Temptation in the Desert and the Holy Eucharist

When we hear from the Gospels the story of the temptations of Jesus by Satan during His forty days in the desert, we may think of many things or have many reactions. We should not imagine that this encounter in the Judean desert is a struggle between equal combatants. Nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus Christ is God incarnate. Even though He has taken on human flesh and has become fully man, He remains God. In His humility and love for us, he submits Himself to the taunts and temptations of the ancient enemy in order to be united with us in our struggles with temptation and sin, and also to provide a willing Victim for the sacrifice of atonement offered on the Cross that ultimately will destroy sin and the kingdom of Satan. Perhaps a reaction to the temptations of Our Lord should be outrage at the audacity of Satan. How foolish the enemy is! That comes from his pride, arrogance and blindness to the real power of Jesus—that is, His inexhaustible love.
            During Lent, when we hear the account of the temptations from the Gospel at Mass, it can be very helpful to apply Jesus’ victory over the Evil One’s temptations to our own personal struggles with temptation. However, we must see that it is also about a great cosmic battle between God’s love and Satan’s hatred.
            In St. Luke’s Gospel, we hear the delineation of what the temptations were as they were offered to Jesus.  The first temptation: “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread’” (Lk 4:3). The second temptation: “The devil took him up, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, ‘To you I will give all this authority and their glory; for it has been delivered to me, and I will give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it shall all be yours’” (Lk 4:5-7). The third temptation: “And he took him up to Jerusalem, and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, “He will give his angels charge of you, to guard you” and “On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot upon a stone”’” (Lk4:9-11).
            These three temptations are often interpreted to represent the phases of temptations that we all go through when we try to live the spiritual life: first, bread represents the things of the flesh; second, the kingdoms of the world represent the beauty and attractions of the world; third, the throwing of Himself down so as to be acknowledged by the angels represents pride. The temptations that assailed Christ Our Lord also assail us, members of His Body the Church. Christ was victorious over them. We often succumb to them. We find ourselves embroiled in the spiritual combat between good and evil. Our hope comes from Christ, who is already and always victorious.
            So, what is the remedy to the temptations and sin that the Evil one offers us? What defeats him in the cosmic spiritual battle that raged in the Judean desert and rages in our world and in our lives today? It is Christ Whom Satan assails in the desert and continues to assail in His Body the Church today. For, He came into the world as both Priest and Victim and defeated Satan, sin, and the kingdom of darkness by His Passion, Death and Resurrection. In the everlasting Covenant, sealed in his Blood, we are saved from this darkness. This Paschal Mystery of Jesus’ Death and Rising to new life has been entrusted to his Body the Church to be celebrated until He comes again at the end of time. We call it the Eucharistic Sacrifice, or the Sacrifice of the Mass. It truly makes present the Sacrifice of the Lord by which we are saved.
“At the Last Supper, on the night when He was betrayed, our Savior instituted the Eucharistic sacrifice of His Body and Blood. He did this in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the Cross throughout the centuries until He should come again, and so to entrust to His beloved Spouse, the Church, a memorial of His death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a Paschal banquet in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us.
(Sacrosanctum Concilium, #47)
            My dear brothers and sisters, we see that Jesus’ Sacrifice on the Cross is the ultimate offering for sin by which evil is defeated and we are raised to new life, His own resurrected life. Without this Sacrifice, there would be no Resurrection. Without this Sacrifice, there would be no salvation for us. Jesus desires that the power that defeats evil, the mercy and love of the Father, should be made present for us and all generations until He returns in glory with the angels. This happens every day at Mass. How do we grow in holiness, resist temptation, and defeat evil? We come to the Sacrifice of Jesus made present on the altar at Mass. There we are immersed in the very source of the saving power of the mercy and love of God that defeats all evil, the Sacrifice of Our Savior. This all happens at Mass. Why, then, do we not come daily?

Most Reverend William J. Waltersheid
Auxiliary Bishop of Pittsburgh