1st Sunday of Lent, Year A
First Reading: Gn 2:7-9, 16-18, 25; 3:1-7
Second Reading: Rom 5:12-19
Gospel Reading: Mt 4:1-11

This Sunday’s Readings show us how Satan works.

God created Adam and Eve in his image and established them in his friendship. However, they could not be friends with him as equals, for he was their Creator and they his creatures. As such, they had insurmountable limits, symbolized in the Bible by God’s command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

God planned to “divinize” them – to make them divine, like himself. Moreover, Adam and Eve themselves wanted to be like God. However, Satan twisted the truth, persuading them that they could become like God on their own, without God.

Satan twisted the truth to Jesus as well.

First, he suggested that Jesus turn stones into bread. That sounds all right: Jesus miraculously multiplied a few loaves and fishes later in his public life.

However, as Jesus said, “The Son cannot do anything by himself – he can do only what he sees the Father doing.” God the Father multiplies grain and fish every year in the course of nature. Jesus’ miracles reflected, locally and quickly, what God does, everywhere and more slowly. To turn stones into bread would not be in the “family style,” so to speak, and Jesus rejected the temptation to separate himself from His Father like this.

Second, Satan tempted Jesus to throw himself off the pinnacle of the temple. Again, that sounds all right: if he trusted God, God would save him, as Scripture asserts.

However, true filial trust does not put the trusted one to this kind of test, as Jesus says in his response.

Third, Satan promised to give Jesus all the kingdoms of the world. Once again, there is some truth in this promise, for Jesus himself called Satan “the prince of this world”; the Book of Revelation says that it was to this planet that Satan was banished when he was expelled from Heaven.

However, Jesus wants humans to turn to him of their own free will.

Adam and Eve, with nothing to incline them away from God except a prideful desire to set up on their own, fell for Satan’s deception. Jesus did not, and his “act of righteousness” led to “justification and life for all,” St. Paul says. “Jesus is the new Adam who remained faithful where the first Adam had given in to temptation,” says the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Now the temptations Satan offers us are just as plausible as those in this Sunday’s Readings. For example, a man whose wife has left him wants to marry someone else. When the Church tells him that he cannot, for his first marriage is valid, Satan says, “God wants you to be happy; the Catechism says so. So go ahead; take the woman you want.”

Satan is a spirit, much more powerful and subtle than we are. How do we guard ourselves against his temptations?

First, we obey the laws of God and his Church even when we do not understand. We trust Christ’s promise that the Holy Spirit will never allow the Church to defend error as if it were truth, or deny truth as it if were error.

Second, we remain aware of Satan’s existence, his hatred for us, and his never-ending attempts to destroy us in Hell. Our attention should be on God, but we must never forget Christ’s warning: “Fear him who has power to cast into Gehenna after he has killed. Yes, I tell you, fear him.”

Otherwise, we may think that we are making free choices when, in fact, we are being seduced by the world, the flesh, the devil, or the devil’s misuse of the world and the flesh.

We must recognize and reject temptation as soon as it starts, as Jesus did, relying not on our own strength, but on his, turning to him with a cry for help: “Jesus, I trust in you.”

Father Hawkswell is again teaching The Catholic Faith in Plain English, with new insights in both print and YouTube form at beholdvancouver.org/catholic-faith-course. Father is also teaching the course in person on Sundays from 2 to 4 p.m. at the John Paul II Pastoral Centre (4885 Saint John Paul II Way, 33rd Avenue and Willow Street, Vancouver) and on Mondays from 10 a.m. to noon in St. Anthony’s Church Hall, 2347 Inglewood Avenue, West Vancouver. Next week’s topic is “God’s Will.”