First Sunday of Lent Temptations of Jesus

Lent 1 Temptations

            Today we accompany Jesus to the desert to be tempted. For us temptations are part of our daily lives. They say that every temptation can be reduced to one: to believe that we can fulfill the desires of our hearts by ourselves, with our own strength. It was the first temptation of Adam and Eve: to be like gods, knowing good and evil. It is the temptation of the child who thinks he has already grown up and doesn’t need his parents. We think that God is not a good Father, he doesn’t care about us and he is only interested in punishing us. We don’t think that God is helping us and we try to go our own way.

            This temptation is reflected in the modern man who thinks he can make himself as he wants and find his fulfillment by walking his own path. Sooner or later we realise that this doesn’t work and become depressed and frustrated. Christian tradition talks about the three trascendentals, beauty, goodness and truth, related to our desires to feel, to wish and to think. When we follow these three realities, eventually we find God, our Creator. It is in our nature, in our gens, to look for these three precious stones and find our delight in them. The three of them point towards God. They are related to each other. We are all attracted to them, but there is always one we feel closer. Which one? Follow it and you will become closer God.

            The first temptation is to adapt the truth to our lives. Either we live according to what is right, or we end up changing the truth to conform our behaviour. Our mind is always geared to the knowledge of the truth and even if we try to adapt it to our liking, there is always inside of us a doubt we cannot suppress, a desire for what is right and objective. No matter how much dirt we throw to cover it, spreading lies and fake news, the truth always comes out with all its splendour. Sooner or later the truth will win and can makes free.

            The second temptation is to think that in spite of our brokenness and sinfulness, we can make ourselves good, if we are true to ourselves, being genuine and authentic. But goodness is universal, and cannot be reduced to our own subjectivity. We fail to see the need of a saviour, Jesus Christ, who came to die for us, that we may live with him. Jesus is a model for real goodness. Our soul is always attracted to what is truly good, and despises whatever is fake and pretentious.

            The third temptation is to swap beauty for ugliness. We see this in our society where they try to sell us ugliness as art, lack of skill as originality, laziness as something genuine. Anything that it is, has some beauty, but the heart can discover what is beautiful and wholesome among the rubish that surrounds us. I like to finish quoting Pope Francis: “May the Virgin Mary, Mother of Him who crushed the head of the serpent, help us in this time of Lent to be vigilant in thr face of temptations, not to submit ourselves to an idol of this world, to follow Jesus in the fight against evil, and for us also to be winners as Jesus.”

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