1st Sunday of Lent
The Lenten season is a time when the Church, very maternally, calls all her members to spiritual renewal. And the first step that we should take is to review the way we fight temptation. To wage this battle well, Our Lord offers us a perfect example in the Gospel of this Liturgy.
After forty days of fasting, Jesus is hungry (cf. Lk 4:2). The enemy approaches Him and says: “command this stone to become bread” (Lk 4:3).
“Man shall not live by bread alone” (Lk 4:4), the Saviour counters.
Bread symbolizes material pleasures; how many people scramble, strive and suffer for fleeting interests? The Lenten Liturgy invites us to remember that material goods cannot be the ultimate goal of our lives, and to ask ourselves: have I given real and sincere precedence to what concerns my eternal salvation?
“To you I will give all this authority and their glory […]. If you, then, will worship me, it shall all be yours” (Lk 4:6-7), continues the tempter.
The devil exercises the craft of painting, to our naïve eyes, acts that are opposed to God’s will as a deceptive source of happiness. This is what he tried to do with Our Lord, and what he has tried to do with every human being since Adam and Eve.
In order not to succumb to this temptation, it is enough to recognize God’s authority over us, as Jesus declared: “Him only shall you serve” (Lk 4:8). Today we must also ask ourselves: have I sought the fleeting joys of sin, despising the divine Commandments, or the practice of virtue, the only source of true happiness?
Finally, the devil carries Our Lord to the pinnacle of the Temple and says to Him: “throw yourself down from here!” (Lk 4:9). This is an invitation to a foolish pretence of escaping unscathed from danger. Often the devil does not directly propose the sin, but the occasion…
Is not this the same pretence of so many people who place themselves in close proximity to sin?
And Our Lord’s response – “You shall not tempt the Lord your God” (Lk 4:12) – prompts a question in our conscience: have I taken care to avoid people, places, things and circumstances that lead me to sin? Or do I approach them with the illusory pretence of not sinning, even though I expose myself to danger?
Our entrance into eternal life depends on a working faith in the mystery of the Resurrection. It is not just a matter of believing, but of fighting for what we believe. And this Sunday’s Liturgy inspires us to ask for the light of the Holy Spirit in our fight against temptation, which consists of living a life orientated towards the supernatural, as opposed to an existence of material pleasures; seeking happiness in obedience to God’s Law instead of in the fleeting joys offered by the devil, the world and the flesh; always seeking occasions of virtue instead of occasions of sin.
Thus, when our “forty days” in the desert are over, that is, the few years of our mortal life, we will see the Angels come down from Heaven and lead us to the eternal banquet. ◊
