Lent - Week 01-
The Temptations of Jesus
(From Conversation with God, Fernandez Carvajal)Lent commemorates the forty days Jesus spent in the desert in preparation for his years of preaching, which culminated in the cross and in the triumph of Easter. Forty days of prayer and penance, and at the end of them the temptations of Christ, which the liturgy recalls for us in today's Gospel.
The whole episode is a mystery which man cannot hope to understand. God is here submitting to temptation, letting the evil one have his way. A mystery indeed, but we can meditate upon it, asking Our Lord to help us understand the teaching it contains.
It is the first time the devil intervenes in Jesus' life, and he does so openly. He puts Our Lord to the test; perhaps he wants to find out whether the hour of the Messiah has actually arrived. Jesus allowed this intervention so as to give us an example of humility, and to teach us to overcome the temptations that we are going to have to undergo in the course of our lives. As Our Lord did everything for our instruction, so he wished to be led out into the wilderness and there to enter into combat with the devil. He did this in order that the baptised should not be troubled if after Baptism they suffer still greater temptations, as though such were not to be expected. If we were not prepared to meet the temptations that we are to undergo, we would open the door to a great enemy - discouragement and gloominess.
Jesus wanted to teach us by his example that no one should consider himself exempt from any type of trial. The temptations of Our Lord are also the temptations of his servants individually. But the scale of them, naturally, is different; the devil is not going to offer you and me all the kingdoms of the world. He knows his market; offers, like a good salesman, just as much as he thinks his customer will take. I suppose he thinks, with some justice, that most of us could be had for five thousand a year, and a great many of us for much less. Nor does he, to us, propose his conditions so openly; his offer comes to us wrapped up in all sorts of plausible shapes. But, if he sees the chance he is not slow to point out to you and to me how we could get the thing we want if we would be untrue to our better selves, and not infrequently if we would be untrue to our Catholic loyalties.
The Preface of today's Mass reminds us that Our Lord teaches us with deeds that we must overcome temptations and that we should derive benefit from all the trials that beset us. He allows temptation, and uses it providentially to purify us, to make us holy, to detach us more from the things of earth, to lead us where he is and by the route he wants us to take, so as to make us happy, in a life which may not be comfortable; so as to give us maturity, understanding and effectiveness in our lives, and above all, to make us humble, very humble.
"Blessed is the man who endures trial", says the Apostle Saint James, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him.