Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church

Homily for February 10, 2008
Liturgical Year A- Cycle II
1st Sunday of Lent
By Fr. John Carney
 Topic: ResistTemptation
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Gospel:
Mt 4: 1-11

At that time Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was hungry. The tempter approached and said to him,  "If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves of bread." He said in reply, "It is written: One does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God."

Then the devil took him to the holy city,  and made him stand on the parapet of the temple, and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written: He will command his angels concerning you and with their hands they will support you, lest you dash your foot against a stone." Jesus answered him, "Again it is written, You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test." Then the devil took him up to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence, and he said to him, "All these I shall give to you, if you will prostrate yourself and worship me." At this, Jesus said to him, "Get away, Satan! It is written: The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve."

Then the devil left him and, behold, angels came and ministered to him.
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From the very, very beginning, humankind has been faced with temptation, from our first parents, Adam and Eve.  Jesus himself was tempted.  I love this account today where Jesus and the devil are using scripture in their argument.  The devil is using scripture.  Not everyone who uses scripture is of God.  Jesus was tempted with pleasure, with glory, and with power.  Of course, he refused to give in to the temptation and to sin.  This is a subject that applies to every person here, who is of age.  We used to say the age of reason was seven.  I don’t know; I’ve met some people who are in their fifties that are just now approaching the age of wisdom.  But every person here of the age of reason, knows a lot about temptation, don’t you?  Even for those close to God, especially for those who are close to God. 

Just an obvious point and I don’t want to talk down to you but it needs to be said that temptation is not a sin.  I say that because I hear that in confession all the time.  People come to confess their temptations.  Temptation itself is not a sin.  Sometimes they come to confession and say, “I felt like killing him!”  And I say, “Did you?”  “No.”  “What did you do?”  “Well, I prayed for him, Father.”  I said, “You took a temptation and turned it into an act of grace.” 
 
Temptation itself is not sinful.  Temptation is a desire to go against what our conscience, our intellect, or our religion tells us.  It comes from the Latin word tentare, which means to test.  We are all tested every day.  Sin, on the other hand, of course, is an intentional act of the will.  You know it’s wrong.  You did something that is bad, you think about it, and you do it anyway.  That is what we call a sin.  Temptation, again, is often a feeling of anger, of lust, of greed, of envy, of pride, of fear; a temptation to gossip, to blame others.  I knew a priest who never dealt with the ability to deal with the feeling of anger.  He was born with that, probably, but he did nothing to cultivate a proper reaction to it.  Anger, of course, is not a sin.  It’s what we do with the anger that is potentially sinful.  This priest, I think, drove a thousand people out of our church because he couldn’t deal with his anger.  He just gave in to the temptation immediately.
 
Lust is a real problem today.  One of the greatest gifts we have is the Internet.  My goodness, what a wonderful resource it is for every good thing.  It is also a resource for many bad things, especially when it comes to the temptation of lust. 
 
Greed.  There are people who spend hours and hours and hours every day checking their stocks, checking their money and they wouldn’t spend ten minutes in prayer.  They’re guilty of greed, envy, and pride, and fear.
 
Gossip.  Has this ever happened to you?  You’re thinking about saying something about someone and you say to yourself “that’s gossip, don’t”, and you do it anyway.  Guilty.  Also, it is a sin to be blaming others for everything that goes wrong.  That’s a national past time.  As a matter of fact, the whole world, anything that goes wrong – George Bush.  I don’t know who we’re going to blame next year.  We’ll find someone. 
 
Sometimes, I listen to the Mass on Sunday mornings.  Father Joel Gardner from Holy Rosary Parish was preaching this morning and Father Gardner said, “You know we can all say “no” to these temptations.  We have that ability.”
 
No!  In fact, I think that’s the first word children learn.  No!  No!  Maybe we used all of our “no’s” up when we’re too young.  We need to get some more “no’s”.  We can say “No”.  We are free.  We do not have to sin.  It seems to me, with temptation, you can give in to it or we can fight it.  I don’t think you can just make believe you’re not having it.  You need to fight it.  You need to go on the offense. 
 
C.S. Lewis says this about fighting temptation, “No man knows how bad he is until he has tried very hard to be good.”  Think about that.  “No man knows how bad he is until he has tried very hard to be good.  A current silly idea is that good people do not know what temptation means.  This is an obvious lie.  Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is.  After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting it not by giving in.  You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down.  The man who gives into temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later.  That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness.  They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in.  We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it and Christ, because he was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only one who knows to the full what temptation means; the only complete realist.”
 
St. Ignatius of Loyola in his spiritual exercises, which are a treasure of the church, talks about the need to take the offense when we’re tempted.  He suggests that we try to practice the virtue opposite of the temptation.  If you are tempted to anger then be meek.  If you are tempted to feel pride, or to do something with pride, humble yourself.  If you feel envy or greed, give something away.  Help someone else.  If you want to speak badly about another, then say only the good. 
 
Lent is the perfect time for us to kick it up a notch, to examine our spiritual life.  I’ll ask you this question, each person seven years of age or older:  What’s your problem?  Where do you constantly give in to temptation in your life?  Think about that for a moment. 
 
Lent is a time to do something about it.  Stop, confront this problem and fight it.  You know your weaknesses.  I know mine.  Lent is a time to address them, to get out of that rut that you’ve been in for so many years.  This is the time.
 
On Ash Wednesday we heard from Paul in First Corinthians,
“We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God, working together then we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain for he says, ‘In an acceptable time I heard you and on the day of salvation I helped you.  Behold now is a very acceptable time.  Behold now is the day of salvation.’”