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How
to Resist Temptation
Fr.
George Smiga
March 8-9, 2003
Mark
1:12 -15
A young couple was going through financial problems, and they
were both working hard to keep their heads above the water.
They put in extra hours of overtime, saving everything that
they could just to make ends meet. One Saturday morning the
wife said to her husband, "I am going to go to the mall
today. I know that we don't have any money to spend, but it's
been so long since I've been shopping and I really just need
a break."
And so
she went. An hour and a half later she came back with a red
dress that cost $250. Her husband couldn't believe it. "Honey"
he said, "we can't afford a purchase like this."
"I know," she said, "but it all happened so
easily. I was walking through the women's department and there
was this dress, this red dress, out on display. Then I heard
a voice which said, 'You would look terrific in that dress.'
Now I knew at once it was the devil. And so I tried to resist.
But the voice continued, 'I know you don't have the money
for this dress, but you need not buy it. Just try it on to
see how it looks.
What harm could there be in that?' So I put it on and went
to the mirror. It did look great. The devil said, 'You look
fantastic! It looks like you have lost ten pounds. It's amazing
what this one dress does for you!'"
The husband
shook his head and said, "Honey you knew it was the devil,
I don't understand why didn't you just say no? Why didn't
you say what Jesus says in the gospels, 'Get behind me Satan'?"
The woman responded, "I did say that. I used those very
words. I said, 'Get behind me Satan!'" "And?"
her husband said. "And then," the woman continued,
"the devil said, 'you look mighty fine from back here
too.'"
Since
we are human, we will be tempted. We will be lured to make
decisions that are not the best choices for ourselves or for
others. We do not need to be embarrassed about temptation.
Everyone experiences it. Jesus himself was tempted, as is
made clear in today's gospel. It is, however, important to
know how to deal with temptation -- how to make choices that
will truly benefit us rather than hurt us.
Temptation
is really about freedom, having the freedom to say no to those
things that will harm us and the freedom to say yes to those
things that will help us. This is why it is important to cultivate
the right orientation towards temptation.
You see
often we approach temptation and the season of Lent which
begins this week by placing too much emphasis on what is negative.
We center too much on sin. What Lent is about is not so much
saying no to sin, as saying yes to the Kingdom of God. The
freedom that we are looking for is not freedom from our faults,
but rather freedom for God's purposes in our lives. The more
we can understand what freedom is for, the easier it will
be to avoid temptation in our lives.
As long
as the woman in the story concentrated on the dress and how
good she looked in it and how much she wanted it, it was difficult
to say no to the temptation. But if she could have instead
realized that her saying no was in fact an act of love towards
her family, an act of cooperation with her husband to solve
the financial difficulty in their household, she would have
found more power to resist.
In a similar
way as you and I approach this Lenten season, our emphasis
should not be simply on what we seek to avoid, but rather
on the goodness that will result if we can in fact resist
it. We might decide to avoid over-eating, drinking or smoking.
However, we will find more power and energy if instead of
simply saying these things are bad for us, we can realize
that saying no to them will make us a healthier person. A
healthier person will have more life and energy, energy that
can be used in doing good for others. We might try to reduce
the time that we vegetate before the television or the computer
screen. However, we will find more power if instead of simply
trying to avoid wasting time we realize how the time we save
can be applied to the things that really matter. We can use
the time we save to spend with our family and our friends,
to help those in need. As we try to resist the temptation
to criticize, to judge, to be jealous, we will find more energy
and power if instead of simply seeing these things as faults
to avoid, we can realize that by resisting them we can build
a life that is more thankful, more positive, more joyful.
If we
seek to avoid temptation, we must emphasize that which is
most positive and most powerful. Power comes from the goodness
that our actions generate. The freedom that really moves us
is not the freedom from sin, but the freedom for God's Kingdom.
Let us keep this freedom in mind as we proceed into this Lenten
season. In this holy time we should ask ourselves not "how
can I say no to sin," but "how can I say yes to
God?"
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