The three temptations in the wilderness, suffered alone by the 33 year old Jesus after His baptism in the Jordon, are so substantively layered, one could use a lifetime to deliberate on their meaning, not less, their practical implications.
Father George Rutler, Rector of the Church of Our Savior in New York City, took up the subject this week; in so doing, he applied them to our own time, especially now, as the culture tumbles into catastrophy.
Father Rutler reminds us that Our Lord knew these same temptations would “assault” every generation, in fact each individual existentially; his current thoughts spell a prophetic warning.
The first temptation can easily be discerned in the “justice for the poor” campaign which has literally taken over so many Christian Churches and congregations. One of the most conspicuous examples is the Rev. Wright Church, profiled during the last election campaign. Rev. Wright preached social justice, worse, he de-christianized his rhetoric to the extent that the individual became no more than a self-pitying victim of the rich.
Why would the force of Evil in the world desire this seemingly virtuous intention, tending to the poor, to usurp the Church?
“Satan first tempts the Church to turn stones into bread: to reduce the Church to a human creature devoid of supernatural charisms. The Church is the world’s greatest feeder of the poor, but unless she feeds souls, she is redundant in a materialist culture. Satan wants to replace Communion lines with bread lines, as if the Body of Christ were nothing more than temporal sustenance. But Christ is Our Saviour and not Our Philanthropist. “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you” (John 6:53). “
If the Church is no more that a philanthropist, among others, she has no eternal power, no mystery.
The second temptation, and I think, Fr Rutler puts this so well…the temptation is that Christ (always applying to each one of us as well) mock the Church. To mock, is an egregious form of cruelty. I have always hated it, hated it growing up in school, when groups of kids would mock others, hated it as it erupts in work or social situations, etc. It is a terrible form of blasphemy and arrogance. How dare I, a mere creature, from dust to dust, mock the creative wisdom of the Divine?
Will Jesus jump from the pinnacle?
“Secondly, Satan tempts the Church to mock herself, as he wanted Jesus to jump from the pinnacle of the Temple and survive. This test will see whether Christians will take up the daily crosses of life with Christ in a broken world, or engage grace as a kind of New Age energy arrogated to ourselves without moral obedience to natural law. To fly against nature is to live in an unreal world, claiming to be Catholic without living as Catholics”
Will Christians take up their daily crosses; take on themselves the suffering, in union with Our Lord, to sanctify it from the inside out. That is the way Christ redeemed his own in the world. It is not love to flaunt miracle after miracle, even though possible, Christ, in His divine nature, could, if He had so willed, lifted Himself off the cross…He did not. He suffered and died, demonstrating the nature of love, only through love would He bring us Home.
Or, are we more inclined to demand proof, now, of God’s power?
I often picture Christian healing in a mystical sense; what if a doctor was told, "the only way you can heal this patient is to mystically get within the very heart of it, take it on your own being; then, yourself being the remedy, literally push it from the inside out." There would be a lot of sick people!
I have known human beings who actually had this inner intuitive and mystical connection with their patients. Kim, my older brother, had it. It was instructive, though filled with pathos, to watch his interaction with patients. It made him an extraordinary diagnostician. It also made him a suffering disciple of Christ.
Finally, the third temptation per Fr. Rutler:
“Thirdly, the Church is tempted with earthly power. Cardinal Consalvi reminded Napoleon that the Church’s power is not from earthly rulers. Pius XII said that Stalin would be able to count the Church’s divisions only after he died. The two Thomases, Becket and More, made similar remonstrances with their own blood. In the history of the Church,Judas was the first to accept a government grant in exchange for doing evil. The Church is entering a time of severe testing, and she will be crucified in ways more tortuous than nails, for she will be jeered by journalists and patronized by politicians and menaced by false messiahs, but in the end the Church’s despisers will hear severe words: “You could have no power at all against me, were it not given you from above; so he who delivered me to you has the greater sin” (John 19:11).v
A time of great testing awaits us all, versions of these temptations will assault our culture and our hearts. Everything the Obama Administration is thrusting upon us, is based not on truth, but on worldly power.
Humility is the key to discernment. If we seek Truth in honesty and humility, we will be guided through the tempest.
We must be “men” not wimps. What is a man? (I speak universally here, refusing the collar of political correctness, where,
truth is the first casuality), Human "manhood," is not being unreachable, remote, tough; or winning your first fight.
How does one know, he is a "man?"
It’s when we can recite these words, as our own existential truth, on our deathbed. It is not impossible...such souls are everywhere among us.
IF
If you can keep your head when all about youAre losing theirs and blaming it on you,If you can trust yourself when all men doubt youBut make allowance for their doubting too,If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream–and not make dreams your master,If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;If you can meet with Triumph and DisasterAnd treat those two impostors just the same;If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spokenTwisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winningsAnd risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,And lose, and start again at your beginningsAnd never breath a word about your loss;If you can force your heart and nerve and sinewTo serve your turn long after they are gone,And so hold on when there is nothing in youExcept the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;If all men count with you, but none too much,If you can fill the unforgiving minuteWith sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!
End
