Year C
Truth, Faith and Freedom versus Lies, Infidelity and Slavery!
Once again, we have begun our journey of Lent together. Lent is that special time when we try to deepen our relationship with the Lord and to grow in our faith. Lent is indeed a journey, and like all journeys, several things are needed to journey well. Any journey needs a destination; after all, we need to know where we are going. Our destination during Lent is, of course, Easter, when we will once again celebrate Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection. We also need directions and pointers to help us go the right way and our Scripture readings provide us with a wonderful guide.
With each Sunday during Lent, we will see how God’s plan for us unfolds and how the carefully chosen readings each day at Mass can guide us and keep us on course. On this first Sunday, we always hear the Gospel that recounts Jesus’ temptations in the desert. In Lent, like Jesus, we are filled and led by the Holy Spirit to face our demons and to choose the right path. Let us therefore look at each of this Sunday’s Scripture readings together, as they give us a wonderful insight and plan for our journey through this season of Lent…
The First Reading (Deuteronomy 26: 4-10) provides a summary of faith and a compressed history of God’s chosen people. God’s people were nobodies, wandering from place to place; but God chose them and made them into a great nation. It is a reminder to us of our origins and who we are; but it is also an invitation to have faith and always chose to follow the Lord. Psalm 91 is a great response to our First Reading. It sings of God’s love and care for those who chose to follow Him. Perhaps the psalm was also chosen because it is the psalm quoted by the devil in our Gospel. As Shakespeare put it in the Merchant of Venice, even “the devil can cite Scripture for his purpose!”
The Second Reading (Romans 10: 8-13) also gives us a summary of our faith, our origins and the choices before us. Jesus, who died and rose, is our Lord. St. Paul gives us a double choice. Let us believe this with our heart, so that we may be justified (that is in a right relationship with God), but then let us confess this faith with our mouth, so as to be saved.
This year we hear St. Luke’s version of Jesus’ temptations in the desert by the devil (Luke 4: 1-13). In their Gospels, Matthew and Mark sometimes use words such as “Satan”, or “the Tempter”, but Luke uses a very particular word diabolon (from which comes our word diabolical). It is a significant and descriptive word, as it literally means “the one who throws across” or “who trips up another.” This is certainly an accurate description, both of whom the devil is and what the devil does!
The temptations are subtle, clever and attractive. After all, if they were not so, they would not be real temptations. As the great writer, Mgr. Ronnie Knox puts it so well, “the devil knows his market.” The first temptation sounds so reasonable. After 40 days in the desert, Jesus is hungry (remember, he is truly human as well as truly God). So, the devil asks him: as God, why not turn a stone into bread? Notice that the devil goads Jesus too: if you are the Son of God… The devil is indeed subtle and cunning. Then, just as with Adam and Eve in the garden (why don’t you eat of the apple?), the devil tempts someone else to do his dirty work. He does not do it himself.
The second temptation mixes lies and truths (a consistent feature of evil). The devil is indeed the “ruler of the world” (cf. 2 Corinthians 4: 4), but this power is only temporary and he mixes power with worship. Furthermore, the devil does not mention what the cost of bowing to him will be: slavery to him. Worshipping the devil and evil will not give us power but, as Faust discovers in his pact with Mephistopheles, it will put us in his power. In the third temptation, the devil quotes, but also twists, the words of Scripture, for his purpose: “he will command his angels to guard you…with their hands they will support you…” The temptation to jump off the Temple parapet looks and sounds like an act of faith in God, but in reality, it is actually testing God. It is also a case of what is often called “magical thinking”; that is, if I do x then God will have to do y.
We are probably not faced with such grand temptations and choices, but the thrust and danger behind them is just the same. We all have our own faults and failings, as well as our own demons that we need to face. These often boil down to one or more of the three temptations that we have heard about in the Gospel. The 40 days and nights of Lent is just the time to face these faults and failing, these personal demons. Let us rely on God and not on “bread” alone; let us have Jesus as our Lord and ruler and not the world, and let us have true faith and trust in God’s love and mercy and not put God to the test.
This reflection was written by Very Rev. Msgr. Anthony M. Barratt STL, PhD, EV, ChM.
