Angels on our shoulders or devils at our backs!

Our Lord fought the three Temptations of Satan in the Desert where each temptation grew in intensity. Yet, unlike Adam and Eve who succumbed at the second thrust of Satan’s artifice, Our Lord did not. Our Lord remained faithful and the Devil departed in frustration but would return later when the hour of darkness had descended. The Angels came to Our Lord Jesus to give him comfort after this demonic sifting when Our Lord was at his physically weakest. He did this for us so that we would know that in times of greatest weakness he will give us his strength to overcome the Enemy and this is what Lent shows us and trains us to know.

There are 3 things to note about this 1st Sunday of Lent. Firstly, it is important to understand that how we live out Lent will determine whether or not we will have the spiritual stamina to do Holy Week. Simply put: a weak practice of Lent ends in at best a shallow experience of Holy Week or a failure to participate in all the days of Holy Week.

Secondly, we need to remember that in Lent all peoples on earth are under the purple mantle of Lent, so when people say to you at the office, at work or in your social circle that they are having a tough time, you say to them “Well,…it is Lent!”

Thirdly, the three temptations Satan put to our Lord in our Gospel today were ought to make him forget his purpose in life--his messianic mission of redemption. He was urged to get all the bodily comforts of life, all the self-glory which men could give him, and all the possessions and power the Devil has to offer if he put something else at the centre of his life other than God. How many of us this year will be tempted by the world, the flesh and the devil to neglect or distract us from accomplishing the spiritual training of Lent?

However, our focus today will be the third temptation of Jesus and it’s connection to the Agony of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Recall how the Devil brought Jesus up to a high mountain and offered him all the kingdoms of the world, if he bowed down and worshipped him. If the Devil was telling the truth, he was revealing to us an alarming truth that should concern all those who aspire to political power, namely, that it is Satan who sets up and controls the empires and kingdoms of this world as he desires to set up an alternative to the Empire of Christ, the Church! But, what is the real nature of this temptation? Surely, it must be more than offering him all these kingdoms in human history as how would this really tempt the one who is God and Man, the Word of God brought all of creation into being? The answer lies in St Benedict’s insight.

St Benedict explains the real nature of the 3rd temptation: Satan was also offering to release all the souls who are under his power on earth…and in Hell, if Jesus would only bow down and worship him! Satan was willing to give up all these human souls for this pearl, this infinite prize, this Man without sin, this New Adam. What a terrible temptation for Our Lord, he is tempted to do evil so good may come of it!

Now this Temptation brings us to the shocking and terrible truth of the Our Lord’s Agony in garden in which this 3rd Temptation finds it’s full realiseation. In the garden, Jesus as the God-man sees how many of his little children will not respond to his great sacrifice on the cross and would rather choose hell. He sees the future and how the majority of his little children would end up in Hell despite the Grace offered:

• in the proclamation of the Gospel,

• his sacrifice on the Cross for them,

• in the promise and wonder of the resurrection

• and in the power of the cross and resurrection being made visible in every place, in every time and among every people in the glory of Holy Mass and all the sacraments!

Yet, Jesus does not succumb to the temptation in the desert nor to despair in the garden of Gethsemane. Rather he goes to the cross knowing how his passion, death and resurrection would fail to move the hearts, minds, bodies and souls of the majority of humanity who would choose Hell rather than heaven! Would choose self rather than heaven! Would choose anything rather than God!

For the truth is that the way to Perdition is wide and broad and many take it and the way to eternal life with God, is hard and narrow and few find it [Matt 7:13-14]. In this year we have looming over us dark clouds and dark wings that seem to be on the horizon as we face the real danger of a World War, of War in the Church, of famine, of rocketing fuel and energy prices, of the distruction of liberty and restriction of movement by tyrannical and anti-democratic town and city councils, by the attempt to remove cash by banks to the cost of the poor, charities and churches and the surrender of our contries Sovereignty by MPs that have voted to allow the imposition of lockdowns, serums and ID cards by the World Health Organisation [WHO].  This Lent may well be the most important Lent you and I will have ever undertaken in our lives.

Lent is a wake-up call for us all to do the mission! To put on the armour of God [Ephesians 6:10-20] and to fight the powers and principalities of this world that seek to cull, enslave and oppress mankind though the rich and powerful who serve their plans with their soulless, secular and murderous agenda.

We must not surrender our liberties as without them we could not engage in the corporal and spiritual works of Mercy upon which our salvation depends. Yes, indeed, we must work out our salvation with fear and trembling through the proper exercise of our free will and our freedom which the Enemy and it’s servants seek to curtail.

Yet we must work in the Spirit of Hope and not succumber to Despair and we must work in the Spirit of Divine love and not succumb to Hate. For Our Lord calls us to train for Spiritual Warfare wherein we learn to practice choosing love of the other, even if they be our enemy, rather than choosing self-serving and self-centred operations of mere survival. It is in Lent that all peoples discover God’s tough programme of soul-making for heaven for many are called but sadly few end up being chosen because they choose anything than God!

The religious indifference we find today is at epidemic proportions in UK as over 90% would prefer to do anything rather than go to church and thus we have the leaders, political and religious, that we deserve. T S Eliot saw in 1934 in his work ‘The Rock’ the significance of a people who have lost their souls and a culture that has turned from God:

I journeyed to London, to the timekept City,

Where the River flows, with foreign flotations.

There I was told: we have too many churches,

And too few chop-houses. There I was told:

Let the vicars retire. Men do not need the Church

In the place where they work, but where they spend their Sundays.

In the City, we need no bells:

Let them waken the suburbs.

I journeyed to the suburbs, and there I was told:

We toil for six days, on the seventh we must motor

To Hindhead, or Maidenhead.

If the weather is foul we stay at home and read the papers.

In industrial districts, there I was told

Of economic laws.

In the pleasant countryside, there it seemed

That the country now is only fit for picnics.

And the Church does not seem to be wanted

In country or in suburbs; and in the town

Only for important weddings.

As an aid for reading the signs of the times consider the amazing prophecies of Our Lady of Good Success who appeared to Mother Mariana of Jesus Torres y Berriochoa, a nun of the Conceptionist Order, in Quito, Ecuador and given between 1594-1634: https://www.tfp.org/prophecies-of-our-lady-of-good-success-about-our-times/