Lent is really a season for a radical change of heart.

First Sunday in Lent. Marcy 13th, 2011

As we begin our Lenten season, we recall that this season is a call to radical repentance and deep conversion. (As we spoke last week), often times we approach this season as the season to give up something for 40 days: we struggle for 40 days not to eat chocolate, but then on Easter Sunday, smug with our success, we eat a full 5 lb. box of chocolate and end up committing the sin of gluttony. So what good did it do us? In the end, all we can really say is, “I gave up chocolate for forty days.” But did we change for the better; did we become holier and so closer to God and to our brothers and sisters, in our family and in our parish family?

Lent is really a season for a radical change of heart. And so it is a privileged time of grace offered to us to assist us in our intense efforts to become a better, more faithful intimate follower of Christ. Lent is a time to strive, with all our might, to love God and neighbor more through acts of penance and self denial, which are meant to help bring about this radical conversion within us through a dying to selfishness and self-centeredness, to egotism and sin in order to live a more virtuous life of grace.
This radical conversion through our penance is, of course, not an easy task; it includes nothing less than the cross, upon which we nail our self-wills and upon which we die to self in order to live more fully true life in Christ. In the process we can expect to, if we are serious about it, experience not only our weakness, but also outright temptations from the devil, himself.

During Lent, most of us really do desire to love God more by praying more; and for love of God, to love more our family members, parish family members, our neighbors or even that very difficult person in our life. It seems however, the more we try, the more we struggle, the more we find it to be so very difficult; in fact, it can seem so hard that we begin to question whether its worth the effort. We can even begin to even question our good intentions for the Lenten season.
Seeing his opening through our discouragement, the devil seizes his opportunity and comes to tempt us. As a result, we can end up saying, “Oh, I’ll never change; why try.” Far from getting better, my life seems to be heading in the wrong direction; things seem to be getting worse instead of better.” In this, we discover the nature of the devil’s temptations. He wants us to give up already here in the first week of Lent.

The good news for us today is that our Blessed Lord has gone before us and not only gives us an example to follow, but gives us extra mercy, the grace of His love during this season of conversion. By looking at Jesus and studying his own temptation in the desert we can see clearly that even though we may fail in our Lenten resolutions, we should never succumb to the devil’s temptation to give up or lose heart. Instead, we should get up and try all the more intensely to persevere; just like a child trying to learn how to walk.

But if we are to do so, we must first understand the devil’s tactics. In our first reading we read about these tactics of satan as used in his first temptation of man. As the devil tempts Adam and Eve, it is important to note that there is a progression in the temptations; they actually become more serious as they go on. The devil first begins by tempting Eve to eat the fruit; it seems like such a little thing, after all its good fruit. The devil here plants the seed of doubt that perhaps this is not such a big sin, after all God put it in the garden and everything in the garden is good. It looks so sweet and juicy, so why not eat it? God can’t really mean it. It can’t be a mortal sin if I it eat, but maybe just a little sin of gluttony. Surely God won’t send me to hell for enjoying a little apple, or…enjoying a little meat on Friday or a little bit of what I gave up; or giving in a little to that vice I am trying to get rid of or failing in showing kindness to others or gossiping about them.

Next, the devil tempts Adam and Eve to a greater sin by saying eating would make them enlightened- “your eyes will be opened.” They could be wise and better than other creatures and closer to God if they would just eat the apple. This is the sin of vainglory. Adam and Eve now want to be wise and not only look important in each other’s eyes but important in the eyes of all those who would come after them. At this point it becomes all about them, an all about me attitude, they no longer care about what God thinks or about His glory and His honor, but only about their own. This is a further step the devil plants in the minds of Adam and Eve.…look how good I am; I don’t need to do Lenten penance to change, I am already a good person, I’m already a good person, surely I will go to heaven; it’s the rest of the world that needs to change; if they could only be more like me; look how wonderful I am). Already, the devil has led Adam and Eve down a path towards yet a more serious sin, a deadlier sin; the sin of pride.

And so the devil at last lays on them the grand finale, “You shall be like god.” In other words, “if you eat the fruit you’ll know good and evil; in fact be like God and so be able to create your own good and evil, your own truth, what’s personally true for you. This is sin of intense pride in which we creatures think we don’t need God and we don’t need to be obedient to Him and His commands and His teachings, which are the teachings of His Church. “If you just eat the fruit, you can follow your own conscience apart from the tyranny of God, apart from the oppressive rules and teachings of God found in His Catholic Church and her teachings”…I’m Catholic but…I am personally opposed to abortion but I acknowledge a woman right to choose…to choose what…to choose to kill her child… and so we now play God.)

In the end, by a progression of sins resulting from giving into at first small temptations and then greater ones, Adam and Eve end up separating themselves from God; they ruptured their relationship with God and are destined for death. Their sin has now become our sin and we their descendants inherited from them a propensity to sin. What seemed so small at first ended with the greatest sin and death enters the world.

This is the way the devil always tempts; he starts with a minor, little offense toward God, and then it grows into a temptation to more serious sin, to mortal sin, which when knowingly and freely committed, kills the very life and love of God in our soul; this is better known as spiritual death and it is the worst kind of death which if un-repented leads to eternal death and damnation. In this, we quickly discover that we need to be faithful to God beginning with the seemingly small things.

In our Gospel reading, Jesus faces this same progression of temptations, but instead of succumbing, He conquers. Our Lord has fasted 40 days and no doubt was hungry. The devil tempts Him to do a miracle to satisfy His hunger—seems reasonable. But Jesus responds by saying that what is more important than physical food is the Word of God—the truth that comes only from God through His Church, truth which when lived in our lives becomes our true spiritual food—the Will of God. And for this to happen, it takes more than bread for our belly for this to happen, it takes the true Bread from Heaven, the Holy Eucharist.

Second, Jesus is tempted to vainglory- look at me. If He would throw Himself off the Temple, the angels would save Him. He would instantly become the talk of Jerusalem and win the people over to himself. Salvation without sacrifice; love without the cross. Jesus responds by saying simply that we should never be presumptuous of the mercy of God and never put Him to the test; in other words, for our part we should always realize our personal need for repentance and conversion and don’t presume we’ve already made it; love never stops at good enough; love goes all the way to the cross.

Third, Jesus is tempted for riches and wealth- things apart from God, as they are worshipped rather than God: the sin of pride and of worshipping God the way we want to not they way He demands. Jesus, here teaches us that we need to approach Holy Mass and the worship of God with great humility, reverence, devotion and love, realizing that we are here to adore God, not ourselves; it’s not about making the Mass for our entertainment or enjoyment in order to feel good, but it’s about giving God His due in Justice, thanking Him for all He as giving us, which is everything, by adoring Him in love by offering ourselves in return for the offering of Himself for us.

In the end, Jesus rebukes Satan. He would not be lead down the path of the temptation of false love. Jesus would conquer by the cross in order to offer all men, including us, the grace needed to be able to conquer satan in our own individual lives. But to accept this grace, to open our hearts to it, we need to turn to Jesus through our repentance, calling upon His Holy Name in prayer and through the sacraments in order to convert our lives more deeply to His and so grow in our loving and intimate union with Him.

In our time of Lent, temptations come because the devil knows we all desire to become more Christ-like. And so, we will always face the progression of temptation, but let us not try to rationalize away our sins and faults or become discourage in trying to overcome them; let us not blame others for them either. As we face the temptation to give up trying to become better, holier Disciples of Christ, let us put our confidence in the power of the Divine grace and Divine mercy of our Lord Jesus to sustain us.

Our Lord Jesus faced the temptations and was victorious, only in His victory will we find our own. Because Jesus has experienced our temptations in His, He alone knows them and so He alone can give us the knowledge and the grace we need to fight them this Lent and all throughout our lives. He is truly present in the Holy Eucharist, may we turn to him there and call upon Him to help us this Lent to truly love Him more deeply and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, or better yet as He loves them; especially the members of our parish family.