First Sunday of Lent Sermon
Sermon of His Lordship Monsignor Sebastian
For we have not an High Priest Who cannot have compassion on our infirmities, but one tempted in all things, like as we are, without sin. Hebrews 4:15
THE Apostle reminds us that as Christians we called to an exalted sanctification, far above mediocrity. The Lord Himself teaches us that we are to avoid mediocrity: But because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth (Apocalypse 3:16).
When S. Paul exhorts us to not receive the grace of God in vain (II Corinthians 6:1) he desires that we do all we can to reach the heights and depths of sanctification: we are called to be saints! S. James reminds us, brethren, count it all joy, when you shall fall into divers temptations; knowing that the trying of your faith worketh patience. And patience hath a perfect work; that you may be perfect and entire, failing in nothing (S. James 1:2 – 4), and teaches us further, Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he hath been proved, he shall receive a crown of life, which God hath promised to them that love Him. Let no man, when he is tempted, say that he is tempted by God. For God is not a tempter of evils, and He tempteth no man. But every man is tempted by his own concupiscence, being drawn away and allured. Then when concupiscence hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin. But sin, when it is completed, begetteth death (ibid. 12 – 15). We are not promised that temptation shall be removed from us, no my beloved children, not at all. In fact, temptation shall come more often and stronger as you seek the heights of holiness; but what is promised, if you be faithful to the promises of your Baptism, is the ability to withstand such temptations.
Our first Holy Father, Blessed Peter, teaches us that wherein you shall greatly rejoice, if now you must be for a little time made sorrowful in divers temptations: that the trial of your faith (much more precious than gold which is tried by the fire) may be found unto praise and glory and honour at the appearing of Jesus Christ (I Peter 1:6 – 7).
Therefore, beloved in Christ the King, our temptations are an act of love and fidelity: when we resist temptation we say YES to Christ the Saviour while rejecting the evil one. Between the Epistle and Holy Gospel the Holy Church places the 90th Psalm for our prayer and contemplation, because it is from this Psalm of Prophecy of King S. David that the deceiver seeks to tempt our Lord in this morning’s Gospel; the Evangelist tells us that the Lord Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert, to be tempted by the devil (S. Matthew 4:1).
S. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), the Angelic Doctor, teaches that Christ willed to be tempted: that He might assist us against our own temptations. S. Gregory says, ‘That our Redeemer, Who had come on earth to be killed, should will to be tempted was not unworthy of Him. It was indeed but just that He should overcome our temptations by His own, in the same way that He had come to overcome our death by His death’. This sublime teaching gives us holy hope and an example that we might overcome the greatest and strongest of temptations, and to also warn us that no man, however holy he may be, should think himself immune from temptation. To do so is to commit the grave sin of presumption, which the heretics extol falsely as a promise of once saved always saved, which is explicitly contradicted by the sound doctrine of Sacred Scripture: Wherefore, my dearly beloved…with fear and trembling work out your salvation (Philippians 2:12), and But I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection: lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway (I Corinthians 9:27).
The Holy Church places the Temptation of the Lord at the very beginning of Holy Lent so that we might be warned as well as comforted: Warned that the adversary is always about seeking to deceive and seduce us: sobrii estote et vigilate: quia adversarius vester diabolus, tamquam leo rugiens, circuit quaerens quem devoret: cui resistite fortes in fide (I S. Peter 5:8). Comforted that our ability to resist the evil one comes from the strength of our Faith! The Apostles also reminds us that Our Lord completely shares our humanity in order to restore it to its original state of perfection, and that by His overcoming of temptation and sin we too might do so: For we have not an High Priest Who cannot have compassion on our infirmities, but one tempted in all things, like as we are, without sin (Hebrews 4:15).
Taking this lesson of Our Blessed Lord’s temptation, let us further learn from the great theological wisdom of Our Holy Father S. Pope Gregory the Great: Some are wont to question as to what spirit it was of which Jesus was led up into the wilderness, on account of the words a little farther on: Then the devil taketh Him up into the Holy City. And again: The devil taketh Him up into an exceeding high mountain. But verily, and without question, we must take this passage to mean that it was the Holy Ghost who led Him up into the wilderness. His own Spirit led Him where the evil spirit might find Him to tempt Him. But behold, when it is said that the God-Man was taken up by the devil either into an exceeding high mountain, or into the Holy City, the mind shrinketh from believing, and the ears of man shudder at hearing it. Yet these things are not incredible, when we consider certain other things concerning Him. Verily, the devil is the head of all the wicked, and every wicked man is a member of the body of wickedness, of which the devil is the head. Was not Pilate a limb of Satan? Were not the Jews that persecuted Christ, and the soldiers that crucified Him, likewise limbs of Satan? Is it then strange that He should allow Himself to be led up into a mountain by the head, when He allowed Himself to be crucified by the members thereof? Wherefore it is not unworthy of our Redeemer, who came to be slain, that He was willing to be tempted. Rather, it was meet that He should overcome our temptations by His own temptations, even as He came to conquer our death by His own death. But we ought to keep in mind that temptation beareth us onward by three steps. There is, first, the suggestion; then the delectation; lastly, the consent. When we are tempted, we oft-times give way to delectation, and even to consent, because in the sinful flesh of which we are begotten, we carry in ourselves matter to favour the attack of sin. But God, when He took flesh in the womb of the Virgin, and came into the world without sin, did so without having in Himself anything of this contradiction. It was possible therefore for Him to be tempted in the first stage, namely suggestion; but delectation could find nothing in His soul wherein to fix its teeth. Wherefore all the temptation which He endured from the devil was without, for none was within Him.
We must, beloved in Christ the King, take this example of Our Lord and God Jesus Christ and become sanctified. This is our Lent, to die to ourselves and to sin that may live in His grace. This is conversion, which means not only to turn away from sin, but also to turn towards God and His grace.
Conversion must not only be a once a year action, for Lent, rather, for every single day, yes, even every single moment. What vice have you given up? What virtue have you taken up? For the only way to truly overcome vice and sin is to replace it with virtue and grace; one does not merely stop sinning, but he moves in virtue towards grace.
S. Augustine teaches us in his work The City of God that For as that which gives life to the flesh is not derived from the flesh, but is above it, so that which gives blessed life to man is not derived from man, but is something above him…wherefore, as the life of the flesh is the soul, so the blessed life of man is God, of Whom the sacred writings of the Hebrews say “Blessed is the people whose God is the Lord” (Psalm 143:15) [Book 19, no.25 & 26].
And the great theologian Father Adolphe Tanquerey (d. 1932) reminds us that, The infused virtues are susceptible of growth in the soul and do, as a matter of fact, grow with the increase of habitual grace, whence they flow (The Spiritual Life, no. 1003).
So by replacing a habitual sin, such as gossiping, stealing, lying, impurity and the like, and replacing it with habitual grace, silence, giving, truth telling, purity and the like, virtue actively grows in our soul, whereby Apostolic Zeal then vivifies our character, internally and externally. It is the Apostle who confirms this teaching I give you this morning: Envies, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like. Of the which I foretell you, as I have foretold to you, that they who do such things shall not obtain the Kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is, charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, chastity. Against such there is no law. And they that are Christ's, have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit (Galatians 5:21 – 25).
