In the Gospel, we read how Satan tried to get Jesus to question his identity. He prefaced his temptations by saying. “If you are the Son of God….” The devil knew that if he could get Jesus to be unsure of his Father’s love, he might walk away from the plan God had for him. He does the same with us tempting us to doubt by saying; “if there is a God, why is there so much pain & sorrow in the world”, or “if God loves you, why are you having so much difficulty with your job, your spouse, your family?” You see if we doubt the Father’s love for us, we might walk away from our prayer life or attending church. Then the devil wins !!!
Every day we make choices – what choices will you make. Every day we will be tempted – how will you handle those temptations. Lent is a time in our church year that asks us to slow down and take inventory of our lives.
To ask ourselves how are we handling the evil temptations in our world? Sin is not a onetime occurrence. Sin is giving into those weaknesses within ourselves that get us into trouble.
As Jesus overcame the devil’s temptations, we can overcome our temptations by uniting ourselves to Jesus.
The author John Shea says:
If you want to be wise, hang around wise people.
If you want to be a good Catholic, hang around good Catholic people.
If you want to improve your spirituality, hang around spiritual people.
A few years ago Sheila & I were invited by some parishioners to attend an awards dinner in LA. They told who we were sitting with plus we were told there was one surprise guest. When we got there we found out that the surprise guest was Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon. Buzz Aldrin stated in his book that the Apollo 11 astronauts achieved their goal and overcame their obstacles by focusing on the stars and surrounding themselves with smart aeronautical engineers.
We will reach our goal and overcome our obstacles and temptations by focusing on the things of heaven and by surrounding ourselves with holy faithful people. In Cursillo we call these Faithful People our Groupies.
De Colores, Deacon Doug