Good Shepherd Seminary Opening Mass

First Sunday of Lent
Gen 2:7-9, 3:1-7 Rom 5:12-19 Mt 4:1-11

+ Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney
17 Feb 2002

Last night I was at a meeting sponsored by the Commission for Australian Catholic Women. While having a cup of tea I asked the lady next to me "What can I say about temptations tomorrow?" She replied saying, "Tell them. Temptation abounds!" and then after a pause, "but the grace of God is sufficient to beat all of them" (or should it be, "most of them"?).

Christianity and especially Catholicism is an intensely personal affair; not individualistic, but personal and communitarian. Many Christian writers have described Christian living as a struggle, even as warfare. We are usually not struggling against other people or points of view, although some of this is necessary, but struggling to be open to others and to God, struggling to loosen the chains of selfishness, which keep us miserable and self-centred.

Why do we sometimes have to struggle so hard to do the right thing? A connected but different question is to ask why there is so much evil in the world and so much suffering?

I do not believe we have a completely adequate answer to these different questions, but the basic elements of our Christian explanation are found in the first two readings today, from the Old Testament book of Genesis and St Paul's letter to the Romans.

The Old Testament story of Adam and Eve is very sophisticated theology wrestling with the problem of evil and sin. If God is good and all powerful, why did he allow evil and suffering in the world? Is God evil in some way too? Why did Eve and then Adam do the wrong thing?

Humans are free to choose; not perhaps as free as we imagine because of our background and character, but we are still free to choose good or evil. When God gives us this gift, God has to put up with the consequences.

For a long time I suspected that Eve's leading Adam into sin was another early example of chauvinism. I am not sure now this is the whole story, because woman can regularly be such powerful influences on men, first of all their husbands and then their sons and daughters too!. Often in the family the woman is more religious and the moral leader too. Even this detail might not be as unsophisticated as some we are tempted to believe.

What is temptation? We are different from animals because we know good from evil; sometimes quite different from what we like and dislike.

A temptation is not a sin; it is not a sense of shame or guilt. It is an inclination to do evil and this inclination, in different ways, is present in every human heart.

We believe this is part of the human condition, which is basically good, but imperfect and we believe we share this with Adam and Eve and inherit it with our human nature. It is called original sin.

There are 3 types or levels of temptation:

a) the external level, where we are not seriously inclined to do evil.

b) the middle level, where we dither or partly consent. Often this brings some level of fault.

c) consent to the temptation to do wrong.

Everyone is tempted. God allowed his only Son to suffer and die, so it is not surprising that God allowed Jesus to be tempted, at least to the first level. But Christ conquered sin and gives us the means to do so.

The temptations of Christ are mentioned in the gospel accounts of Matthew and Luke, but not in Mark's account, where there is a parallel section on Jesus driven into desert after baptism.

Jesus' personal temptations mirror the temptations of God's chosen people, the Jews, in the Old Testament, and remind us of our own weakness. And his replies to Satan also show us how we should respond to these temptations.

"Man does not live on bread alone." The temptation to make money, to put prosperity before God.

"You must not put God to the test." The temptation to be foolhardy; to not take precautions or to demand signs of God or special treatment.

The kingdoms of the world would have been his if Christ would worship Satan. The temptation to worship power and success, even power within our circle of family and friends, by putting people down!

What has this to do with Lent? Lent is time of preparation, self-purification; a time to examine our tactics in the struggle with our fat, relentless egos.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.