Forty Days in the Desert

A friend of mine sent me two pictures of Jesus – both of questionable theology and more than a little irreverent! But being loosely wrapped as I am, I thought I’d mention them, just the same. The one picture was of Jesus and the devil sitting at a picnic table, arm wrestling – best of three. Keep this image in mind as we ponder Jesus' temptation in the desert.

There is practically no hiding place or shelter in the desert and the difficulties of the desert make the individual see himself for what he is. Lent is an invitation to us to take the courageous step of going into the desert. Thee we encounter our sin and darkness in the company of Jesus.   

We have much to learn about self-sacrificing love from Christ’s wrestling with temptation. Jesus spent forty days in the desert overcoming the devil, and Lent is a time for us to get rid of whatever bit of the devil remains in us by overcoming sin in our lives. Luke’s narration of Jesus’ 40 days in the desert begins by reminding us that it was the Spirit that led Jesus into the desert. That Spirit never left him during his temptations, through his entire ministry, death on the cross and resurrection. 

(Round one) When the devil said: “Turn these stones into loaves of bread.” Jesus replied: “Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” This temptation was to distrust the Father's provident care for him. It is one of the wiles of Satan to take advantage of our outward condition; and those who are brought into straits have need to double their guard. Christ answered the temptation by appealing to the Scriptures. Our Lord expressed his strong faith in the God who led Israel out of the desert. He likewise declared His confidence that God was able to support him, and would do it, though in a wilderness, and destitute of supply. This was how Jesus overcame this temptation of Satan.  

This is the method we must use, whenever we are tempted to sin. Let us learn not to take any wrong courses for our supply, when our wants are ever so pressing: in some way or other the Lord will provide. When we live on the bread of the world by not putting God first we can never hope to be happy because sin always leaves us guilty. All of us are called to with the Son in building up the Kingdom of the Father, each according to his or her own culture, experience, involvements and talents. “Jesus offers Himself as God’s doorway into the life that is truly life.  Confidence in Him leads us today, as in other times, to become apprentices to eternal living” (The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard). 

(Round two) When Satan said: "Fall down and worship me.” Jesus replied: “You must worship the Lord your God and serve him alone.” This temptation was to worship Satan in exchange for worldly power and influence. The glory of the world is a most charming temptation to the unthinking and unwary. Christ rejected every opportunity of sinful gain or advancement. He was quick and firm in resisting this temptation. If we resist the devil he will flee from us. But the individual who takes time to consider his options is surely overcome. I have a number of alcoholic friends and I can tell when they are in trouble. They use three words: I’ve Been Thinking! We find but few who can reject the tokens Satan offers; yet what is a man profited if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? The philosopher Dallas Willard wrote: “Our soul is like a stream of water, which gives strength, direction and harmony to every other area of life.” The season of lent reminds us that we did not create the stream. Let us spend the days of lent building up the King of God and not our own. 

(Round three) When Satan said: Throw yourself down from the peak of the temple and be rescued by angels.” Christ replied: “You must not put the Lord your God to the test.” This temptation was to presume upon the Father's power and protection, in a point of safety. There are no extremes more dangerous than despair and presumption, especially in the affairs of our souls. Satan has no objection to holy places as the scene of his assaults. Let us never drop our guard. As the Apostle Peter reminds us: “Be alert and vigilant. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour: (1 Pet. 5:8). 

Sacred spaces are the places, where Satan often tempts men to pride and presumption. All high places are slippery places; advancements in the world makes a man a mark for Satan to shoot his fiery darts at. Don’t forget: Satan is well versed in Scripture. It is possible for a man to have his head full of Scripture notions, and his mouth full of Scripture expressions, while his heart is full of bitter enmity to God and to all goodness. Satan misquoted the words. If we go out of our way, out of the way of our duty, we forfeit the promise, and put ourselves out of God's protection. Throughout these days of penance and purification, we are encouraged to come into the presence of the Lord Whose Word is our food for the journey, Whose will is our guide for life and Whose Kingdom is our true homeland. Those who place their faith in God will find themselves wrapped in God’s loving embrace. As we fast, pray and give alms, let us remember that the Living Word is very close to us, in our mouth and in our heart. This Word is not just a sound. This Word is a Life lived in Love. 

The common everyday lesson of this story is that from the plain appointed path of duty laid before Christ, no power or temptation could turn him.  Every work of Mercy is a work of the hands and feet of Christ in service to the body of Christ. Our job isn’t to move mountains, it’s to offer the Lord our lives and then get out of the way. These are not ways of being messiah as his Father intends. According to the divine plan, the redeemer will redeem by sacrificing his life. And that is the sort of messiah Jesus chooses to be because it conforms to the will of the Father. Jesus submitted to his Father’s will. During Lent we die to ourselves like Jesus so that the Father’s plan can be accomplished in our lives. 

You might remember that I mentioned that my heretical friend sent two irreverent Jesus Pictures. Are you ready for this? The second picture shows Jesus rolling up His tee-shirt sleeve to unveil a tattoo. A big heart with FATHER bannered across it. May all we do this lent be stamped with the love of God. 

--Father Jerome Machar, OSCO

Satan's Three Temptations

The devil wants to take the things of God, the holy things, the things we love and he wants to twist them to his own desires. Satan wants to do is to take something that is good and true and twist it. The devil can’t do anything of himself. He can’t create anything of his own accord. He can only take what God has created and try to twist it to his own ends. We need to recognize satan’s plans for what they are.

Consider the temptation of Jesus in the desert. It mirrors the problems that we face right from the moment of our conversion. Jesus is tempted in the desert, a place that is the antithesis of the Garden of Eden. The opposite. The garden was a place which God prepared for man. Everything was there. Adam and Eve had everything they needed. They wanted for nothing. They had no hunger. They had no need of anything else in the world. They themselves were the king and queen of their castle. The Lord gave dominion of all things in the world to them. They had it all.

Contrast that with Jesus in the desert. Jesus goes into the desert, into the place where there is nothing. He goes into the place where there is no food. There is no water. There is the very privatization of all of those things. He goes into the very heart of human need. His experience is ultimately the punishment that was due to sin—the lacking of all the blessings that God wanted to give us. There, in the desert, he took on satan, not in the midst of having everything, but rather in the deprivation. 

So often that is how the devil comes to us. The devil comes to us when we are weak. This beautiful line of the Gospel, “He had nothing during those days, and when they were over, he was hungry,” makes us realize that God was hungry. God felt the needs that we feel. It always gives me such great help to know that our Lord was hungry. Why? Because it means that God knows what we are going through. He knows our sufferings. He experienced them.

The way the devil tempted Adam and Eve is the same way that he tempted Jesus. What was it that drew Eve to the tree? It was the apple, wasn’t it? “Oh, it looks good. Look at this apple.” The temptation to food, that temptation to a carnal desire, our basic desires for food, for rest, for sensuality--those basic desires, those things that we have in common even with the irrational animals of the world--those very basic desires are where the devil first will tempt us. Getting us to sin in a carnal desire offers a toehold to satan. Satan goes after those carnal desires first. Why? Because it can get his foot in the door.

Once he gets your attention, what’s next? He tempts with pride. Satan tells Adam and Eve, “You can become like God. You can decide what’s right and wrong.” Isn’t that what he did when he tempted Jesus in the desert? Make the stones bread. That was a carnal desire. Then he showed Jesus all the cities of the world. “I give them to you. You can be the master of the things in the world,” satan said to Christ.  After a test of hunger, after a temptation to our great carnal desires, satan tempts with pride. 

Lastly he throws at us our faith itself. Wasn’t that the temptation that Adam and Eve faced? They were tempted to believe satan instead of God who told them not to eat of the fruit of that tree or they would die. Satan told them God was mistaken. “You won’t die.” They believed the lie because their faith in God had wavered. The devil told Jesus, “Worship me. Make me your God.” He was tempting Jesus to give up faith in the Father and put his faith in satan.

Jesus said that there are some demons they can’t be cast out except by prayer and fasting. Fasting must be part of our lives, because if we don’t conquer our very basic carnal desires, then we will never be able to resist the temptations of satan. Jesus showed us that fasting is the way to do battle with our carnal nature. Those carnal desires for food, rest, and sensuality are where the devil gets himself in the door. We need to shut the door strongly. 

This is why we need to fast more. We need to make a place for fasting in our lives. Although penitents in the Confraternity of Penitents fast frequently because it is part of their Rule of Life, the Catholic Church mandates only two days where we have to fast--Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. If that is all you are fasting, I challenge you to fast more this Lent. Maybe even once a week.

Pick a fast day. I’m not talking about starving yourself. One big meal, two smaller meals that, together, don’t equal the big one. No starving. But we do need to fast. 

We need to feel that hunger. We need to feel the hunger that Jesus felt in the desert because we need to rely more on God. Until we feel that hunger and we say, “I choose the love of God, over my own base desires,” until we choose the love of God over our own wants and needs, we are never going to be able to expel the devil and his temptations from our lives. 

We need fasting because we all have demons in our lives that can only be cast out by prayer and fasting. We will never be able to resist the temptations to pride and to lack of faith if we don’t first control our appetites. The saying, “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” isn’t just for men. The way to damage your heart is, indeed, through your stomach, through your carnal desires. The way to have Christ reign over you is to first control the carnal desires. 

I invite you to one day of fasting per week during Lent. One day a week and watch the graces flow into your life. 

--Father Jacob Meyer, CFP Visitor

Three Common Temptations

We have begun our Lenten journey. We are a few days into Lent. As for me, I am trying to exercise every day and hating it. But still I am on the path. The path may seem trivial; I mean exercising, giving up chocolate, giving up television, do not seem like very important things to do, but they are vital in going through the process of conversion. What rich support God gives!

All salvation history is summarized in the three readings for the first Sunday of Lent. The first reading begins with Genesis and the fall of man. God gives man every thing we need and Adam and Eve are only not to have one thing and that is precisely what they want. Why was God keeping this fruit from us? Was he being mean? No, God was trying to test us. He knows what is best for us and he knows what is best for us not to have. But he gives us free choice so that we can love him and follow him or not. Eve was looking at the fruit, and we often blame her for the fall in the Garden of Eden, but where was the man who was given the gift of woman, the one person to love? He was right next to her, not somewhere else in the garden. He should’ve said to her, “No, Eve,” but he didn’t.

The second reading says that through the sin of one man, sin and death entered the world. Creation was harmed by the sin of Adam and Eve. This was the sin of silence. The Savior came to save us from the three sins which we enter into everyday. These sins are the basis of the temptation in the desert.

The first sin is the temptation to hunger, desire, passion, rest, pleasure, food.  “If you are hungry, turn these stones into bread,” satan said to Jesus. Jesus says, “No. Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

The second sin is when the devil takes Jesus to the top of the Temple and tells him to throw himself down. Now we know you cannot do this. We understand that we can’t jump off high places and survive. But what is this sin showing? It’s showing the sin of presumption. Presumption is the sense that says it doesn’t matter what I do, because God can’t condemn me. I have goodwill. I know God doesn’t mind. It doesn’t matter to God, we say. Oh, doesn’t it? We are very good at convincing ourselves that God doesn’t care about what we do, but there will be consequences for our actions. God looks at the intentions. “If we aren’t faithful in small things, how can we be faithful in large things?”, Jesus asked. We should never presume on God’s good graces.

The third temptation is when Satan said to Jesus, “Look at all the cities in the world. I will give you all of these if you will bow down and worship me.” This is the temptation for worldly things. All of my things, all of my stuff. More, more, more.

I would bet that all three temptations bother many people at the end of Mass on Sundays. As Mas is ending, they are thinking that they want to leave Mass early to go to breakfast because they are hungry for their donuts and coffee and French toast. This is the first temptation, the temptation to satisfy their worldly and bodily desires. The second temptation fits in here also. “God doesn’t care if I leave before the last hymn is sung. After all I’ve been here for Communion.” How do we know if God cares or not? Is worshipping God the first thing in our mind or getting out of the parking lot the first thing? Jesus said to the apostles, “Could you not watch one hour with me?” Mass is ending, and we begin thinking of the things of the world. We have someplace else to go, something else to do. This is what we are thinking about, as Mass ends.  How many things come before God in our lives? How many countless examples do we experience per day where we are tempted?

Lent is our chance to recognize these sinful desires. Is God present or is he not in my life? Jesus is being tempted in the Gospel. He is God and man, and he was tempted, so how do I think I am going to avoid the same temptations when I am only human? When was Jesus tempted? He was tempted after 40 days of fasting when his body was weak. Satan comes to us when we are feeling weak, depressed, too busy and stressed out. He comes when our strength is undermined. We need to build up habits to help us to live virtuous lives when we are at the end of our 40 days these habits that will keep us from slipping. We need to build habits that will put God first before bread, before things, before presumption, before the blessings of the world. May God be first in our lives.

Transcribed as closely as possible from a homily by Father Jacob Meyer