The Words of Archbishop Fulton Sheen
It is part of the discipline of God to make His loved ones perfect through trial and suffering. Only by carrying the Cross can one reach the Resurrection. It was precisely this part of Our Lord’s Mission that the devil attacked. The temptations were meant to divert Our Lord from His task of salvation through sacrifice. Instead of the Cross as a means of winning the souls of men, Satan suggested three short cuts to popularity; an economic one, another based on marvels, and a third, which was political. Very few people believe in the devil these days, which suits the devil very well. He is always helping to circulate the news of his own death. The essence of God is existence, and He defines Himself as: “I am Who am.” The essence of the devil is the lie, and he defines himself as: “I am who am not.” Satan has very little trouble with those who do not believe in him; they are already on his side.
The temptations of man are easy enough to analyze, because they always fall into one of three categories: they either pertain to the flesh (lust and gluttony), or to the mind (pride and envy), or to the idolatrous love of things (greed). Though man is buffeted all through life by these three kinds of temptation, they vary in intensity from age to age. It is during youth that man is most often tempted against purity and inclined to the sins of the flesh; in middle age, the flesh is less urgent and temptations of the mind begin to predominate, e.g. pride and the lust for power; in the autumn of life, temptations to avarice are likely to assert themselves. Seeing that the end of life is near, man strives to banish doubts about eternal security or salvation by piling up the goods of earth and redoubling his economic security. It is a common psychological experience that those who have given way to lust in youth are often those who sin by avarice in their old age.
(excerpt from Life of Christ)
Reflection on the Archbishop’s Words by Father Andrew Apostoli
In the Liturgy of the Hours for the Lenten Season, the Church has the antiphon, “Come, let us adore Christ the Lord, Who for our sake endured temptation and suffering!” The temptations of the Lord are emphasized in the earlier part of Lent, while His sufferings are stressed toward the end of this great penitential season. In fact, the gospel account for the First Sunday of Lent is always the story of the temptations of the Lord. Although we are past that Sunday in our present Lent, let us reflect with Archbishop Sheen on the meaning of this powerful experience in the life of Jesus and its implications for our own lives.
The first point the Archbishop makes is that Jesus was to bring about salvation through suffering. As he would express so often, the Archbishop said Jesus was both Priest and Victim. And the one way His Heavenly Father had decided that His Beloved Son would suffer was on the cross. The cross was a symbol of violent suffering and inhuman degradation. By His death on a cross, Jesus turned that symbol into the sign of triumph over sin and death. It would become the new “Tree of Life!” Satan sensed this, and so he was determined to tempt Jesus away from suffering and humiliation of the cross by alluring Him with those things that attract most other men: the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life! Well did Archbishop Sheen call these temptations “three short cuts from the cross!”
With great insight into human nature, Archbishop Sheen next shows how Satan uses certain temptations at different times in persons’ lives. Youth, for example, with its emerging passions, is primarily tempted to sins that appeal to the pleasures of the senses, namely, the sins of the flesh such as lust and gluttony. In middle age, when the passions are generally more subdued, the Devil tempts many people to sins that appeal to the mind, such as of pride and envy. Finally, in more advanced years, the Devil takes advantage of doubts and concerns that often arise in the human heart about the uncertain future, and tempts us to provide materially for ourselves by the excess of avarice. Our blessed Lord, in facing His temptations, resists all three of these types of sins by refusing to use His extraordinary power, whether to change stones into bread to satisfy His hunger, or throw Himself in a marvelous spectacle from the top of the Temple, or to give glory to a creature, like Satan and his self-proclaimed “kingdom of this world,” and not to His Heavenly Father. Jesus resisted every temptation of Satan by remaining faithful to His Heavenly Father’s Will. Ultimately, He would enter into the fullness of His glory by enduring the cross. Let us pray for the courage to resist these same temptations in our own lives by daily carrying our cross with Jesus!
(Fr. Andrew Apostoli, CFR is the Vice-Postulator of the Cause for Canonization of Archbishop Fulton Sheen. Please visit our website!)
