The movie, The Passion of the Christ, you remember, begins with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane with Peter, James, and John. In the movie, Satan comes to Jesus to tempt Him. The temptation is very subtle. Satan is trying to sew doubt into the mind of Jesus by telling Him that no human can carry the sins of all humanity. In the movie, Satan says to Jesus: “No one man can carry this burden, I tell you. It is far too heavy. Saving their souls is too costly. No one. Ever. No. Never.”

On the surface, it is a reasonable argument and that’s why it is so tricky because the real, more sinister temptation behind it is this: “You cannot do what the Father is asking you to do. His will is unreasonable.” That’s what, in the movie, the character of Satan wants to put in Jesus’ mind.

In real life, Satan is just as tricky and more so. On this First Sunday of Lent, we see in the Gospel that Jesus is led into the desert and is tempted by Satan. I would like to spend a little time talking with you about Satan’s temptations and how they affect us.

First, who is Satan? Where did he come from?

Just like God has given us free will in order that we may choose to love Him freely, so God created all the angels with free will and at some point in time allowed them to exercise that free will for or against God so that they could offer their love freely, because love isn’t love unless it is a free gift of oneself. Some of those angels chose to rebel against God, and the highest of the rebels was Lucifer who was cast out of heaven. This is Satan, the most evil of the fallen angels who tempts us now because he wishes all of us to fall away from God. I’ll explain why he wants to do this in a minute, but first, his strategies.

He tries to stir up our passions, which are already unruly because of original sin. But he usually doesn’t do it directly. He doesn’t have that kind of power over us who have not invited himin. He’s not inside us stirring us up. Again, those unruly passions are already there within us because of our fallen nature. But when we are deliberating whether to sin or not, he wants to join in the conversation. He wants to plant subtle suggestions in our minds. Things like:

“Don’t think about it. Just do it. Do what feels good. Do what you want.”

“Just do a little. You can stop yourself before you do anything serious.”

“You can’t live without this. Why would you want to miss out?”

“Don’t miss this opportunity. You may not get it again.”

“You need an escape. You can’t be good all the time.”

He can tempt us like this with any kind of sin, not just the one’s that may readily come to mind: anger, gluttony, of course, lust, greed, gossip, lying, well, the whole list. You know them.

Many times, Satan tempts us too by trying to use our fear and doubt and by using our fears and doubts, he tries to build a lack of trust in God. I’ll give you a few examples:

I – The Celibacy of the priest: Satan would whisper, “This is unnatural. No one can do this and be normal. No one can do this and be happy. There will be no love in your life if you live this way.”

II – Contraception: Satan would whisper, “God asks too much of you. It’s unreasonable. God has given us minds to use so that we can control our own lives.”

III – Drug and alcohol abuse: Satan would whisper, “Life is too hard. You need some help.”

He wants to plant subtle thoughts in our heads to pull us away from trusting in God.

Now I know that so far this is probably not the most uplifting of homilies, but this knowledge is meant to free us because if we understand the way Satan tempts, then we understand that these are all lies and once we know that, then we can dismiss them for what they are, lies, meant to pull us away from God.

So why does Satan do this?

Because he hates God. Don’t think for one minute that he cares about you or your happiness or even your pleasure. He only cares about your destruction because he hates God and all of God’s creation. He wants to destroy you simply to spite God. To him, you and I are only pawns. Nothing he offers us will give us anything but agony and destruction.

Here’s the good news. We have nothing to fear from him, absolutely nothing. Jesus mounted the wood of the cross for us and defeated him and defeated him soundly. We were pulled from his clutches by our baptism, and we are free to love God and to live for Him alone.

This Lenten season is a time for us to re-commit ourselves to loving God. We acknowledge our sins, that there have been times that we have been seduced by Satan’s lies. Jesus spoke to us in the Gospel: “Repent! The kingdom of God is at hand.” God is most merciful and forgives our sins if we only turn to Him asking for mercy, especially through the sacrament of confession.

Lent is also a time of spiritual training as we fast and abstain and do penance and spend more time in prayer and give to the poor. We are concretely choosing good which leads us closer to God and away from Satan’s lies.

Also, we are not alone in this battle against Satan’s lies. The Gospel says that as Jesus faced Satan’s temptation in the desert, the angels ministered to Him. We can expect that God’s angels will minister to us too in the midst of temptation. We can call on God’s angels to help us, especially St. Michael. The prayer to him should be one that we all know by heart so that we can readily ask for his help in temptation.

St. Michael, the archangel, defend us in battle. Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray. And do thou, O prince of the heavenly hosts, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan and all evil spirits, who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

Father Mark Gurtner, at Our Lady of Good Hope, Fort Wayne, IN – 1st Sunday of Lent 2006