The desert of my soul

Readings: Genesis 2:7-9.3:1-7; Psalm 51:3-6.12-13.17; Romans 5:12-19; Matthew 4:1-11

In this desert that I call my soul/
I always play the starring role/
So lonely..."

I guess as people grow older many develop stock phrases. Without a doubt, if repeated too often, these quickly grow tiresome. In a positive sense, the purpose these phrases seem to serve the purpose of distilling the wisdom one thinks s/he has gained over the course of life.

I'm sure you saw it coming a thousand miles away that that was a lead up to using one of my stock phrases. If not, don't say I didn't warn you! "I have to slog through a lot of self before I need worry about the devil." This is why I started off with those lyrics from The Police's song "So Lonely." While it would be utterly impossible to grow in love of God and neighbor without other people and without a community of fellow disciples, there is an irreducibly personal dimension to following Christ and endeavoring, with His help, to become more like Him.

While this is to get a little ahead of ourselves, the fruit of the fourth Luminous Mystery of the Blessed Mother's Holy Rosary is the desire for holiness. The mystery, of course, is Jesus' Transfiguration. There are times I really think I desire holiness. But, then, I shrink in the face of the changes acting in accord with such a desire would require me to make.

In his play, Lady Windermere's Fan, Oscar famously put these words on the lips of his character Lord Darlington: "I can resist anything except temptation." As is usually the case, this isn't all there is to the thought Wilde sought to express. This sentence is prefaced by: "The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it." I don't think this is a case of Wilde being too clever by half. In this is contained an echo of something Saint Augustine wrote in his Confessions: "Give me chastity and continency, only not yet" (Book 8, Chap VII).

As with the Beatitudes, it's tempting to do a deep dive into the three temptations the Lord experienced during his time in the desert. Really, that is rehashed time and again. What I want to focus on is the fact that Jesus really was tempted. As we read in the Letter to the Hebrews, which is most likely an extended sermon: "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:15).

What do I mean by the Lord being really tempted? This prompts the deep question: Could Jesus have sinned by caving into any one of the three temptations, the most immediate of which is to quickly "make" Himself something to eat? After all, the inspired author of Matthew tells us He was hungry. This is really the question, Was Jesus free? If He wasn't free, then does what we read about in the Synoptic accounts of His desert sojourn amount to something like a divinely orchestrated puppet show? I think the sacred author of Hebrews understands and answers this question.

Gifted theologian, Archbishop Bruno Forte, in the published and translated edition of the 2004 Spiritual Exercises he gave to the Roman Curia, entitled To Follow You, Light of Life, dealt with this important question beautifully when he wrote:

Jesus does not seek easy consensus or pander to people's expectations, but rather subverts them. Jesus chooses the Father: with an act of sovereign freedom he prefers obedience to God and abnegation of self over obedience to self, which would imply the rejection of God. He does not succumb to the pull of immediate success; he believes in the Father with indestructible confidence. In the hour of temptation, Jesus reaffirms his freedom from himself, free for the Father and for others, free with the freedom of love

As it turns out, we have a great high priest who is both able and very wiling to sympathize with our weaknesses because He "has been similarly tested in every way. . ." And so, we can "confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help" (Hebrews 4:16).

Our first reading happens in the garden. But seeking to assume the starring role in the drama of existence is what starts the desertification process. Lent, which is an old English word referring to springtime, is the time open yourself to God to turn the desert of your soul into a lush garden. For this to happen, you must relinquish the starring role. Way easier said/written than done.

And so, in the beautiful words of Psalm 51- the Miserere (today's Responsorial is more or less the same as Ash Wednesday): A clean heart create for me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me (Ps 51:12).