TRIUMPH OVER
TEMPTATIONS
1st Sunday of Lent C
The more I admired Jesus when I
read and prepared for the Sunday gospel this week. If I were famished and given the chance to “produce” bread,
I would have readily made bread, rice meals, soups and everything my stomach
craved for. If I were penniless and
suddenly offered the treasures of the world, there would be no second-thoughts
on becoming the world’s richest man.
If I were a nobody now given the opportunity to become popular, I am
sure I would not have backed out of the chance to dazzle the world.
I know my weakness. How can I not be aware that I crave for
pleasure, I dream of riches, I desire to be respected? These temptations are universal,
affecting men and women, young and old, rich and poor alike all around the
world. These temptations are in
the DNA of humanity, and it runs in my blood too.
As a human being, Jesus too was
assailed by these temptations. But
as God’s Son, conscious of his heart’s only desire to please his Father, Jesus
did not please himself. Every time
the devil came with a new plan to trap him, Jesus repulsed him with great power
and resolve not to fall into the temptation and not to enter into sin.
What was behind the Lord’s
success against temptation? What
was the secret of his triumph over sin?
Not only that he was God in human flesh. No, he did not make use of any of that power. Rather, he was totally open to the Holy
Spirit. His one companion after his baptism was the Spirit. The one who led him to the desert was
the Spirit and the power that overflowed in his life was the power of the
Spirit (Luke 4:1,14). With the
Holy Spirit, Jesus was able to conquer the strong currents of temptation,
leading the way for us too, to become victorious in our own struggles.
Isn’t the reason of our failure
to resist temptation and our predictable fall into sin the fact that we often
forget to call on the Spirit, to cling to him and to rely on his power to save
us? When we are tempted we think we can do things on our own and we turn our
backs on God who stands by us and gives us support. Looking at the history of my own sins, I realize, that when
tempted, I did not utilize this link with the Holy Spirit given to me by my
heavenly Father.
This Lent, the Lord and his
Church offer us the grace to be strong and victorious over sin. There is no temptation too great for us.
There is no sin too overpowering.
We can recover the Holy Spirit and have him in our hearts in our daily
struggle to be faithful to God and to our neighbor.
This happens when we avail of the
disciplines of Lent – prayer, fasting and almsgiving – but most especially,
when we experience the grace of the sacrament of Reconciliation. Confession gives us the grace to be new
again and to be strong as we are filled with the Holy Spirit. Will you approach the confessional
again?
Like Jesus, let us desire to be
filled with the Spirit of God who will deliver us from temptations and make us
victors over sin.
