Conforming (phase 2), Baptism and Temptation of Jesus - Three Degrees of the Love of God (step15), session 6

Okay, time for the repeat session on Jesus' temptation. (Mt. 4, 1-11)

I'm borrowing this initial idea from someone else here, and I don't remember who. But just as Jesus answers his temptations through his knowledge of truth based on Scripture, we also are strongest against our own temptations when we know who we are. Perhaps this was the reason why the Father spoke his pleasure from the cloud to Jesus. Of course he did so because it was true; God speaks only truth, and he speaks truth into existence. So when God likewise tells us that we are his beloved sons and daughters, it is a truth that he is speaking into being, one that strengthens us against the buffeting of Satan's temptation by reminding us of who we really are and long to be. The enemy brings his strongest temptations and accusations to bear against that, because our truly believing this truth about ourselves defeats him utterly. We have no desire for the illusions he offers us, of fulfillment through gluttony or power or even of escaping responsibility for our choices by offering them as a test of God, when we are at all certain of God's love for us and how fully it alone completes us and fills all our need.

I suppose this is why I am not obsessing over seeing someone receive Reconciliation last night who may be living in a way that will undermine the sacrament's efficacy in her life. It would be easy for me to say, "Yes, but . . . " and list my objections to that person's choices, but then I would take on the role of the Accuser, and I want no part of that. It is also tempting to believe my role is to make her see her errors, but that would be succumbing to the first tempation: to take on the role of God. Through the vivid dream of a friend in prison I have received a comforting command from God which I instead choose to apply: "Pray. Watch me work." His longing for his loved ones is always greater than our own, as is the pain he feels on our behalf which we are often unable to feel for ourselves when we make choices that separate us from God. I could judge that someone is living a lie by approaching one sacrament when they are violating another one, but that judgment has no place in the heart of one who has himself received unfathomable mercy. Rather, I long for others to know it, too, and I know there is a grace at work in each sacrament that exceeds the will of the human participant. We are incapable of knowing the full extent to which God is at work healing and transforming us each time we receive him in Eucharist, in Reconciliation and all the sacraments, as well as in prayer and in all the other ways he comes to us.

So my eyes filled with tears of hope and longing, which I am convinced were not fully my own, and I pray that those who were Reconciled last night would fully receive the grace available to them and be strengthened against the temptations in their own deserts.