First Sunday of Lent (Year C) - 9 March
9th March 2025
“The spiritual combat in which we kill our passions to put on the new man is the most difficult struggle of all. We must never weary of this combat, but fight the holy fight fervently and perseveringly.” - St Nilus
A reflection on today's Gospel by the Venerable Archbishop Fulton J Sheen:
"It is through temptation and its strain that the depths of character are revealed. Scripture says: Blessed is he who endures under trials. When he has proved his worth, He will win that crown of life, which God has promised to those who love Him. (James 1:12) The defences of the soul are seen at their strongest when the evil which has been resisted is also strong. The presence of temptation does not necessarily imply moral imperfection on the part of the one who is tempted. In that case, Our Divine Lord could not have been tempted at all. An inward tendency toward evil, such as man has, is not a necessary condition for an onslaught of temptation. The temptation of Our Blessed Lord came only from without, and not from within as ours so often do. What was at stake in the trial of Our Lord was not the perversion of natural appetites to which the rest of men are tempted; rather, it was an appeal to Our Lord to disregard His Divine Mission and His Messianic work. The temptation that comes from without does not necessarily weaken character; indeed, when conquered, it affords an opportunity for holiness to increase. If He was to be the Pattern Man, He would have to teach us how to gain holiness by overcoming temptation.
"The first temptation of Our Blessed Lord was to become a kind of social reformer, and to give bread to the multitudes in the wilderness who could find nothing there but stones. The vision of social amelioration without spiritual regeneration has constituted a temptation to which many important men in history have succumbed completely. But to Him, this would not be adequate service of the Father; there are deeper needs in man than crushed wheat; and there are greater joys than the full stomach.
"The evil spirit was saying, 'Start with the primacy of the economic! Forget about sin!' Satan was here trying to make Our Lord feel the terrific contrast between the Divine greatness He claimed and His actual destitution. He was tempting Him to reject the ignominies of human nature, the trials and the hunger, and to use the Divine power, if He really possessed it, to save His human nature and also to win the mob. Thus, he was appealing to Our Lord to stop acting as a man, and in the name of man, and to use His supernatural powers to give His human nature ease, comfort, and immunity from trial. The answer of Our Blessed Lord was that even while accepting human nature with all its failings and trials and self-denials, He nevertheless was not without Divine help. The words quoted were taken from the Old Testament account of the miraculous feeding of the Jews in the desert when manna fell to them from heaven. He refused to satisfy Satan’s burning curiosity as to whether He was, or was not, the Son of God; but He affirmed that God can feed men by something greater than bread.
"The second temptation was to forget the Cross and replace it with an effortless display of power, which would make it easy for everyone to believe in Him. In the desert, there was no one to see Him perform a miracle by making bread from stones; but in the great city there were plenty of spectators. The truth that would answer this temptation was that faith in God must never contradict reason. Satan wanted to make God the Father do something for Our Lord that Our Lord refused to do for Himself; namely, to make Him an object of special care, exempt from obedience to natural laws which were already the laws of God. But Our Blessed Lord, Who came to show us the Father, knew that the Father was not just a mechanical, impersonal Providence which would protect anyone, even someone who surrendered a Divinely ordained mission for the sake of winning a mob. The answer of Our Lord to the second temptation was: But it is further written, thou shalt not put the Lord Thy God to the proof. (Matthew 4:7)
"The final assault took place on the mountaintop. It was the third attempt to divert Him from His Cross, this time by a plea for coexistence between good and evil. The words of Satan seem, indeed, very boastful. Had the kingdoms of the world really been delivered to him? Our Lord called Satan the 'prince of the world,' but it was not God that had delivered any of the kingdoms of the world to him; mankind had done so, by sin. But even if Satan did, so to speak, rule the kingdoms of the earth by popular consent, it was not really within his power to give them to whomsoever he pleased. Satan was lying in order to tempt Our Lord again from the Cross, by way of a short cut. He was offering Our Lord the world on one condition: that He worship Satan. Our Lord, knowing that those kingdoms could be won only by His suffering and death, said to Satan: Away with thee, Satan; it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and serve none but Him. (Matthew 4:10) We can conjecture how these terse, uncompromising words must have sounded to Satan, 'Satan, you want worship; but to worship you is to serve you, and to serve you is slavery. I do not want your world, so long as it bears the terrible burden of guilt. In all the kingdoms which you claim as yours, the hearts of your citizens still long for something you cannot give them, namely, peace of soul and unselfish love. I do not want your world, which you do not even own yourself … Satan, you are asking Me to become anti-Christ. Before this blasphemous request, patience must give way to just anger. Get thee behind Me, Satan.’”
(Life of Christ)
Prayer against Temptation (Prayer to Overcome Bad Habits)
Behold me, O my God, at Thy feet! I do not deserve mercy, but O my Redeemer, the blood which Thou hast shed for me encourages me and obliges me to hope for it. How often have I offended Thee, repented, and yet have I again fallen into the same sin!
O my God, I wish to amend; and in order to be faithful to Thee, I will place all my confidence in Thee. I will, whenever I am tempted, instantly have recourse to Thee.
Before, I have trusted in my own promises and resolutions, and have neglected to recommend myself to Thee in my temptations. This has been the cause of my repeated failures. From this day forward, be Thou, O Lord, my strength; and thus shall I be able to do all things, for “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” Amen. 💐💖🙏
(Prayer Source: Knights of the Holy Eucharist website)
Did You Know?
Our relationship to God is not one of equals. That’s fairly obvious because God is almighty, perfect beauty, perfect truth and perfect goodness and we are flawed and sinful creatures of His. Yet, we know that we are completely and faithfully loved by God. Our response must be to treat God with great reverence, and all things connected to Him, with a sincere reverence. Our worship of God and our prayer must needs be reverent also.
But reverence does not come on its own; it needs companions and helpers. There are many of these but among the ones needed most are recollection, silence and contemplation. All of these are interior but show themselves in a bodily behaviour that is still, composed and focused.
At Mass, there are many words and regular activity. Without silence we might be in danger of not finding recollection let alone contemplation, and therefore possibly not reverence at Holy Mass. The advice that it doesn’t matter what we are doing on the outside as long as our heart in is the right place is not helpful, nor is it really true. It could be an excuse not to enter into that posture towards God that is reverence and to be more interested in those around us. We need all the help we can get to detect that something wondrous, astonishing and awesome is taking place at Mass, something before which angels veil their faces.
We need silence because silence brings recollection and recollection allows contemplation, which is that deeper form of prayer. It is deeper than vocal prayer and deeper than singing or communal prayer. It is the prayer of the heart and, at times, can even be without words. In our parish during Lent we will purposefully give ourselves a silence after Holy Communion. Rather than sing another hymn let us use this time of silence to bring us the fruits of recollection and contemplation so that we may be deeply attentive to Jesus, our Saviour, who is really and truly present within our soul and body at that time.