Lenten Meditation, First Sunday of Lent 2025

The Temptation of Christ (1500-1504)¹ by Juan de Flandes (c 1465 – c 21 October 1519)², from a series painted for Queen Isabella I of Castile and Aragon, in the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Scripture – Luke 4:1-13: the Tempting of the Christ


The Gospel chosen in the Catholic liturgical calendar for the first Sunday of Lent this year is this one from Luke, quoting here its opening lines. We should remember that “to tempt” has two meanings.

First, we know that it means “To try to attract, to entice (a person) to do evil; to present attractions to the passions or frailties of; to allure or incite to evil with the prospect of some pleasure or advantage.”⁴ (Notice in this definition there is no mention of the person or persons, or organizations, who are directly responsible for doing the tempting–this is a failure of this definition.⁵) This is the meaning that typically we focus on.  But when we do so, we overlook the other meaning that, I suggest, places the focus where it should be.

Second (a meaning active from 1382-1700), it means “to try, to make trial of, to put to the test or proof; to try the quality, worth, or truth of.”⁶ Paying attention to this meaning opens a way for us to understand why the Holy Spirit “led” Jesus into the desert “to be tested.” As the great spiritual writer and Cistercian André Louf (1929-2010) reminds: “There is no faith that is not tested, just as there is no tree that does not need to be pruned in order to produce more fruit (John15:2).”⁷ As “interesting” as it may be to pay attention to Satan and what he is doing with Jesus in the desert, it is far more important to notice what the skillful Holy Spirit is doing, bringing an extraordinary person, Jesus, the God-Man, into greater maturity, right on time, and for the sake of His ability to bear “more fruit”. As Sister Ruth Burrows, OCD wrote: “God Himself can strike a man as lighting strikes, not for his destruction but to create him anew.”    

For any of us to mature in our spiritual lives, when God judges us ready, we must be taught by the Holy Spirit what really is at stake in this world, and who the Satan is and how the Deceiver operates (St. Ignatius of Loyola calls him, the “enemy of our human nature”), working inside people willing to cooperate with him, who “prefer darkness rather than the light” (John 3:19). The point is for us to recognize how Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, quickly perceives the “heart” of the Deceiver and his malice and stops him cold.                    

The Painting - Observations and Insights –

Notice how all three of the temptations are referenced in this painting. The first one (appearing up close and in the center) is obviously about turning stones into bread (Luke 4:3-4) – the “enemy of our human nature” standing and offering a hand-picked stone; Jesus sitting, about whom the text tells us – “During that time he ate nothing and at the end he was hungry.”. The second one we see happening up there to the left, on the top of the cliff (4:5-8). The third one (4:9-12) is happening over there to the right, on the parapet⁸ of the Temple in Jerusalem. Having all three in the same frame suggests that every temptation, finally, is about the same thing, even though they each appear to be about different things.

The appearing of the Satan, the Deceiver, as a Franciscan friar is a shocking dig at the hypocrisy which may characterize any “professional” religious – a Priest or Friar, or Sister, or Brother.  Only a discerning eye, we guess, could perceive those horns and those disturbing webbed feet. (The Holy Spirit helps us see what we need to see.) We may recall instances in our own lives when were gulled⁹ by supposedly dedicated professionals of the spiritual life. We may, then, find ourselves enjoying this painter’s sarcastic (possibly cynical) portrayal of the Franciscan here–“He is not what he seems”. However, I think it likely that there is a deeper insight being invited. Recall the famous text from the Book of Sirach or Ecclesiasticus, Chapter 6:

Somewhere in the ancient Tradition (I cannot recall where I came across it) it suggested that the person who came to Jesus in the Wilderness to tempt Him appeared not as a scary, frightening demon but as a friend, as someone Jesus knew. The Deceiver manifest himself inside the morally compromised personality of that friend and struck at Jesus. Jesus’ mastery is that He discerned the falseness in his friend, a “holy man” (in the painting) whom perhaps Jesus had been inclined to trust. (Remember how the Deceiver, in one instance, operated inside the personality of one of Jesus’ three closest and most trusted friends – St. Peter!

We might consider following Jesus’ example. Jesus’ rejection of each temptation was perhaps less important than was His focus on discerning the kind of person it was who had come out into the Wilderness to find Him, to tempt Him, coming with a smiling face, filled with concern, and apparently offering to help Him with His career choices. Jesus perceived that this friend was false. (Have you ever noticed how one consonant away from “friend” is “fiend”?¹²) Jesus rejected the Deceiver, not the friend, and indirectly the temptation, three times, as is enjoined upon¹³ us to do in the Catholic ritual of Baptism:

I am wondering whether Jesus in this famous scene in the Gospels is not so much trying to figure out a way to overcome these temptations to act in ways so utterly unlike Him, so unappealing to Him to choose. Rather, He is looking for a way, if only He could find and open the Deceiver’s heart, to bring the latter to repentance, to give him a new heart. Jesus was always doing this, with anyone and anywhere He went. Jesus’ eyes are fixed not on the temptations but on the Deceiver’s stone-cold heart.


Prayer: “Grant, Almighty God, through the yearly observance of holy Lent, that we may grow in understanding of the riches hidden in Christ and by worthy conduct pursue their effects.”

¹To study the painting, see: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Juan_de_Flandes,_The_Temptation_of_Christ,_c._1500-1504,_NGA_50726.jpg

²This painting (above) is one of forty-seven small panels commissioned by Queen Isabella I of Castille and of Aragon (born in Castile 22 April 1451; died 26 November 1504).². And by Elisa Bermejo²: “Juande Flandes’s early style is clearly defined in these works, suggesting that by the time he arrived in Spain he was already thoroughly trained in a South Netherlandish idiom. Contact with the court at Castile had a deep impact on his art, though it remained clearly related to the Ghent school, especially the work of the illuminator known as the Master of Mary of Burgundy. Juan may also have spent some time in Bruges, for the calm, meditative elegance of Hans Memling is detectable in his paintings, as is the influence of early miniatures by Gerard David....The panels also reveal Juande Flandes’s excellent sense of line and colour.”

³The New Jerusalem Bible (New York; London; Toronto; Sydney; Auckland: Doubleday, 1990), Lk4:1–2.

⁴ The Oxford English Dictionary at “to tempt”.

⁵ My point here is that “temptations” don’t just sit out there to allure or seduce us. They are deliberately placed out there by persons intent on tempting people. An essential part of the definition of “to tempt” must include the agency of free persons in their effort to ensnare people. Think how deeply the “commodifying” of so much in American culture causes our primary relation to businesses, to churches, to political institutions to be “the one who is to be tempted” to do what they want us to do. What we have lost is the art of persuading, which is an art that appeals to the reason and good judgment of free people; temptations try to get around, to avoid engaging, a person’s reason and good judgment.

⁶The Oxford English Dictionary at “to tempt”.

⁷André Louf, Tuning into Grace: The Quest for God (Dutch, 1984; English 1992), p. 38.

⁸ The Oxford English Dictionary at “parapet” - 2.a. – 1598 – A low wall or barrier, often ornamental, placed at the edge of a platform, balcony, roof, etc., or along the sides of a bridge, pier, quay, etc., to prevent people from falling.

⁹The Oxford English Dictionary at “to gull” – 1. - a1550 – transitive. To make a gull of; to dupe, cheat, befool, ‘take in’, deceive. Also, absol., to practise cheating.  

¹⁰The New Jerusalem Bible (New York; London; Toronto; Sydney; Auckland: Doubleday, 1990), Sir 6:7–8.

¹¹ The New Jerusalem Bible (New York; London; Toronto; Sydney; Auckland: Doubleday, 1990), Mt 16:23.

¹²The Oxford English Dictionary at “fiend” – 1. - Old English – 1340 -† An enemy; foe. Obsolete. - 2.a. - Old English – spec. The archenemy of humankind; the devil.

¹³ The Oxford English Dictionary at “to enjoin” – 2.a. - ?c1225 – In early use: To impose (a penalty, task, duty, or obligation); said esp. of a spiritual director (to enjoin penance, etc.). Hence in modern use: To prescribe authoritatively and with emphasis (an action, a course of conduct, state of feeling, etc.).

¹⁴The Oxford English Dictionary at “glamour” – 2.a. – 1840 – An attractive or exciting quality that makes a person or thing seem particularly appealing or desirable, esp. on account of being out of the ordinary or suggestive of a more colourful or thrilling way of life.

¹⁵The New Jerusalem Bible (New York; London; Toronto; Sydney; Auckland: Doubleday, 1990), Lk17:1–3.

¹⁶The New Jerusalem Bible (New York; London; Toronto; Sydney; Auckland: Doubleday, 1990), 1 Co 4:5.

¹⁷The New Jerusalem Bible (New York; London; Toronto; Sydney; Auckland: Doubleday,1990), Eze 36:26.

¹⁸The New Jerusalem Bible (New York; London; Toronto; Sydney; Auckland: Doubleday, 1990), Mt 7:9–11.