May
I speak in the name of Almighty God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit:
Amen
We
have now entered into the holy and penitential season of Lent, a time
where we reflect deeply on our Lord's journey to Jerusalem and his
passion and death on the cross; a time of prayer, fasting, and
alms-giving where we prayerfully discipline the body so that we may
master the passions that lead us into spiritual danger, causing us to
sin, and thereby risking our heavenly reward. The season is modeled on our Lord's 40 days of prayer and fasting in the wilderness; and so
it is natural today that our Gospel reading consists of one of the
accounts we have of that time given to us in Sacred Scripture.
Our account today is from St Luke; and what a marvelously detailed and
rich description of those 40 days it is, particularly of the
temptations faced by our Lord. Indeed, I have often thought that one
could profitably construct an entire series of Lenten reflections,
one for each day of the season, based on these verses and still be
far from having exhausted the potential of what is to be drawn from
them.
Perhaps that is because of the unique source of these events.
All other details of the life of Christ that we have in the Gospels
come from various human witnesses. The Blessed Virgin Mary and St
Joseph provided the information that gave us the infancy narratives;
the apostles and other disciples were witnesses to this teaching,
miracles, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension. But for his
time in the wilderness there were no witnesses to share what they saw
for Christ went there alone. This means that the only possible source
for this information is Jesus himself; and that he thought it
important enough to share with his followers.
More, he must have
thought it essential, for the Gospels record no other moments of his
life for which he and he alone only could be the source. There are
nearly thirty years between his birth and his baptism about which we
know nothing – only the account of his finding in the Temple, for
whom his blessed Mother is surely the source – and this alone of
all possible memories is the one he chooses to share with us.
Perhaps
he does so because he knew this episode in his life would teach us
many things. It tells us that if our Lord, the perfect man, felt it
necessary to spend much time in prayer and fasting, then how much
more do we, who are so weak and frail? It teaches us that it is not
sinful to be tempted, knowing that our Lord was both tempted and
without sin; it is only by giving into those temptations that we
transgress God's holy laws.
It speaks to us of the evil of the devil
and the wicked desire he has to lead all men astray, away from God
and to instead to eternal damnation. It shows quite graphically the
misuses that holy scripture can be put to and how even God's word can
be abused to lead men astray; and Christ, by his re-assertion of his
authority over the interpretation of scripture shows the importance
of orthodox interpretation.
These
are but a few of the things we learn from this passage. There are
many more we could speak of were there time. But let us consider just
one more, one that is of particular relevance, I think, during this
season of Lent. It concerns the final detail at the end of St Luke's
account, and one that he alone of all the gospel writers records. And
it is this: When the devil had finished every test, he departed
from him until an opportune time. Our Lord's temptations
did not end in the wilderness; or, at least, the devil's intention to
try and tempt him further did not end there.
Satan, this tells us, is
relentless; and he will lose no opportunity to try and lead someone
into sin, even when that someone is the Son of God. Christ, the
second person of the blessed Trinity, could not of course give way to
sin. But we are mere human beings; how can we resist such a
relentless onslaught of temptations, not just from Satan, but also
the world and the flesh?
First,
we have God's grace and the strength he offers us through the
sacraments of his Church, given to us by Christ's passion,
crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. But we also have the
example of Christ's life; not only his perfect obedience to the will
of the Father, but also in the time of prayer and fasting we hear of
in today's gospel. This brings us back to what I spoke of at the
beginning: how the physical disciplining of our bodies, the denying
ourselves things that are permitted, strengthens the will and helps
us control the passion so that we may resist the temptation to do
those things that are against God's law, avoid dwelling in our minds
on things that are not wholesome, and have the strength to do those
things which are challenging but nonetheless we are called to do.
I
pray that all here will have a holy Lent by following the pattern our
Lord set for us of prayer and fasting and with God's grace you will
grow stronger day by day in the faith that Christ died to give us;
and I ask that you pray the same for me.
Amen.