The True Christian
1 st reading: Gen. 2: 7-9; 3: 1-7
2 nd Reading: Rom. 5: 12-19
Gospel: Mt 4: 1-11
“A true Christian”, wrote St John Henry Newman, “may almost be
defined as one who has a ruling sense of God’s presence within him”. He
must be sensitive to the movement of the Holy Spirit within the center of his
soul, in his innermost heart, or in his conscience. This is true even in the case,
as many of the saints have experienced, of undergoing the trial of a dark night
of the soul. We must learn in our trials to trust in God’s Mercy, to trust in
Jesus. A measure of a true Christian is in how well he can trust in Jesus when
difficulties arise, as inevitably they do and will for all of us. We can actually
grow in our understanding of the riches hidden in Christ through the
experiences of trials and temptations, and especially at this time during our
observances of holy Lent through fasting and carrying out acts of mercy. (cf.
the collect prayer).
To live as a true Christian necessarily entails being aware of the snares
of the Evil One, Satan, who continually prowls about like a roaring lion
seeking souls to devour (1 Peter 5:8-9). St. Peter’s words here seem extreme,
but only to those who are not aware of the temptations of Satan and the harm
he can cause.
Today, Jesus teaches us how to unmask the snares of Satan and be
strong against him through the proper use especially of the Scriptures. To
know Jesus, we must be permeated through by His Word and His example,
through our meditations on the Scriptures and living a life in the Holy Spirit.
Following His baptism by St John, coming out of the water, the Holy Spirit
descended upon Him like a dove and a voice from heaven was heard saying:
“This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Then Jesus allows
Himself, being completely docile to the movement of the Holy Spirit within
Him, to be led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. St
Mark puts this much more strongly saying that the Spirit ‘drove Him out into
the wilderness.’ It almost sounds as if Jesus had no choice in the matter! But
His ‘food’ was always to do the Will of His Father, not His own Will.
In the first two temptations, Satan uses Scripture in an attempt to lead
Jesus into the sin of pride. The evil temptations we may experience are not in
themselves sin, but going along with them is. It might seem a reasonable
thing to do to convert the stones into bread by a miracle after fasting for 40
days … if He truly is the Son of God, as Satan chides Him using the same
words heard from heaven at the Baptism. But Jesus never uses His
miraculous powers for His own benefit, but rather always for the service of
others, in the up-building of faith. He has fully accepted the human condition
which he assumed at His Incarnation. Recall too that the original sin of Adam
and Eve was a temptation to pride, to ‘become like gods’. And indeed, since
the Fall, it has been the continual weapon Satan uses against us, and the one
we must learn not just to overcome, but to recognize it in the first place. We
overcome pride through the virtue of humility. It is no accident that the longest
chapter in the Rule of St Benedict, and the one in which temptations and
faults are dealt with most elaborately is Chapter 7 on humility. Thus in
humility, with total abandonment to the Will of His Father, Jesus simply replies
to Satan’s distortion of the Word of God, with another Scripture quote from
Deuteronomy: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but by every word that
proceeds from the mouth of God. This is a challenge for us. St Jerome says
that ‘He who does not feed on the Word of God, does not live’. Thus the true
Christian can only combat the Evil One if he is feeding on the Word of God,
daily. Lent is especially a time to do this. If your fasting makes you hungry, or
indeed you are tempted in anyway, overcome this by opening the Scriptures
and feed yourself on God’s word. Let this be your joy. Overcome temptation
with good.
The second temptation is another attempt to lead Jesus to pride. Show
everyone what you can do! Cast yourself down from the pinnacle of the
Temple and let us see the angels take charge of you! But that would be to put
God to the test, which is not the way of humility.
Then follows a change of tactic. In frustration perhaps, Satan ignores
the Scriptures and makes a direct attack with a temptation to pride and
vainglory. See you can have all these kingdoms of the world if you will just
worship me. Then you can be truly God! How little Satan truly knew Him! But
we can know Him, by being true Christians. And we can know Him in ways
that are impossible for Satan, because Satan cannot be humble. That is not in
his power. He hates humility. He wants to destroy this virtue completely, to
wipe it out of our lives entirely. It is not difficult to see that in the world today
he has done and continues to do a thorough job in this.
But despite all this, we have a power to overcome all this destruction.
Our Lady knew well and demonstrated in her own life that “He has put down
the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of low degree.” She shows us
that the most powerful weapon against war in all its forms, against all the
despots that ever existed and still exist today, is the strong weapon of humility
and obedience to the Will of God. Pondering His Word in her Immaculate
Heart, nourished by the teachings of her Son, intimately united in her soul to
her Divine Spouse, she was and is and always will be the great opponent to
Satan. It is this humility that God has taught us through her, through His Son,
which we are invited to follow. She is the ‘Gate of Heaven’ through which we
must go in order to attain eternal life. Here there is no opposition between her
way and the way of Our Lord. For the true Christian, they are identical. There
is no other way for it is the way our Heavenly Father has chosen for us. In
being sensitive to the movements of the Holy Spirit within our souls, let us
hear the soft whisperings of His Spouse, our Holy Mother. She is closer to us
than the air we breathe. Let the words of the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins be
ours:
Stir in my ears, speak there
Of God’s love, O live air,
Of patience, penance, prayer:
World-mothering air, air wild,
Wound with thee, in thee isled,
Fold home, fast fold thy child.
(Excerpt from: ‘The Blessed Virgin Mary compared to the Air we Breathe’)