Entering the Desert
EmmaLee Miklosovic
One of my favorite assignments from college was, believe it or not, a final. It was an open book and open note final, but don’t let that fool you into thinking it was easy. I sat in the library for probably 6 hours working on it during the fall of 2020.
The assignment was to reflect on paragraphs 538-540 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church which is a section that is titled “Jesus’s Temptations”. Essentially, we had to break it down and connect it with scripture, and each of the four sections of the Catechism (Profession of Faith, Christian Morality, the Sacramental Life, and Prayer) and write how we would teach the section. I spent hours reading this passage and finding how it connects to each part of my faith and that 6 hours changed my life.
With lent beginning this week, I thought it would be appropriate to share a reflection on the temptation of Jesus and why it should be significant to us because “By the solemn forty days of Lent the Church unites herself each year to the Mystery of Jesus in the desert.” (CCC 540) This reflection is the fruit of that final and my continued reflection on Jesus in the desert.
In the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 4, Jesus is led by the Holy Spirit to the desert where he fasts for forty days and nights and his time in the desert ends with three temptations from the Devil. Jesus rejects each of Satan’s temptations without fail and stays completely faithful to the Father.
I often find myself asking the question, why would Jesus, the God of the universe, put Himself through the sufferings that we experience as human beings? He could have saved us another way if He wanted to, so why did He choose the hardest, most painful way? Why would he willingly spend 40 days in the scorching heat of the desert with no food or water or company. Then, at the end of those 40 days, when he is tired, and hungry: why would he allow Himself to be tempted.
As I studied the section of the Catechism which discusses this scripture (with these questions in mind), I remember being very struck by this fact: Jesus experienced every part of humanity, and so He has a beautiful understanding of what our lives are like. He experienced physical pain, so when you are in physical pain he understands what you’re going through. He experienced emotional pain so He can understand yours. He experienced temptation so He can understand why we so easily fall into sin. I just remember sitting there, in the library, thinking, “He understands me, REALLY understands me.”
There is a beautiful solidarity He has with us in this experience of temptation at the end of His 40 days. It explains how he can be so merciful, because he knows what we go through. It is important to note that:
He not only allowed Himself to be tempted, but He overcame every temptation that was thrown at Him.
Does this mean we should be hard on ourselves when we fail? NO. It means that we need to rely on Him when we experience temptation because He is our salvation from sin. We cannot overcome sin on our own, that’s WHY Jesus came.
His defeat of Satan through this direct rejection of His temptations gives us hope because HE gives us the strength we need to fight temptation.
In this passage, Christ shows us the importance of prayer in our lives. We must pray consistently if we wish to avoid temptation. Jesus’ temptation was preceded by 40 days of prayer and fasting in the desert, which strengthened Him to face Satan’s temptations. The Catechism states, “Prayer is a battle; only by keeping watch in prayer can one avoid falling into temptation” (CCC 2612). Jesus shows us this by his own life when he entered the desert for 40 days.
As I stated before: If we are to overcome our sin, we have to rely on Christ’s strength. We do this through a relationship through Him, by offering our lives to Him every day through prayer.
This is why fasting is so important. When we fast we give up something good (like food) and offer that sacrifice to the Father so that we (or someone else) would be strengthened by His grace. And if we are willing to say, “no,” to something good, how much more willing will we be to say, “no,” to sin then? Through fasting, we prayerfully strengthen our will to become like the Father’s just as Jesus did because we allow Jesus to be the source of our nourishment.
In this scripture (and through all of scripture, really) we see how temptation works. Satan uses temptation to cultivate doubt in God’s goodness and in His plan. It hinders our trust in God and is meant to blind us to the reality of God’s good desires for us. When we pray and fast consistently, we are able to see the Lord’s perspective in all things — and we are no longer limited to our own perspective. Cultivating a relationship with Christ, seeking to know God personally and relying on the strength of the Holy Spirit is the only way that we can overcome temptation and the way it blinds us. This is why prayer and fasting are so essential.
We fast during lent in order to learn to lean on the Lord. We fast to prepare and strengthen our hearts for the greatest gift Christ gives us through His Paschal Mystery — our salvation. We fast to unite ourselves to the cross and to the mission of Christ and the will of the Father.
The Gospel reading on this coming Sunday (the first Sunday of Lent) will be the passage about Jesus’ temptation. Try to find some time this week to read through it and pray about how you can enter into the mystery of Christ in the desert. How can you learn to lean on God’s strength? What do you need to let go of in order to trust Him more?
He is with you always.
This blog post originally appeared on the Joyfully His Blog with Emmalee Miklosovic, and is used with permission.
