This Sunday, the first of the six which come during Lent, is one of the most solemn throughout the year. It has the same privilege as Passion and Palm Sundays ― that is, it never gives place to any Feast, not even to that of the Patron, Titular Saint, or Dedication of the Church. In the ancient Calendars it is called Invocabit from the first word of the Introit of the Mass. In the Middle Ages it was called Brand Sunday because the young people who had misconducted themselves during the carnival, were obliged to show themselves today at the Church with a torch in their hands as a kind of public satisfaction for their riot and excess.
Lent solemnly opens today. We have already noticed, that the four preceding days were added since the time of Saint Gregory the Great, in order to make up Forty days of fasting. Neither can we look on Ash Wednesday as the solemn opening of the Season, for the Faithful are not bound to hear Mass on that day. The Holy Church, seeing her children now assembled together, speaks to them, in her Office of Matins, these eloquent and noble words of Saint Leo the Great:
“Having to announce to you, dearly beloved, the most sacred and chief Fast, how can I more appropriately begin, than with the words of the Apostle, (in whom Christ himself spoke,) and by saying to you what has just been read: Behold! now is the acceptable time; behold! now is the day of salvation. For although there be no time, which is not replete with divine gifts, and we may always, by God’s grace, have access to His mercy — yet ought we all to redouble our efforts to make spiritual progress and be animated with unusual confidence, now that the anniversary of the day of our Redemption is approaching, inviting us to devote ourselves to every good work, that so we may celebrate, with purity of body and mind, the incomparable Mystery of our Lord’s Passion.
It is true, that our devotion and reverence towards so great a Mystery should be kept up during the whole year, and we ourselves be, at all times, in the eyes of God, the same as we are bound to be at the Easter Solemnity. But this is an effort which only few among us have the courage to sustain. The weakness of the flesh induces us to relent our austerities; the various occupations of everyday life take up our thoughts; and thus, even the virtuous find their hearts clogged by this world’s dust. Hence it is that our Lord has most providentially given us these Forty Days, whose holy exercises should be to us a remedy by which to regain our purity of soul. The good works and the holy fastings of this Season were instituted as an atonement and obliteration of the sins we commit during the rest of the Year.
Now, therefore, that we are about to enter on these days, which are so full of mystery and were instituted for the holy purpose of purifying both our soul and body, let us, dearly beloved, be careful to do as the Apostle bids us, and cleanse ourselves from all defilement of the flesh and the spirit: that thus the combat between the two substances being made less fierce, the soul, which, when she herself is subject to God, ought to be the ruler of the body, will recover her own dignity and position. Let us also avoid giving offence to any man, so that there be none to blame or speak evil things of us. For we deserve the harsh remarks of infidels, and we provoke the tongues of the wicked to blaspheme religion, when we, who fast, lead unholy lives. For our Fast does not consist in the mere abstaining from food; nor is it of much use to deny food to our body, unless we restrain the soul from sin.” Saint Leo the Great (Fourth Sermon for Lent)Epistle – 2 Corinthians vi. 1‒10
Brethren, we exhort you that you receive not the grace of God in vain. For He said, “In an accepted time have I heard you, and in the day of salvation have I helped you.” Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. Giving no offence to any man, that our ministry be not blamed: but in all things let us exhibit ourselves as the ministers of God: in much patience, in tribulations, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in prisons, in seditions, in labours, in watchings, in fastings, in chastity, in knowledge, in long suffering, in sweetness, in the Holy Ghost, in charity unfeigned, in the word of truth, in the power of God: by the armour of justice on the right hand and on the left, by honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report; as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet known; as dying, and behold we live; as chastised, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as needy, yet enriching many; as having nothing, and possessing all things.Thanks be to God.
Dom Prosper Guéranger:
These words of the Apostle give us a very different idea of the Christian Life from that which our own tepidity suggests. We dare not say that he is wrong, and we right; but we put a strange interpretation on his words, and we tell both ourselves and those around us, that the advice he here gives is not to be taken literally nowadays, and that it was written for those special difficulties of the first age of the Church when the Faithful stood in need of unusual detachment and almost heroism because they were always in danger of persecution and death. The interpretation is full of that discretion which meets with the applause of our cowardice, and it easily persuades us to be at rest, just as though we had no dangers to fear, and no battle to fight; whereas, we have both: for there is the devil, the world, flesh and blood. The Church never forgets it; and hence, at the opening of this great Season, she sends us into the desert, that there we may learn from our Jesus how we are to fight. Let us go; let us learn, from the Temptations of our Divine Master, that the life of man upon earth is a warfare, (Job vii.1) and that, unless our fighting be truceless and brave, our life, which we would fain pass in peace, will witness our defeat. That such a misfortune may not befall us, the Church cries out to us, in the words of St. Paul: Behold! now is the acceptable time. Behold! Now is the day of salvation. Let us, in all thing comport ourselves as the servants of God, and keep our ground unflinchingly to the end of our holy campaign. God is watching over us, as He did over His Beloved Son in the desert.Gospel – Matthew iv. 1‒11
At that time, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert, to be tempted by the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterwards He was hungry. And the tempter coming, said to Him, “If you are the Son of God command that these stones be made bread.” Who answered and said, “It is written, Not in bread alone does man live; but in every word that proceeds from the mouth Of God.” Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, and set Him upon the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If you are the Son of God, cast yourself down: for it is written, That He has given His Angels charge over you, and in their hands they will bear you up, lest perhaps you dash your foot against a stone.” Jesus said to him, “It is written again, You must not tempt the Lord your God.” Again the devil took Him up into a very high mountain; and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and said to Him, “All these will I give you, if, falling down, you will adore me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Begone, Satan, for it is written, The Lord your God will you adore, and Him only will you serve.” Then the devil left Him; and behold, Angels came, and ministered to Him.Praise be to you, O Christ.
Dom Prosper Guéranger:
Each Sunday of Lent offers to our consideration a passage from the Gospel, which is in keeping with the sentiments wherewith the Church would have us be filled. Today she brings before us the Temptation of our Lord in the Desert. What light and encouragement there is for us in this instruction!
We acknowledge ourselves to be sinners; we are engaged, at this very time, in doing penance for the sins we have committed; — but, how was it that we fell into sin? The devil tempted us; we did not reject the temptation; then, we yielded to the suggestion, and the sin was committed. This is the history of our past; and such it would, also, be for the future, were we not to profit by the lesson given us, today, by our Redeemer.
When the Apostle speaks of the wonderful mercy shown us by our Divine Saviour, who vouchsafed to make Himself like us in all things, save in sin, he justly lays stress on His temptation (Hebrews iv. 15). He, who was very God, humbled Himself even so low as this, to prove how tenderly He compassionated us. Here, then, we have the Saint of Saints allowing the wicked spirit to approach Him, in order that we might learn, from His example, how we are to gain victory under temptation.
Satan has had his eye on Jesus; he is troubled at beholding such matchless virtue. The wonderful circumstances of His Birth — the Shepherds called by Angels to His Crib, and the Magi guided by the Star; the Infant’s escape from Herod’s plot; the testimony rendered to this new Prophet by John the Baptist — all these things which seem so out of keeping with the thirty years spent in obscurity at Nazareth, are a mystery to the infernal serpent, and fill him with apprehension. The ineffable mystery of the Incarnation has been accomplished unknown to him; he never once suspects that the humble Virgin, Mary, is she who was foretold by the Prophet Isaias, as having to bring forth the Emmanuel (Isias vii. 14) but he is aware that the time is come, that the last Week spoken of to Daniel has begun its course, and that the very Pagans are looking towards Judea for a Deliverer. He is afraid of this Jesus; he resolves to speak with Him, and elicit from Him some expression which will show him whether He be or not the Son of God; he will tempt Him to some imperfection or sin which, should He commit, will prove that the object of so much fear is, after all, but a mortal Man.
The enemy of God and men was, of course, disappointed. He approached Jesus; but all his efforts only turn to his own confusion. Our Redeemer, with all the self-possession and easy majesty of a God-Man, repels the attacks of Satan; but He reveals not his heavenly origin. The wicked spirit retires, without having made any discovery beyond this — that Jesus is a prophet, faithful to God. Later on, when he sees the Son of God treated with contempt, calumniated and persecuted; when he finds, that his own attempts to have Him put to death, are so successful; — his pride and his blindness will be at their height: and not till Jesus expires on the Cross, will he learn, that his victim was not merely Man, but Man and God. Then will he discover, how all his plots against Jesus have but served to manifest, in all their beauty, the Mercy and Justice of God; — His Mercy, because He saved mankind: and His Justice, because He broke the power of Hell forever.
These were the designs of Divine Providence in permitting the wicked spirit to defile, by his presence, the retreat of Jesus, and speak to Him, and lay his hands on Him. But, let us attentively consider the triple temptation in all its circumstances; for our Redeemer only suffered it, in order that He might instruct and encourage us.
We have three enemies to fight against; our soul has three dangers; for, as the Beloved Disciple says: All that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life! (1 John ii. 16). By the concupiscence of the flesh, is meant the love of sensual things, which covets whatever is agreeable to the flesh, and, when not curbed, draws the soul into unlawful pleasures. Concupiscence of the eyes expresses the love of the goods of this world, such as riches, and possessions; these dazzle the eye, and then seduce the heart. Pride of life is that confidence in ourselves, which leads us to be vain and presumptuous, and makes us forget that all we have — our life and every good gift, we have from God.
Not one of our sins but what comes from one of these three sources; not one of our temptations but what aims at making us accept the concupiscence of the flesh, or the concupiscence of the eyes, or the pride of life. Our Saviour, then, who would be our model in all things, deigned to subject Himself to these three temptations.
First of all, Satan tempts Him in what regards the flesh — he suggests to Him to satisfy the cravings of hunger by working a miracle and changing the stones into bread. If Jesus consents and show an eagerness in giving this indulgence to His body, the tempter will conclude that He is but a frail mortal, subject to concupiscence like other men. When he tempts us, who have inherited evil concupiscence from Adam, his suggestions go further than this; he endeavours to defile the soul by the body. But the sovereign holiness of the Incarnate Word could never permit Satan to use on Him the power which he has received of tempting man in his outward senses. The lesson, therefore, which the Son of God here gives us, is one of temperance: but we know, that, for us, temperance is the mother of purity, and that intemperance excites our senses to rebel.
The second temptation is to pride; Cast thyself down; the Angels shall bear thee up in their hands. The enemy is anxious to see if the favours of heaven have produced in Jesus’ soul that haughtiness, that ungrateful self-confidence, which makes the creature arrogate God’s gifts to itself, and forget its benefactor. Here, also, he is foiled; our Redeemer’s humility confounds the pride of the rebel angel.
He then makes a last effort: he hopes to gain over by ambition Him who has given such proofs of temperance and humility. He shows Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and says to Him: All these will I give thee, if falling down, thou wilt adore me. Jesus rejects the wretched offer and drives from Him the seducer, the prince of this world; (John xiv. 30) hereby teaching us, that we must despise the riches of this world, as often as our keeping or getting them is to be on the condition of our violating the law of God and paying homage to Satan.
