When most of us think of the desert, we think of sand and emptiness. The ancient people saw the desert as a wilderness. It was not empty: it was deadly. When our Lord is led into the desert by the Spirit, he knows he will be drawn into a fight against evil, and he will win.
The three temptations of our Lord follow an ancient pattern. In the Garden of Eden, Adam was tempted in three ways. His appetite was tempted, seeing that the apple looked good to eat. His desire for praise and honor was tempted to vainglory, when the serpent told him that he will be like God. He was tempted to avarice with the possession of the knowledge of good and evil. St. Gregory the Great explains “when in an ambitious manner we desire to obtain dignities to which we cannot lay claim” this is avarice. We would call it greed.
St. Paul reminds us that through Adam’s disobedience, many were made sinners, and death came to all. This failure is the weight with which our Lord enters the desert, but where Adam failed on all counts, our Lord succeeds. When tempted with food for his belly, he overcomes the appetites of his flesh and resists. When tempted to vainglory by the spectacle that would arise from throwing himself from the pinnacle of the temple, he overcomes and resists. When tempted to avarice with great kingdoms and possessions, he overcomes and resists. St. Gregory writes that, “after this defeat [the devil] was enchained by our Lord and forced by Him to go out of our heart by the same door by which he had entered to enslave us.”
Christ didn’t have to go into the desert. He didn’t have to suffer temptation. He, led by the Spirit, chose to do this to show us that we can win this fight in our lives. St. Thomas Aquinas shows us that these temptations are at the root of nearly every temptation we experience: “make bread from stones” tempts our appetites toward a disordered desire for pleasure, “cast yourself down” tempts our need to be seen toward vainglory, and “all these kingdoms will be yours” tempts our desire for more toward avarice and greed. Christ conquered the temptations in the desert through the Word of his Father, and we can conquer these temptations in our own lives by calling The Word, our Lord, to our heat and mind and lips. Christ shows us that we can conquer sin in our lives, even the deep rooted and challenging ones.
This brings me to a topic I have avoided preaching on, because it is challenging to do well, and, honestly, it’s uncomfortable. For many years, our diocese has marked this Sunday as Safe Haven Sunday and has asked us to preach on a particular topic of sin that is running rampant in our society.
It is fitting to bring this up today, because the Gospel and the fathers of the Church, such as St. Gregory, teach us that the devil’s first weapon against us is our belly, or more generally our desire for pleasure, for what feels good. This has always been true for humanity. What is new is that now this temptation is delivered directly into our pockets. It has been engineered, refined, and made available at any hour to us. I am speaking of–and I will say this exactly once–pornography and the habits of sexual sin that form around it.
This sin treats human beings, who are made in the image and likeness of God, as objects for consumption, and it literally rewires our brains that destroy their ability to relate appropriately with the people around us. The shame and secrecy around it isolate us and help the habit of sin to grow stronger. Sadly, it is far more common, even amongst serious Catholics, then we ever want to admit.
But I have good news. The Gospel today teaches us that this battle has already been won. Christ prevailed when he was tempted, and he showed us how to prevail against temptation too. He brought the Word of his Father to bear, and we must bring Him, the Word of God, to bear against this sin, just as we would against any other sin.
For anyone struggling: you are not alone in your fight, not even close. Here are some tools which not only fight these sins, but all sin:
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Regular confession restores our relationship with God and gives us the grace to stay in the fight, even if it does get frustrating to go over and over.
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Find someone in whom you can confide. St. John Chrysostom teaches us that the devil caught Eve isolated, away from Adam, on purpose. He likes to isolate us, because secrecy feeds sin.
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Practical barriers such as internet filters are not a sign of weakness. We can lock the doors of our houses, we can put screens on our windows, why wouldn’t we protect ourselves by filtering our internet? I’ve turned on filtering on my devices, and I specifically block certain social media sites because they steal my time away and are bad for me.
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Fasting is an age-old practice in our church for a reason. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that bodily fasting weakens the grip of disordered appetite. St. Leo the Great teaches that fasting and abstinence must help us spiritually: it is useless to hold back food from the body, if the soul be not held back from sin.
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Finally, parents, these are conversations you must have with your kids. Be someone that they can come to when they come across this. Guide them with mercy and with truth.
During this Lenten season, the Church reminds us of how we are to live our lives and calls us to re-focus on living intentionally for Christ and against sin. To do this, she calls on us to join our Savior in the desert. The desert is a wilderness, and the wilderness can be scary. But the wilderness has been conquered, and all we must do is follow our Savior’s footsteps.