Lent I, REFLECTION Sunday´s Gospel

1st Sunday of Lent A

Fr James McTavish, FMVD

Desert warfare

In the military, the skills developed depend on the terrain to be fought on. For jungle warfare, green pattern camouflage is needed. Skills such as tracking and identifying which berries and other food you can eat are helpful. But change the scenario and other skills are needed. In the desert, beige camouflage is used and you need to learn how to drink water. When I say drink I mean really drink. How much fluid should an average person drink in one day? About 3 litres. In the desert that can easily become 10 litres! Imagine that. That is more or less one litre every hour of the working day. That is why soldiers have fixed moments to drink because they are simply not used to have to drink so much. I give this as an example not in any way to support some unjust wars that have occurred in the desert but to make the point that desert warfare is thirsty work and requires special skills.

How does this relate to our first Sunday of Lent? Well where does Jesus fight the devil and overcome him? In the desert of course. He spends 40 days and 40 nights there and becomes hungry. Why didn’t he instead eat a lot, to prepare himself for the battle? In some way, his fasting places him in an attitude of DEPENDANCY on God. To depend on the Father and this requires TRUST. When the tempter approaches, he tempts him with bread but Jesus shows his reliance on the Word from his Father’s mouth to sustain him when he says “Man cannot live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (See Matt 4, 1 -11).

How does the tempter work when he approaches? Saint Augustine taught that there are three distinct but related phases in each temptation: 1. Suggestion, which is the proposal of some evil; 2. Pleasure, which happens when after the moving towards the suggested evil, there is some attendant delight; 3. Consent, which is when the will delights in the pleasure, willingly enjoys it and yields to it. Sin occurs only when there is consent. Seeing as the first step is thought or suggestion one immediate conclusion is to kill the wild animal while it is still small! It is much easier to kill the thought than when it has taken hold of us. We have to ask for the grace to discern temptation especially in the level of thoughts where they begin.

It is very helpful also to not always blame others for the temptation we experience. It is like the man visiting a psychiatrist because he had an obsession with the faces of beautiful ladies. The psychiatrist decided to analyze him and drew two dots on the blackboard and asked the man to identify what he saw. The young man saw two beautiful eyes staring at him. The psychiatrist then proceeded to draw some wavy lines. For the young man this was obviously the long, wavy blond hair of the beautiful woman looking at him. The psychiatrist then draw one dot and a dash and the young man excitedly concluded that now the woman was winking at him. The psychiatrist challenged the young man telling him that he had an obsession with the faces of beautiful women. The young man reacted a little angrily saying “Actually I think it is you that has the problem! You are the one who keeps drawing their faces on the blackboard!”

We need sincerity and honesty! What will see us through the battle is not merely physical strength but to be spiritually strong. Is it not the case that sometimes moments when we feel helpless, we will be driven to pray! Prayer is when God can breathe new life into us (see first reading Gen 2, 7-9). Perhaps if it was not for the difficulty we would manage ourselves but then an incident happens and it reminds us, often painfully, that we are dust! As we heard on Ash Wednesday “Remember you are dust and to dust you will return.” Our dependency on God is radically highlighted in the first reading from Genesis where man is just a lump of dust until God blows the mysterious life giving spirit into his nostrils so that man becomes “a living being.” We need the Spirit so that we don’t just survive or exist but really live. In the garden of Eden, our first parents did not want to live this radical dependency on God. They wanted to become Gods themselves. We can ask ourselves “how can we grow in an attitude of dependency on God?”

For sure FASTING is essential. To fast from all false securities. The devil is the Father of lies and a master of disguise. He has many tricks for the unwary and often presents to us many false securities. Vigilance is required. He really is the destroyer and in the second temptation is basically telling our Lord to commit suicide by jumping off the temple. Only PRAYER can help us see behind the lies of the devil and prayer involves discernment at times to avoid making hasty and rash decisions and also the other extreme to avoid procrastinating when we already know the will of God. Prayer is another way of expressing dependency on God. How can I know if I am really dependant on God? Our life of prayer, or lack of it will reflect that dependency. St Alphonsus Liguori on the necessity of prayer to win against the tempter said “God knows how useful it is to be obliged to pray, in order to keep us humble, and to exercise our confidence; and he therefore permits us to be assaulted by enemies too mighty to be overcome by our own strength, that by prayer we may obtain from his mercy aid to resist them.”

In the third temptation Jesus clearly recognizes and names his opponent when he commands “get away from me Satan!” Sometimes I wonder if I can clearly recognize the enemy. In the military when an unknown person approaches they are challenged “Friend or foe?” It is very helpful to name the temptation. To identify temptation some helpful questions include; What is temptation for me? When am I most tempted? In what situations? How do I feel and what do I do when I am tempted?

Let us try to learn from Jesus as we enter into this period of Lent. He went to the desert for us and for our salvation. He was not simply tempted, but in every way, and he overcame. Let us ask for the grace of a radical dependency on God, to grow in trust, and for the strength to be vigilant in the Lenten battle in the desert. Amen.