Lent and our combat with the powers of evil

1st Sunday of Lent, Year C
First Reading: Dt 26:4–10
Second Reading: Rom 10:8–13
Gospel Reading: Lk 4:1–13

“Return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning,” God implores us in the readings for Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. “We entreat you on behalf of Christ: be reconciled to God,” St. Paul says.

This means repentance, defined in the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church as “the condemnation and abhorrence of one’s own sins.”

“True repentance or contrition springs from a sense of the outrage which sin commits against the love of God. It includes sorrow for sin committed, confession of guilt, and the purpose of amendment.”

Traditionally, we observe Lent with prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, as Jesus enjoined. However, he cautions us against “practising your piety before others in order to be seen by them.” Instead, he says, do it in secret, so that only “your Father” sees.

Why is Lent so necessary?

By our first parents’ sin, the devil acquired “a certain domination” over us, says the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It entails “captivity under the power of him who thenceforth had the power of death: that is, the devil.”

In other words, the whole world is now in the power of the evil one. Accordingly, our life is “a battle,” says the Catechism. “The whole of man’s history has been the story of dire combat with the powers of evil, stretching, so our Lord tells us, from the very dawn of history until the last day.”

“Scripture witnesses to the disastrous influence of the one Jesus calls a murderer from the beginning, who would even try to divert Jesus from the mission received from his Father,” as we hear in this Sunday’s Gospel reading.

This “disastrous influence” includes “grave injuries—of a spiritual nature and, indirectly, even of a physical nature—to each man and to society.” Nevertheless, the power of Satan is “not infinite.” Satan “is only a creature”—a being created by God—although he is “powerful from the fact that he is pure spirit.” However, “he cannot prevent the building up of God’s reign.”

It is important for us to keep Satan’s power in mind, especially when he tempts us. “Ignorance of the fact that man has a wounded nature, inclined to evil, gives rise to serious errors in the areas of education, politics, social action, and morals.”

In his 1986 encyclical on the Holy Spirit, Pope St. John Paul II noted that “the same Counsellor and Spirit of truth” whom Christ promised would teach us and guide us into all the truth is also the one who “will convince the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.”

Here, the Pope said, “sin” means the incredulity and rejection of his mission that Jesus encountered among humans. “Righteousness” means “that definitive justice” which the Father restored to Christ when he granted him “the glory of the Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven.” Finally, “judgment” means the Holy Spirit’s demonstration of the world’s guilt “in condemning Jesus to death on the cross.”

Nevertheless, the Holy Spirit’s purpose in convincing us about sin and righteousness “is the salvation of the world, the salvation of men,” the Pope said. Christ came into the world not just to judge and condemn it but “to save it.” In fact, the Catechism says, the Holy Spirit will convince the world about sin by “revealing him who is its Redeemer.”

Only those who know they are sick will welcome the doctor. Only those who recognize the power of Satan, the devil, the “prince of this world,” will welcome Christ as our Saviour.

During Lent’s 40 days, let us allow the Holy Spirit to convince us of our sinfulness—including the original sin we inherit and the personal sins we commit—and to reassure us that God will bring us, like the ancient Israelites, out of slavery “with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm” into “a land flowing with milk and honey.”

Father Hawkswell is again teaching The Catholic Faith in Plain English, with new insights. The whole course is available in written form and, one session per week, in YouTube form at beholdvancouver.org/catholic-faith-course. Father is also teaching the course in person: on Sundays at 2:00 p.m. in the John Paul II Pastoral Centre, 4885 St. John Paul II Way, Vancouver (33rd and Willow); and on Mondays at 10:00 a.m. in St. Anthony’s Church hall, 2347 Inglewood Avenue, West Vancouver. The title of next week’s talk is God’s Will.

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