When it seems like we are suffering without meaning, a purpose can be achieved if we but trust in God. A point rests in difficulties, if we are but willing that it be shown to us. God is training us. Do we accept this guidance? We learn not just when we are sated. We grow also when we are longing and feel we are not being satisfied.
We realize who we are both through times which are rewarding as well as during trying periods. By navigating amidst both types of waters, we see reflected in those waters our truest, deepest desires. In time we come to see our true identity in all types of moments, and thus we come to discover true joy, the deep and profound joy which comes from knowing who we truly are.
And so we are not always satiating our desires. We know that we learn also when we deprive ourselves of what we want. Thus now during Lent, for forty days we immerse ourselves in a more intense period of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
We are encouraged in our Lenten observances through knowing that Jesus fasted in the desert for forty days. Thus in today's Gospel we hear that
At that time Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert
to be tempted by the devil.
He fasted for forty days and forty nights,
and afterwards he was hungry.
The tempter approached and said to him,
"If you are the Son of God,
command that these stones become loaves of bread."
He said in reply,
"It is written:
One does not live on bread alone,
but on every word that comes forth
from the mouth of God."
Then the devil took him to the holy city,
and made him stand on the parapet of the temple,
and said to him,
"If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.
For it is written:
He will command his angels concerning you
and with their hands they will support you,
lest you dash your foot against a stone."
Jesus answered him,
"Again it is written,
You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test."
Then the devil took him up to a very high mountain,
and showed him all the kingdoms of the world
in their magnificence,
and he said to him, "All these I shall give to you,
if you will prostrate yourself and worship me."
At this, Jesus said to him,
"Get away, Satan!
It is written:
The Lord, your God, shall you worship
and him alone shall you serve."
Then the devil left him and, behold,
angels came and ministered to him.*
There is the temptation to focus on what is visible. Satan tempted Jesus to turn stones into bread. If we focus too much on food, we can end up putting our bodies before our souls. Then, at the hour of our death, we can be in the position of wishing we had put our souls before our bodies. Jesus reminds us that we truly subsist on the Word of God, for the Word feeds our souls, while bread feeds only our bodies. We need not only bread, but, far more importantly, the Word of God so we may be fully nourished.
There is the temptation to test God. Satan tried to tempt Jesus into jumping off the spire of the temple to see if God the Father would save Him. We try to test and see if God is really going to take care of us. We worry that God doesn't have everything in His care. God has a plan that is infinitely better for us than anything we could possibly imagine. Jesus directs us not to put God to the test. God calls us to trust Him.
There is the temptation to grab power, and in doing so, to sacrifice our souls through turning away from God. Satan tempted Jesus with the suggestion of earthly power. Jesus knew who He was and is; Jesus knew that His Kingdom is not of this world.** We are not to grasp for power that is not within the scope of our vocation: we are not to cling to power that God is not calling us to have. We are to follow the call that God sends to each of us. In the process, we respect ourselves and we reverence God, for we are who He created us to be, and we do what He created us to do, to adore, and praise and glorify Him.
When Jesus faced these temptations for forty days, He was strengthened in the knowledge of the Israelites' exodus in the desert for forty years.*** Jesus knew also that Moses had spent forty days fasting on the mountain as he received the Ten Commandments from God.****
Jesus was conscious of what God the Father had been trying to show us for years through deprivation. When Jesus confronted temptation, He knew the purpose of the desert. In not only the literal desert, a dry, barren, stark landscape, but also in spiritual deserts characterized by spiritual dryness and loneliness, and in emotional deserts fraught with frustration, dissatisfaction and depression, we encounter denial of our desires. We are tested through hardship. Through adversity, we are brought up by God: through trials, God helps us to progress beyond being spiritual infants. Amidst difficulties, God helps us grow up to be spiritually mature and robust, strong in our faith so that we trust in Him when we are assailed by stressful circumstances which test our faith, so that we may prove our love for Him.
It is from this perspective of one akin to that of a loving parent that we come to understand a faint, slight glimmer of how God loves us. While we may think that we are suffering pointlessly, God is helping us to become more than we have been, to become much better than we have been.
Through this lens of spiritual clarity we gain when we see that God is a deeply loving Father, we come to view our past trials through a new light. We see how God has been working all for our good, for those of us who love Him.***** Then we understand how the Israelites were told
Remember how for these forty years
the LORD, your God,
has directed all your journeying in the wilderness,
so as to test you by affliction,
to know what was in your heart:
to keep his commandments, or not.
He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger,
and then fed you with manna,
a food unknown to you and your ancestors,
so you might know
that it is not by bread alone that people live,
but by all that comes forth from the mouth of the Lord.
The clothing did not fall from you in tatters,
nor did your feet swell these forty years.
So you must know in your heart that,
even as a man disciplines his son,
so the Lord, your God, disciplines you.
Therefore, keep the commandments of the Lord, your God,
by walking in his ways and fearing him.******
With the realization that afflictions are not meaningless suffering, but are tests from God to demonstrate our love for Him, and are lessons that we must rely only on Him, we see that we are led to love God. God guides us through all that happens, some of which seems harsh and painful. Yet we must remember that when we are being disciplined, although it seems a cause not of joy but of distress, later it brings fruit in peace for those who have gone through it.*******
By way of analogy, I think of a family who recently moved out of the Catholic Worker House here. They often come back to visit, so we still get to see them a lot. The mother has noticed that one of her children asks very frequently for chocolate. The mom now often tells her daughter that she may not have chocolate when she asks for it.
If a child grows up always getting what she wants, what kind of adult will she become? If God always gives us what we want, what sort of people will we be?
I think too of a conversation I had recently with a certain homeless woman I've met countless times. Once again here I'll call her "Roslyn." Roslyn once asked me why God lets unfortunate things happen to people. I suggested to Roslyn that she imagine a child playing on a playground. I added into the visualization a parent who stayed at the playground and always intervened and prevented any harm from ever coming to the child. I asked Roslyn what she thought of the way that such a child would be brought up. She replied that the child would not be well raised. I said that thus God loves us and lets us learn in varied ways.
Yet are we willing to learn? Do we embrace opportunities to learn, or do we reject such occasions to learn when they feel unpleasant? A friend of mine recently broke up with her boyfriend. Understandably, she was disappointed that they realized that they had to part ways because their values were too divergent to make a continuing relationship feasible. At the end of relationships, what is God trying to teach us? In every situation in our lives, what is there we can learn?
To learn, we must be humble. God wants us to learn, so He humbles us.
God makes us feel hunger and thirst, so we can hunger and thirst for what we need. We grow not just through our desires being satisfied. We also develop through our yearnings.
So that we may grow, God tests our inmost heart. If we are never tested, we never know where we stand and thus where and how we need to grow. God wants to see what we desire. God wants to see if we truly love Him.
Do we really love God? Will we obey God even when things become rough?
And so some periods in our lives become harder. God knows that sometimes if we suffer, we can learn. There are instances when God allows us to hurt so that we may grow through the pain.
If we see that God allows misfortune so that we may grow, then we become more willing to die to ourselves. If we realize that, by denying our desires, we can grow, then we are likely to begin fasting.
We come to see that we live not on bread alone. When we see that our souls are fed and are strengthened in the midst of adversity, we become willing to suffer out of love of God and love of our neighbor. Feeling nourished by the love we witness through the sacrifice Jesus made for us, it becomes clear to us that our souls are fed by the Word of God.
During Mass, when we remember His sacrifice, we recall how he gave Himself to die for our sins. In this recollection of His death on the Cross, we are implicitly encouraged to die for our neighbor as He died for us. We receive the encouragement and love of Jesus when we receive the Eucharist. Thus we can come to realize that the Eucharist is not merely bread.
Jesus is living in us. If we welcome Jesus into our hearts, then we are living in love. If we remain in Jesus as He remains in us,******** we have true life, and thus true joy: this is a joy which no one can take away from us,********* no matter what happens. In this joy we begin to have a foretaste of the joy we will have in Heaven. If we welcome Jesus into our hearts, we can begin to live in eternal joy right now.
* Matthew 4:1-11
** John 18:36
*** Deuteronomy 8:2-3
**** Exodus 34:28; Deuteronomy 9:18
***** Romans 8:28
****** Deuteronomy 8:2-6
******* Hebrews 12:11
******** John 15:4
********* John 16:22
We realize who we are both through times which are rewarding as well as during trying periods. By navigating amidst both types of waters, we see reflected in those waters our truest, deepest desires. In time we come to see our true identity in all types of moments, and thus we come to discover true joy, the deep and profound joy which comes from knowing who we truly are.
And so we are not always satiating our desires. We know that we learn also when we deprive ourselves of what we want. Thus now during Lent, for forty days we immerse ourselves in a more intense period of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
We are encouraged in our Lenten observances through knowing that Jesus fasted in the desert for forty days. Thus in today's Gospel we hear that
At that time Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert
to be tempted by the devil.
He fasted for forty days and forty nights,
and afterwards he was hungry.
The tempter approached and said to him,
"If you are the Son of God,
command that these stones become loaves of bread."
He said in reply,
"It is written:
One does not live on bread alone,
but on every word that comes forth
from the mouth of God."
Then the devil took him to the holy city,
and made him stand on the parapet of the temple,
and said to him,
"If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.
For it is written:
He will command his angels concerning you
and with their hands they will support you,
lest you dash your foot against a stone."
Jesus answered him,
"Again it is written,
You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test."
Then the devil took him up to a very high mountain,
and showed him all the kingdoms of the world
in their magnificence,
and he said to him, "All these I shall give to you,
if you will prostrate yourself and worship me."
At this, Jesus said to him,
"Get away, Satan!
It is written:
The Lord, your God, shall you worship
and him alone shall you serve."
Then the devil left him and, behold,
angels came and ministered to him.*
There is the temptation to focus on what is visible. Satan tempted Jesus to turn stones into bread. If we focus too much on food, we can end up putting our bodies before our souls. Then, at the hour of our death, we can be in the position of wishing we had put our souls before our bodies. Jesus reminds us that we truly subsist on the Word of God, for the Word feeds our souls, while bread feeds only our bodies. We need not only bread, but, far more importantly, the Word of God so we may be fully nourished.
There is the temptation to test God. Satan tried to tempt Jesus into jumping off the spire of the temple to see if God the Father would save Him. We try to test and see if God is really going to take care of us. We worry that God doesn't have everything in His care. God has a plan that is infinitely better for us than anything we could possibly imagine. Jesus directs us not to put God to the test. God calls us to trust Him.
There is the temptation to grab power, and in doing so, to sacrifice our souls through turning away from God. Satan tempted Jesus with the suggestion of earthly power. Jesus knew who He was and is; Jesus knew that His Kingdom is not of this world.** We are not to grasp for power that is not within the scope of our vocation: we are not to cling to power that God is not calling us to have. We are to follow the call that God sends to each of us. In the process, we respect ourselves and we reverence God, for we are who He created us to be, and we do what He created us to do, to adore, and praise and glorify Him.
When Jesus faced these temptations for forty days, He was strengthened in the knowledge of the Israelites' exodus in the desert for forty years.*** Jesus knew also that Moses had spent forty days fasting on the mountain as he received the Ten Commandments from God.****
Jesus was conscious of what God the Father had been trying to show us for years through deprivation. When Jesus confronted temptation, He knew the purpose of the desert. In not only the literal desert, a dry, barren, stark landscape, but also in spiritual deserts characterized by spiritual dryness and loneliness, and in emotional deserts fraught with frustration, dissatisfaction and depression, we encounter denial of our desires. We are tested through hardship. Through adversity, we are brought up by God: through trials, God helps us to progress beyond being spiritual infants. Amidst difficulties, God helps us grow up to be spiritually mature and robust, strong in our faith so that we trust in Him when we are assailed by stressful circumstances which test our faith, so that we may prove our love for Him.
It is from this perspective of one akin to that of a loving parent that we come to understand a faint, slight glimmer of how God loves us. While we may think that we are suffering pointlessly, God is helping us to become more than we have been, to become much better than we have been.
Through this lens of spiritual clarity we gain when we see that God is a deeply loving Father, we come to view our past trials through a new light. We see how God has been working all for our good, for those of us who love Him.***** Then we understand how the Israelites were told
Remember how for these forty years
the LORD, your God,
has directed all your journeying in the wilderness,
so as to test you by affliction,
to know what was in your heart:
to keep his commandments, or not.
He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger,
and then fed you with manna,
a food unknown to you and your ancestors,
so you might know
that it is not by bread alone that people live,
but by all that comes forth from the mouth of the Lord.
The clothing did not fall from you in tatters,
nor did your feet swell these forty years.
So you must know in your heart that,
even as a man disciplines his son,
so the Lord, your God, disciplines you.
Therefore, keep the commandments of the Lord, your God,
by walking in his ways and fearing him.******
With the realization that afflictions are not meaningless suffering, but are tests from God to demonstrate our love for Him, and are lessons that we must rely only on Him, we see that we are led to love God. God guides us through all that happens, some of which seems harsh and painful. Yet we must remember that when we are being disciplined, although it seems a cause not of joy but of distress, later it brings fruit in peace for those who have gone through it.*******
By way of analogy, I think of a family who recently moved out of the Catholic Worker House here. They often come back to visit, so we still get to see them a lot. The mother has noticed that one of her children asks very frequently for chocolate. The mom now often tells her daughter that she may not have chocolate when she asks for it.
If a child grows up always getting what she wants, what kind of adult will she become? If God always gives us what we want, what sort of people will we be?
I think too of a conversation I had recently with a certain homeless woman I've met countless times. Once again here I'll call her "Roslyn." Roslyn once asked me why God lets unfortunate things happen to people. I suggested to Roslyn that she imagine a child playing on a playground. I added into the visualization a parent who stayed at the playground and always intervened and prevented any harm from ever coming to the child. I asked Roslyn what she thought of the way that such a child would be brought up. She replied that the child would not be well raised. I said that thus God loves us and lets us learn in varied ways.
Yet are we willing to learn? Do we embrace opportunities to learn, or do we reject such occasions to learn when they feel unpleasant? A friend of mine recently broke up with her boyfriend. Understandably, she was disappointed that they realized that they had to part ways because their values were too divergent to make a continuing relationship feasible. At the end of relationships, what is God trying to teach us? In every situation in our lives, what is there we can learn?
To learn, we must be humble. God wants us to learn, so He humbles us.
God makes us feel hunger and thirst, so we can hunger and thirst for what we need. We grow not just through our desires being satisfied. We also develop through our yearnings.
So that we may grow, God tests our inmost heart. If we are never tested, we never know where we stand and thus where and how we need to grow. God wants to see what we desire. God wants to see if we truly love Him.
Do we really love God? Will we obey God even when things become rough?
And so some periods in our lives become harder. God knows that sometimes if we suffer, we can learn. There are instances when God allows us to hurt so that we may grow through the pain.
If we see that God allows misfortune so that we may grow, then we become more willing to die to ourselves. If we realize that, by denying our desires, we can grow, then we are likely to begin fasting.
We come to see that we live not on bread alone. When we see that our souls are fed and are strengthened in the midst of adversity, we become willing to suffer out of love of God and love of our neighbor. Feeling nourished by the love we witness through the sacrifice Jesus made for us, it becomes clear to us that our souls are fed by the Word of God.
During Mass, when we remember His sacrifice, we recall how he gave Himself to die for our sins. In this recollection of His death on the Cross, we are implicitly encouraged to die for our neighbor as He died for us. We receive the encouragement and love of Jesus when we receive the Eucharist. Thus we can come to realize that the Eucharist is not merely bread.
Jesus is living in us. If we welcome Jesus into our hearts, then we are living in love. If we remain in Jesus as He remains in us,******** we have true life, and thus true joy: this is a joy which no one can take away from us,********* no matter what happens. In this joy we begin to have a foretaste of the joy we will have in Heaven. If we welcome Jesus into our hearts, we can begin to live in eternal joy right now.
* Matthew 4:1-11
** John 18:36
*** Deuteronomy 8:2-3
**** Exodus 34:28; Deuteronomy 9:18
***** Romans 8:28
****** Deuteronomy 8:2-6
******* Hebrews 12:11
******** John 15:4
********* John 16:22
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