The great Cardinal Manning taught “temptation is inevitable. Until we have put off our mortality, until corruption is turned into incorruption, we shall be assailed by temptation. To be tempted is simply to be man; to be man is to be tempted.” Until our dying breath we will be subject to temptation.
But, what is temptation? As we read in the Catechism, “Temptation is an attraction, either from outside oneself or from within, to act contrary to right reason and the commandments of God (CCC 538).”
Temptation. It’s the enticement to do evil—the lure of ignoring “the good” and choosing the “the wrong”.
We know that we are tempted, but why are we tempted? That can be approached in a few different ways.
Why are we tempted? For one, “Temptation is the work of the devil to drag you to Hell!” The devil, cast out of heaven for his treachery and his refusal to submit to the Divine Will, wants us to follow in his footsteps. The Devil seeks the corruption and death of our souls. He desires that we, like him, never see the face of God.
Secondly, why are we tempted? Our human free will demands it, in a sense. Temptation is a necessary result of “freedom”. If we cannot be tempted to choose the wrong, then we are not free to choose the good. God made us to love Him, but love cannot be forced, but must be freely chosen, and freely given. So with the capacity to love comes the capacity to be tempted not to love, not to obey.
The question, “Why are we tempted?” can also be answered, “because God allows it.” Temptation constitutes an opportunity for the human soul to choose to love God, to trust his plan, to rely on his grace.What does temptation look like? Well, it can come at any time, to any person. For Adam and Eve it was the temptation to eat a piece of forbidden fruit. Forbidden fruit can come in many forms. It usually looks good, it looks attractive. We think it will bring us gratification, and perhaps it does for a moment.
Oftentimes we don’t know we are being tempted while we are being tempted, it’s part of the devil’s bag of tricks to remain hidden from plain sight. So it’s important to conform our minds to God’s wisdom, so we know a trick when we see it.
Indeed we have a responsibility to fortify ourselves against temptation.
Nightly examination of our conscience and frequent Sacramental confession help us to identify those areas of our life in which we are tempted most and have fallen in the past. Every Sacramental Confession not only brings the forgiveness of sins, but additional sacramental grace to strengthen us against temptations we have confessed.
Meditating on God’s Word and the writings of the Saints help us to gain wisdom to be on guard against the the things that lead us away from God. Knowledge of the word of God is more valuable than silver or gold. For silver and gold cannot buy our way into heaven, but by wisdom we walk in the ways of the Lord in order to avoid the danger of losing our souls to hell. The word of God is “the Devil’s Scourge.”
Pope Francis said recently, “When we are tempted, only the Word of God, the Word of Jesus saves us. Christ is always willing to teach us how to escape from temptation. Jesus is great because he not only brings us out of temptation, but also gives us more confidence.”
Our Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are tried and true practices for strengthening us against the temptations of the devil, the world, and the flesh.
By prayer, we life our mind and heart to God, the source of our strength and joy. By fasting, we build up our fortitude, our spiritual muscles for resisting what we do not need. And by almsgiving we become filled with the mercy and love of God by which we are saved.
In the Gospel, we heard that the Lord himself was tempted. But unlike Adam and Eve, Christ obeys His Father. Jesus though doesn’t blast the devil away with a bolt of divine lightning or something. He uses the same human nature that each of us possesses.
St. Lawrence of Brindisi explains this wonderfully: “Christ came into the world to do battle against Satan…He could have accomplished this by using the weapons of his divinity …but in order that his victory might be the more glorious, he willed to fight Satan in our weak flesh. It is as if an unarmed man, right hand bound, were to fight with his left hand alone against a powerful army; if he emerged victorious, his victory would be regarded as all the more glorious. So Christ conquered Satan with the right hand of his divinity bound and using against him only the left hand of his weak humanity.”When humanity is filled with the life of God, the spirit of filial obedience, the Son’s loving obedience to the Father, even humanity weakened by hunger and solitude can prevail against the Devil’s most cunning temptations.
In his second to last Address the Pope gave before his retirement in 2013, Pope Benedict spoke of temptation, commenting on the temptation of Christ in the desert.
“Man is never wholly free from temptation… but with patience and true humility we become stronger than any enemy. The patience and humility required to defeat the enemy come by following Christ every day and from learning to build our life not outside of him or as if he did not exist, but in him and with him, because he is the source of true life. In contrast to this is the temptation to remove God, to order our lives and the world on our own, relying solely on our own abilities. This is why in Jesus God speaks to man in an unexpected way, with a unique and concrete closeness, full of love, because God has now become incarnate and enters the world of man to take sin upon himself, to overcome evil and bring man back into the world of God.”
Through our growth in wisdom through meditation on the Word of God, through our Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, through our imitation of Christ, through our reception of the mercy and grace of Almighty God through the Sacraments, may the Lord deliver from all temptations, strengthen us in virtue, to choose life and love for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
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