over, he was hungry.” I’m
sure He was more than just a little peckish.
Jesus is fully human and fully divine, not half-and-half, and in these
temptations He doesn’t make use of His divine powers to relieve His suffering;
He doesn’t take the approach of thinking that it is beneath Him to suffer like
ordinary human beings. St Ambrose said: “He did not act as God, bringing his
power into play; if he had done so, how could we have availed of his example?
Rather, as man he made use of the resources which he has in common with us.”
(Expositio Evangelii sec. Lucam, in loc.)
Many great minds have prayed and reflected on these temptations of the Lord
over the years, and there is much we can learn. At the end of the passage is
says, “And when the devil had ended every temptation”. It’s often said that
there are three sources of temptation: the world, the flesh and the devil. Christ
undergoes temptation from each of these. The world: throw yourself down
from the top of the temple and make a show of yourself. The flesh: turn these
stones into bread. The devil: all this will be yours if you bow down and
worship me. But how might some of these temptations manifest themselves
today? Let’s take them in order.
‘ “[Command] this stone to become bread” ... “Man shall not live by bread
alone.” ’ One thing can be said for certain: Our Lord was not giving the devil
advice in healthy eating. In times of desperation and worry, we can find
ourselves focusing on the material, to the neglect of the spiritual. We become
too busy to pray, or it just falls off the radar. Or maybe the material things of
this world become too attractive to us and we are tempted to neglect our
spiritual lives.
“[Worship] me, [and] it will all be yours.” It is claimed that some people, such
as in the music industry, have turned to the evil one to try and get greater
success in their career. For most of us though, a bigger risk is forms of
modern-day idolatry. Are there people or even things in our lives that are more
important to us than God? It could be our career. It could be leisure interests,
or wanting to have favour with the crowd and so minimising our faith and the
demands it makes of us. God has a right to demand us to honour and worship
Him; the devil does not, neither the football ground, TV or even the garden.
“[Throw] yourself down.” The dangers of vanity, but also of not knowing our
faith. In each of these temptations, Christ rejects Satan’s suggestions using
Sacred Scripture. That is where He finds God’s plan for His life. But in this
last temptation, the evil one tries using Scripture himself, twisting it to try and
manipulate Christ to do his agenda. We need to know our faith well not to fall.
There is a difference between trusting God, and putting Him to the test, where
we act foolishly and expect Him to pick up the pieces.
Our faith is about real life. Christ underwent temptations worse than we will
ever undergo, never giving in, even in the smallest detail. We need to be like
that. We struggle. But with Him we stand a chance. One suggestion for Lent
could be to get to know Scripture and our faith better, maybe using one of the
many printed or on-line resources that are available, and in that way we can
get, not just to know about Jesus, but to know Jesus better. Have a blessed
Lent.
Curious about exploring things further? If you would like to ask further questions about the topics raised in these homilies (or maybe think it wasn’t explained too well!), please feel free to e-mail Fr Michael at stjoseph.thame@rcaob.org.uk