Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 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 afterwards 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 by bread alone, but by 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.
Mt 4:1–11
Peace to all my brothers and sisters listening in today
Fasting. Prayer. Almsgiving
- Adam and Eve were tempted by the three fold temptation, which are the root of all sins and lead to death. They were tempted to take the fruit which they saw was good for food, pleasing to the eye and would gain them wisdom and so make them like God. Where they fell in their temptation, Jesus is victorious and overcomes them – How? by obeying God’s word. In doing so, Jesus teaches us how to overcome this triple concupiscence which 1 John 2:16 defined as the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the lust of the pride of life. The antidote to these three temptations are fasting, prayer and almsgiving. Jesus is first tempted to satiate his bodily hunger by his own power and so is tempted to self-sufficiency, to being totally autonomous and independent from God and therefore in a sense, being our own God -able to satisfy all of our own needs. Jesus teaches us however that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. We have more than material needs and hungers. Fasting in this way can help us get in touch with our deepest need, the deeper hunger we all have, the hunger of our soul for God’s word. Only God’s word can fulfill all of the deepest longings of our heart and truly satisfy us. Jesus became bread in order to feed our souls.
- The second temptation seems to be one of Christian vanity and trying to show off our faith. It is the temptation to make a spectacle of ourselves and draw attention to ourselves, flaunting our perceived special status with God as if our devotion places us above others, and warrants some special treatment. Jesus reminds us we should not tempt the Lord our God. In fact we should not let our left hand know what our right is doing and so allow the practice of our prayer be done in secret, in the inner sanctum of our hearts, so that our worship and praise will be seen by God who sees in secret.
- The third temptation of Christ is about trying to have it all and being deceived into thinking that we can have glory without the cross. The tempter offers the passing glory of the world if we serve and worship him. Jesus reminds us that we are called to worship and serve the Lord alone, and by doing so will receive a glory that is not of this world, which can come only in and through the cross, that is by lovingly embracing the suffering and sacrifice that God calls us to. Rather than trying to greedily acquire All we can get, we learn that by almsgiving by giving it all away, we receive more than we could ever imagine. This is the good news of lent. It is in losing our life that we find it, in giving that we receive, it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. The cross leads us to new life. We are glorified in and through the self denial and self emptying that Jesus models through his passion.
May God bless you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
Always remember heaven is our goal
[ecp code=”donaciones”]
