Homily 16

Pronounced before the people

in the basilica of St. John, called Constantine,

the first Sunday of Lent

March 4, 591

The temptation of Jesus in the desert

St. Gregory preaches on the episode of the temptation of Jesus in the desert by the devil, who commands all the liturgy of Lent, since this time makes us relive the struggle between the Savior and his adversary, until the crushing of the latter by the victory of Christ on the cross. The orator begins to be astonished that the devil had the power to lead the Son of God where he pleased. But it shows that this fact harmonizes well with the plan of salvation.

The pope then exposes the differences between our temptations and those of Christ. Some preliminary explanations can be useful to understand his thought. When we are tempted, temptation finds in us resonances: it excites our lust disordered by original sin. Driven by the bad pleasure, of which we already feel the foretaste, we then easily give our consent to the evil. Only this consent of the will is properly sin. But the ungoverned concupiscence that carries us so strongly, as a consequence of original sin, is at the origin of many fights, described by Saint Paul: "I see in my members another law which fights against the law of my reason, and that makes me captive to the law of sin which is in my members [concupiscence]. Unfortunate that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? "(Rom 7: 23-24). Jesus, the incarnate God, was not marked by original sin. Temptation, therefore, finds nothing in it to be disordered, which can delight in evil, much less consent to it.

In the continuation of Homily, the preacher opposes the three temptations to which Adam succumbed to those of which Christ triumphs. Saint Paul, the first, compared Jesus and Adam. Just as by one man (Adam), sin entered the world, through the obedience of one (Jesus Christ, new Adam), all men were justified (see Rm 5, 19) . The temptation of Christ can therefore very legitimately be presented, according to Gregory's exegesis, as "the original anti-sin".

The end of the Homily explains the meaning of Lent, starting from the symbolism of the number forty, which Holy Scripture always puts in relation with works of purification or preparation; thus for Christ himself, whose retreat in the desert was a true preparation for the work he was to complete on Calvary. The pope also indicates the virtues that must accompany our abstinence to be pleasing to God. This perfectly modern finish is expressed in beautiful formulas.

Mt 4, 1-11

At that time, Jesus was led to the desert by the Spirit to be tempted by the devil. When he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter, approaching, said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread." Jesus answered him, "It is written," The man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God. "Then the devil carried him into the holy city, and having placed him on the pinnacle of the Temple, he said to him," If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down for it is written, He has given you orders to his angels, and on their hands they will carry you, so that your foot does not strike the stone. "Jesus said to him," It is written also, You shall not tempt him. Lord your God. "The devil, again, carried him to a very high mountain, and showing him all the kingdoms of the world with their glory, he said to him," All this, I will give it to you if, falling at my feet, you worship me. "Then Jesus said to him," Depart, Satan, for it is written, 'The Lord your God you will worship, and he alone you shall serve.'

Then the devil left him, and behold, the angels came and served him.

There are some who ask themselves by what spirit Jesus was led to the desert, because of what follows in the text: "The devil carried him into the holy city", and again: "He carried him to a very high mountain." But in truth, and without hesitation, one must logically accept that Jesus was led to the desert by the Holy Spirit, so that his own Spirit would lead him to where the evil spirit was to find him. .

However, when we are told that the God-Man was transported by the devil on a very high mountain or in the holy city, the human spirit has difficulty in accepting it, and the ears are frightened of the hear. This, however, will seem less impossible to believe if we consider other events concerning the Savior. The devil is undoubtedly the leader of all the wicked, and all the wicked are the members of this leader. Was not Pilate a member of the devil? The Jews who persecuted Christ, and the soldiers who crucified him, were they not members of the devil? Why, then, be surprised that the Savior allowed the devil to lead him to a mountain, since he also endured being crucified by the members of such a leader? It was not unworthy of our Redeemer to want to be tempted, he who had come to be killed. On the contrary, it was right for him to triumph over our temptations with his own, just as he had come to overcome our death by his death (2: 18).

Let us know, however, that temptation acts in three ways: by suggestion, by delectation and by consent. When we are tempted ourselves, we usually glide into delectation, or even consent; for, spread from the flesh of sin, 1 we bear in us the very origin of the struggles to endure. But the God who had incarnated in the womb of a Virgin and who had come to the world without sin bore no contradiction in him. He may have been tempted by suggestion, but the delectation of sin did not have a hold on his mind. All this diabolical temptation was for him external, without anything inside.

2. As we examine the course of the temptation of the Lord, we will be able to plumb to what extent we are delivered from temptation. The ancient enemy rose up against the first man, our ancestor, by three temptations; he tempted him by gluttony, vain glory, and avarice; victorious temptations, since he submitted to Adam in obtaining his consent. It was by gluttony that he tempted him by showing him the forbidden fruit of the tree and persuading him to eat it. It was by vain glory that he tempted him by saying: "You will be like gods" (Gen 3: 5). And it was by an excess of avarice that he tempted it by adding: "You will know good and evil." Indeed, greed is not only about money, but also about money. honors. One speaks rightly of avarice about the disorderly pursuit of honors. For if delighting honors did not depend on greed, Paul would never have said of the only-begotten Son of God: "He did not consider that to be the equal of God would be to delight something." (Ph 2, 6). It is therefore by exciting in our ancestor the eager desire for honors that the devil has drawn him to pride.

3. But it was by the very means that had been used to defeat the first man that the devil succumbed before the second [Jesus] when he tempted him. He tempts him with greed by asking him, "Command that these stones become breads"; he tempts him by vain glory by saying to him: "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down"; he tempts him with the eager desire for honors, when he shows him all the kingdoms of the world, declaring: "All this I will give you if, falling at my feet, you worship me." But the devil is vanquished by the second man thanks to the same means that he boasted of having used to defeat the first man. And this one, having thus taken the devil prisoner, expelled it from our hearts by the very access which had allowed him to enter it and to keep it in his power.

There is something else, very dear brothers, that we must consider in the temptation of the Lord: it is that tempted by the devil, he responds to him with sentences of Holy Scripture; he could precipitate his tempter into the abyss by using the Word which constituted his being, but he did not manifest his personal power, limiting himself to answering by precepts of divine Scripture. He did it to give us the example of his patience, and thus invite us to resort to teaching rather than revenge whenever we have to suffer from perverse men. See what is the patience of God, and what is our impatience! We are carried away with fury if injustice or offense reaches us, and we avenge ourselves as much as we can, or at least threaten to do it if we can not. The Lord endured the hostility of the devil, and he answered him only with words of gentleness. He tolerated him whom he could punish, in order to merit all the more glory because he triumphed over his enemy by supporting him for a time instead of annihilating him.

4. It is also necessary to notice the following: when the devil left him, the angels served him. This fact shows the existence of two natures in his unique person. He is a man, since he is tempted by the devil; and he is God, since he is served by the angels. Let us then recognize in him our nature, for if the devil did not discern in him a man, he would not tempt him. Let us venerate his divinity in him, for if he were not like God above all, the angels would never serve him.

5. Since there is harmony between the reading of the day and the liturgical time - we have indeed heard that our Redeemer practiced abstinence for forty days, and at the same time we begin the holy quarantine - we must examine carefully why this abstinence is observed for forty days. Moses, to receive the Law a second time, fasted forty days. Elijah in the desert abstained from eating forty days. The Creator of men himself, coming among men, did not take food for forty days. Let us also try, as far as we can, 3 to afflict our flesh by abstinence in this annual time of the Holy Quarantine.

Why is the number forty set for abstinence, if not because the Decalogue finds its perfection in the four books of the Holy Gospel? Likewise, in fact, that ten multiplied by four gives forty, we observe the commandments of the Decalogue to perfection by the practice of the four books of the Holy Gospel.

We can also give another interpretation to this number: our mortal body subsists by four elements, and it is by the pleasures of this body that we oppose the precepts of the Lord. But these are prescribed to us by the Decalogue. Therefore, since the desires of the flesh make us despise the commandments of the Decalogue, we should mortify this flesh forty times.

Here is yet another possible explanation of this holy quarantine: from today until the joys of the solemnity of Easter, it will pass six weeks, which is forty-two days. Since six Sundays are withdrawn from abstinence, there are only thirty-six days of abstinence left. To mortify thirty-six days in a year which counts three hundred and sixty-five, it is a little to give to God the tithe: having lived for ourselves during the year he granted us, we mortified ourselves in abstinence for our Creator during the tenth of this year.

So, dear brothers, since the law commands you to offer [to God] the tithe of all things (see Lev 27:30), try to offer him also the tithe of your days. May each one macerate himself in his flesh to the measure of his strength, mortify his desires and annihilate his shameful concupiscences, in order to become, in the words of Paul, a living host (Rm 12: 1). Man is a host at once living and immolated when, without leaving this life, he causes the carnal desires to die in him. Satisfied flesh has dragged us into sin; that mortified flesh brings us back to forgiveness. The author of our death [Adam] transgressed the precepts of life by eating the forbidden fruit of the tree. It is therefore necessary that, having lost the joys of paradise by the fact of food, we should endeavor to reconquer them, as far as we can, by abstinence.

6. But let no one imagine that this abstinence is enough for us, when the Lord says through the mouth of the prophet, "Is not the fast that I prefer more of this?" And he adds. "Share your bread with the hungry, receive the poor and vagrant among you; if you see someone naked, dress him up, and do not despise him who is your own flesh "(Is 58, 6-7). This is the fast that God approves: a fast which raises in his eyes hands filled with alms, a fast realized in the love of neighbor and imbued with goodness. Prodigal to others what you withdraw to yourself; thus, the very mortification of your flesh will come to relieve the flesh of your neighbor who is in need.

It is in this sense that the Lord said through the voice of the prophet, "When you fasted and you lamented, did you fast for so much? And when you eat and drink, are you not eating for yourself and drinking for yourself? "(Zechariah 7: 5-6). He eats and drinks for himself, who consumes, without sharing with the needy, the food of the body, which are gifts of the Creator belonging to all. And it is for oneself that one fasting, if one does not give to the poor what one has deprived for a time, but that one keeps it to offer it a little later to his belly.

On this subject, Joel says: "Sanctify the fast" (Jl 1, 14). To sanctify fasting is to render one's body abstinence worthy of God by associating it with other good works. That anger stops; that quarrels subside. For it is useless to torment his flesh if we do not put an end to the evil pleasures of the soul, since the Lord affirms by the voice of the prophet: "Behold, in the day of fasting you do only your will. Now you are fasting for trials and struggles; you smite with fists, and claim their debts from all your debtors "(Is 58: 3-4). He who claims to his debtor what he has given him does nothing unjust; but to him who mortifies himself by penitence, it is better to refrain from claiming even that which belongs to him by right. As for us, mortified and penitent, God will give us what we have done unjustly only if we abandon, out of love for him, even that which belongs to us by right.

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1 On the word "compunction", cf. the introduction to homily 15.