At last year’s Courage Conference in Chicago, Steve from Seattle suggested a paper on the psychology of temptation. The idea really intrigued me. A great topic, I thought, though I did not have an immediate thought about it. Well, I said to myself, I would have a full year to work on it. Ha! How much time did you have in the past year to do an article? I finished the first draft a week ago. So here I am. If you think it is a good paper, tell Steve. If you think it is a dud, tell me.
     When I taught psychology in graduatre school and in the seminary I would tell my students, “if you want to learn psychology, don’t read psychology books. Read literature, and perhaps best among literature, plays, Shakespeare, the premier playwright, plus some modern authors such as Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller.”
     And so let’s sample some literature, starting with the greatest work of Western and Eastern civilization, the Bible. The Bible begins with the mother of all temptation, the one that caused enduring grief, the story of Adam and Eve.
     It’s a marvelous story because it is so rich, not only theologically, but psychologically. John Mc Kenzie calls it “a masterful description of the psychology of temptation.” (Bible Dictionary, ‘Temptation” p. 878) For the very first temptation of woman and man, was one that aimed at the deepest drives of the human person.
     What are these drives? Let’s look to the so called “third force” psychologists, the humanists and existentialists. They offer a distinct brand of psychology different from the psychoanalysts (Freud, etc. first force), and learning theorists (Skinner etc, second force). These “third force” psychologists look to the natural and inherent directions of human growth, of maturation. They are philosophers as well as psychologists, who see human living as having a double thrust. They give various names to the same two nuclear traits which are inherent movements of a person toward self development and social development. They all see maturity as movement from the dependence of childhood to the independence of adulthood, from self -centered to socialized behavior.
     My own preference is for an existential psychologist whom you probably never heard of; his name is Andras Angyal. The Boston members may have heard of him because he was a Danish psychiatrist who practiced in Boston in the mid century. He saw the human person in terms of two drives to which he gave the rather fancy names of autonomy and homonomy, but which I will call mastery and merger.
     Mastery (or autonomy) is our drive to be independent, to be in charge of our life, master of our fate, our drive to self expansion, assertiveness, to do our own thing. It is the drive to achievement, to accomplishment, the need to have an impact on one’s world. It is reflected in the joy of achievement, whether it be the infant elated by her crawling across a room under her own power, a teen age boy shooting baskets by himself into a hoop over his garage door, or the mountain climber scaling Everest “because it’s there.” We see this autonomy in its purer forms in young children. The infant or toddler enjoys banging a spoon on a pot for the sheer joy of making things happen, of experiencing oneself as the cause of something. It is the drive to action, “to do it myself”, the urge to develop one’s unique potential.
     But, as God observed of Adam, it is not good for a man to be taken up with himself, not good for man to be alone. And the reason is that we have another drive, the drive to merger.
     We seek partnership as well as individuality. We seek to be part of something greater than our selves - a friendship, a family, a community, a common cause. We seek not only to develop ourselves but to invest ourselves, not only to possess but to share and to belong. . We want to be individual but not separate. Alfred Adler, a one time colleague of Freud, wrote of the will to power and the will to community, different words but the same idea as mastery and merger.
     Let me add that Victor Frankl added another basic drive to the schema for the human person. We are impelled not only to master and to merger but to find purpose, to find meaning for our striving to be independent, self sufficient, yet in wholesome relation to others. And moreover, we need to find meaning when these drives are thwarted, as for example, even in the horror of a concentration camp, for as Frankl concluded, it was the individual’s meaning and purpose that made the difference in those horrific camps between survival or suicide..
     Maturity, human growth, consists in the formidable task of harmoniously blending the drive to mastery with the drive to merger, and finding meaning in doing so.

Back to Adam and Eve. Adam seemingly had it made in Eden. God gave him dominion over creation. He was in charge of the whole world. He named the animals. He had all he required to make him masterful. Yet he was miserable because his other basic drive, basic need, had no outlet. And that is the drive to merger, to belong, to relationship, to community.
     As noted, God saw it was not good to be alone and so declared, “I WILL MAKE A SUITABLE PARTNER,” and then he created Eve. Adam was exultant. His recorded words were the first poetic remark in history, BONE OF MY BONE, FLESH OF MY FLESH. His unrecorded remark was, “Good God, this is a sight for sore eyes!” Now he really did have it made, as did his spouse, Eve.
     Enter Satan, left of stage. Satan had fallen from grace because he could not tolerate God’s favor to this new creature, man. So he studied Adam and Eve to see what made them tick, and came to the same conclusion as Andras Angyal (and Frankl) would a few millennia later. Armed with insight, he planned his strategy in view of those basic human drives.
     First he approached Eve. Satan proposed a notion that would fit snugly with the drive to mastery, to independence, to be in charge. He promised that if she and Adam would eat of the tree of knowledge that they would be like gods, knowing good and evil. Now what could be more masterful, more in charge, more independent than that? What could be better?
     It is well to realize that Satan always proposes things to us which appear to be good. He does not tempt us to evident evil but to apparent good.
     Today this proposal is still the mother of temptations, to be as gods, to decide for oneself what is right and wrong. It is still the basic temptation in the world today, the temptation to reject God’s norms of right and wrong, norms implanted in human nature and in creation, the temptation to reject divine authority, either direct, or mediated through the magisterial church, and become like gods ourselves.
     To resist the temptation to be as gods calls for the virtue of humility - to be honest with ourselves and about ourselves - plus the virtue of fortitude or courage. The men and women of the Courage movement witness to the most debated and totally unpopular belief, that moral standards are not established by the fiat of the powerful, nor by majority consensus, nor by personal opinion or personal convenience. Courage members have the humility to say, “we are not gods,” we are rather sons and daughters of God. They profess that morality springs from the divine design implanted and evident in human nature, a design giving humanity the divine destiny to build a society where peace is the fruit of justice. To be as gods is the exaggerated distortion of that basic and good and natural human drive to be autonomous, independent, and masterful. “To be as gods” is the temptation which brought original ruin to humankind, and still does.
     What is temptation? Temptation is an invitation to some form of evil. But one of the psychological tricks of Satan is to propose evil under the guise of good. It’s also a trick we play on ourselves. We focus on the good aspects of the situation, and by selective perception, do not look at the evil which is involved.
     Selective perception is an upscale name for seeing what we want to see, hearing what we want to hear. In the parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk. 10:29ff) the Levite went across the road to bypass the injured man. He avoided the reproach of his conscience by not seeing the plight of the suffering man, and putting himself out of earshot of his moans. Similarly, the feasting rich man selectively kept the beggar, Lazarus, outside the gate. (Lk 16:19ff)

Satan was successful with Eve. The interaction between the serpent and Eve illustrates the ordinary sequence in temptation. Step # 1 is resistence. Eve told the serpent, GOD SAID, YOU SHALL NOT EAT THE FRUIT OF THE TREE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE GARDEN, YOU SHALL NOT EVEN TOUCH IT, LEST YOU DIE.
     Next, step # 2: hesitation. The serpent went on with his guile. YOU CERTAINLY WILL NOT DIE. GOD KNOWS WELL THAT AT THE MOMENT YOU EAT OF IT YOUR EYES WILL BE OPENED AND YOU WILL BE LIKE GODS WHO KNOW WHAT IS GOOD AND WHAT IS BAD. Hesitation is our first, and usually last mistake. (3:2)
     Step # 3 Weakening. THE WOMAN SAW THAT THE TREE WAS GOOD FOR FOOD, PLEASING TO THE EYES, AND DESIRABLE FOR GAINING WISDOM.. (3:6)
     And finally, step # 4: surrender. SO SHE TOOK SOME OF ITS FRUIT AND ATE IT; AND SHE ALSO GAVE SOME TO HER HUSBAND WHO WAS WITH HER, AND HE ATE IT. (Genesis 3:6)
     Resistence, hesitation, weakening, surrender. In the early 1700's Alexander Pope expressed this sequence poetically:

“Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
as to be hated needs but to be seen,
yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
we first endure, then pity, then embrace.” (Essay on Man, line 217f)

We may think we know how hard it is to resist social pressure, the fear of not belonging, but without doubt we underestimate its power. Try saying grace before lunch at a public restaurant and you probably will feel that pressure, because while we all want to be independent, yes, we also want to belong, to be part of a wider society. So it is very hard to go against social custom. We don’t want to be seen as oddballs, as religious fanatics.
     The force of this need to belong, the threat of standing alone, was illustrated back in mid century (1951) by psychologist Solomon Asch. Asch carried out a pioneer and seminal study in social conformity. He designed a seemingly simple experiment. He assembled groups of eight college men for an easy task. He would project a series of straight lines on a screen and ask each person in te group to match a single straight line to one of three others of different lengths. Actually, seven of the eight college men in each group were in league with the experimenter. So there was actually only one individual being tested at a time. It was set up so the single subject would answer last, after the seven others had picked an obviously wrong answer. The unwary subject found himself facing a group consensus that contradicted his clear perception.
     Note that there was no strong bond among the participants, and issue itself was hardly important. Yet one third of the unsuspecting subjects went along with the obviously mistaken majority.
     Asch repeated the experiment in a varied form: one of the participants in league with the experimenter gave a correct answer, the other six matched the length of the line to one patently wrong. In this variation only five percent of actual subjects went along with the mistaken majority .
     Asch’s experiments suggest how forceful the feeling of isolation in a group can be, pushing us to go against even our certain judgment. It also demonstrated how much courage a single colleague can stir up in the person who feels isolated because his views are not in harmony with the majority consensus.
     You and I might guess that the closer the group members are, bonded either by friendship or by common goals, the easier it would be for members to express divergent opinions. Not necessarily so! Critical observers of group processes note that the more important it is for members to get along well, the greater are the chances that a possible dissenter will go along with the majority. As a majority opinion begins to emerge from discussion, loyalty to the group can becomes stronger than critical thinking. The group wants everyone to form one big happy family, to be a booster, not a disputer. Individuals in a cohesive group don’t want to rock the boat. And should someone begin to differ with the group he or she will get a lot of persuasive attention. Failing to go along with the prevailing decision, one may find him/herself subtly ostracized. One may get a “friendly” nickname: Mr. Superego, Ms. Liturgy, Tom Paine. These labels dispense the larger group from considering alternatives to , or consequences of, the developing consensus.

Adam and Eve were a twosome, but group dynamics were operative. “We stick together” is a presumed slogan of any bonded group, and disagreement within the group is easily seen as disruptive of relationship. . It takes a great deal of intestinal fortitude (guts) to go against a popular proposal when one senses opposition will be unpopular.

The first temptation was not openly to disobey God. That would be too crass, though accurate. The devil always sugarcoats prospective sin as something good. To know good and evil, to gain greater wisdom, would surely seem to be a good. Temptation is always camouflaged, whether it comes from the devil, the world or the flesh. Ultimately temptation offers independence, gratification (mastery), or social fulfillment (merger / relationship). Temptation to some prospective action always promises a measure of autonomy, achievement, relationship, love; .....some aspect of one or both basic drives of human nature. When we fear that one of our basic needs will not be met we experience an upsurge of temptation and are much more vulnerable to the notion that some illicit choice will bring love or power or respect or a sense of well being.
     Scripture often casts the devil as a principal agent of temptation. Today it is not fashionable to speak of the devil, much less to believe in him. Screwtape, C. S. Lewis’ letter-writing devil, makes a big point of how advantageous it is for the lowerarchy of devils to be considered a pious myth.
     Still, we can’t blame the devil for all temptation though surely he is behind much of it. Neither can we blame God. St James’ makes much of the accusation that God tempts us. “SURELY GOD WHO IS BEYOND THE GRASP OF EVIL TEMPTS NO ONE.” (1:13). And James reminds us that we are often the source of our own temptations. ‘RATHER THE TUG AND LURE OF HIS OWN PASSION TEMPT EVERY MAN’ (1:14) And he goes on to sketch the sequence of evil. ONCE PASSION HAS CONCEIVED, IT GIVES BIRTH TO SIN. AND WHEN SIN REACHES MATURITY IT BEGETS DEATH.
     The slippery slope, the sequence of lust, temptation, sin, death - a fearsome domino effect. Such a prospect calls for a decided “no” at the very beginning of temptation; otherwise we slide into sin.
     Some pious writers suggest that we ask ourselves in face of temptation, “What would Christ do?” Perhaps an even clearer discernment results from the question, “What would Satan do?”
     We still like to harbor the notion that God is somehow responsible for some temptations. Our unspoken delusional projection is that my responsibility for giving in to temptation is reduced if God is behind it. Adam, when he was caught red handed with that apple responded to God that THE WOMAN WHOM YOU PUT HERE WITH ME - SHE GAVE ME THE FRUIT FROM THE TREE AND I ATE IT. Adam was using a double whammy.....blaming Eve and God for the temptation. By pointing to God’s involvement and Eve’s pressure Adam fooled himself that his part in this fiasco is minor at most.
     We are very adept at blaming others for our failures. Billy Joe Shaver’s song, Black Rose, has a somewhat more honest approach. “The devil made me do it the first time. The second time I did it on my own.”

God does not tempt us but he does test us. He told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac to test Abraham’s trust. Abraham passed the test and became our father in faith. The book of Wisdom tells us that God tries the souls of the just as gold is refined in the furnace. (3:5) St Augustine tells us that “our pilgrimage on earth cannot be exempt from trial. No one knows himself except through trial, or receives a crown except after victory, or strives except against an enemy or temptation.” (Commentary on Psalms. Ps 60, v. 2-3: CCL 39, 766) Temptation, says Wayne Oates,.is the crucible of human character formation. “The internal forum is the arena of temptation, where behavior is debated, scrutinized, and assessed before God in the same way Jesus wrestled with temptation in the wilderness. (Temptation, p. 14).
     Thus, temptation is not only an invitation to sin; it is an invitation to virtue!.

Now let us sum up the message so far and expand it a bit. When our basic drives for independence and belonging, our basic drives to mastery and to merger, are not met or come into conflict with one another, we become more vulnerable to temptation. Even in relative calm we always have the problem of original sin, “the tug and lure of passion” so that our drives and appetites demand satisfaction despite our attempts at rational control.
     When our fundamental needs are met in healthy fashion we have a sense of well being, of contentment, of security, of calm strength for handling temptations against our basic values. But when these basic needs are not met we become more vulnerable to sedating the pain with sinful excesses in regard to sex, alcohol, drugs, gambling, or cynicism which Jacques Barzun calls the alcoholism of the intellectual. Add to this list the addiction that looks virtuous, namely, work, and one that looks harmless, investing oneself in trivia, which leads to stagnation.

These broad basic drives give rise to more specific basic needs. Many psychologists offer lists of basic needs, which are quite similar. A non-psychologist, Tom Tripicianno, an ex gay and now married man in Rochester NY, cued me in to this idea and offered his list of basic needs: autonomy, freedom self worth, love and belonging.

Again, psychologists offer various lists of basic needs. Erik Erikson for one. Harold Lasswell, the founder of policy science, offers a list of basic needs which is probably exhaustive; these needs are specific components of the general basic needs of mastery and / or merger. This list became the basis of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was confirmed by Paul VI in Progresso Populorum. I offer a few statements which point to an unmet, specific need, some statements which I submit all of us have uttered or thought on occasion in our lives:

• Nobody around here listens to me. No one is interested in what I think. (Power) (The prophet is not honored in his own home.)
• No one gives a damn about me. (Affection) (Could you not watch one hour with me?)
• They never let me know what’s going on around here. It would be nice if they let me know ahead of time. (Enlightenment)
• How can I do this job when they don’t supply what I need to do it. (Skill)
• I’m just a cog in the wheel around here. They think I could be replaced with a button. (Respect)
• I guess I”m just some sort of weird neurotic. (Self worth)
• What they expect me to do really isn’t right. (Rectitude)

If we have ever thought or expressed any of these notions we simply sensed that some basic need was not being met. And when this is happens, even if our viewpoint is wrong, we are more vulnerable to our favorite temptation.
     Tradition lists the world, the flesh and the devil as the sources of temptation. What gives these sources a trump card is our great talent for self deception..
     Self deception is a major contributor to temptation and to the success of temptation. The hardest task in psychological or spiritual life is to honest with oneself. Frank Sheed, the first prominent lay theologian in the United States, once said that if he lived long enough he would write a book on self-kiddery. Fr Frederick Faber, one of the first English Oratorians, a confrere (but not a friend) of John Henry Newman, wrote a book in the mid 1800's, “Spiritual Conferences” in which he ante-dated Freud on fooling oneself. Fr Faber claimed that the person honest with himself is the rarest of all phenomena, more rare than the black swan of Australia - which I presume must be quite rare. We are all adept at kidding ourselves with denial, rationalization and projection. . Theology and psychology intersect in our internal lives when pride prevents us from being honest with ourselves. In Arthur Miller’s play, The Price, one lead character confronts the other with the insight: “We invent ourselves to wipe out what we know.” The sickness of Judeo-Christian culture is “the person alienated from himself.” It may surprise you to know that this quotation comes from Sigmund Freud. On the other hand, the Danish thinker and commentator Soren Kierkegaard said, “Through the unspeakable grace and help of God I have become myself.” Thomas Merton, reminding us that we are truly made in the image and likeness of God, proposes, “In finding our true self we are more likely to find God.” Finally, along this line of thought, Pope John XXIII’s simple yet comprehensive prayer is “Lord, I need only one thing in this world; to know myself and to love you.”

We have scanned the psychological dynamics of some commonplace temptations. Now we turn to the temptations of Jesus which may look gross but really are very subtle..

The temptations of Jesus represent the only autobiographical section in the gospels. We know about all the other great and critical events in the life of Jesus from witnesses. The glory of the Transfiguration and the wrenching turmoil of Gethsemani come to us through persons on the scene. The temptation story comes to us directly from Jesus. There were no witnesses. It appears that he especially wanted the disciples and us to know about this personal experience..
     What did Jesus wish to convey by telling these episodes? He wanted to underscore how he shared our human identity in all things but sin, in all things including temptation.
     It is hard for us to appreciate that Jesus was really tempted. We tend to view Jesus as the second Person of the Blessed Trinity, a divine nature which could not be tempted. What genuine contest could there be in Satan’s presumptuous attempt to lead Jesus astray?
     Even considering his human nature it would seem like a futile undertaking on Satan’s part. Jesus was confirmed in grace from the first instant of his human existence. He was without sin, original sin included, and therefore without concupiscence. His human nature was passionate but his passions were never out of alignment with His reason. He could express his temper but he could not lose it. His carnality was not impulsive.
     Yet the man Jesus had to trust in His Father’s providence. As man he could be ignorant of certain elements of the Father’s plan. When Jesus predicted the end of the world and the Second Coming he told the parable of the fig tree. When the twigs become supple and its leaves appear we know summer is near. So, too, the signs of the times will tell us when the end of the world is near. “BUT AS FOR THE EXACT DAY OR HOUR, NOBODY KNOWS IT, NEITHER THE ANGELS IN HEAVEN, NOR THE SON, BUT THE FATHER ONLY.” (Mt. 24:36)
     One reason for Jesus’ revelation about his temptations well may have been to confirm that there is a devil. The story of Jesus’ temptations warns us that the devil is not a myth.
     The first temptation, you recall, followed Jesus’ forty day fast. He was hungry. Satan prompted: “IF YOU ARE THE SON OF GOD COMMAND THESE STONES TO TURN INTO BREAD” (Mt. 4:3)
     Jesus was at the beginning of his public life. He had made this forty day retreat to hit the ground running, so to speak, fortifying his commitment to the father’s will. So too with us; we begin to seek the kingdom of God with enthusiasm and single mindedness. However, fervor cools and we are tempted to cut corners. We wonder about doing something more practical, more humanly satisfying. We reduce some prayer or spiritual practice, and invest our efforts into something more satisfying, more productive, all of which represents “making bread”. Note that the temptation was not to do something bad, but to do something apparently more useful. It was to be the first wedge to detract Jesus from his mission. So too, when our first enthusiasm for a deeper spiritual life wanes, we look to other undertakings which offer more personal and immediate fulfillment.
     This is the temptation to mediocrity. It allows us easily to kid ourselves, for it dos not elicit anything openly bad; it simply reduces our investment in being good, our investment in pursuing first the kingdom of God and his justice. Jesus, you recall, said he would rather we were hot or cold, but he finds the lukewarm hard to take. As Satan suggests, we may cajole ourselves to be practical, prudent, not go overboard with this religion stuff, settling for lukewarm comfort.
     We all have our particular and peculiar temptation to turn stones into bread. When we find ourselves changing course, cutting into our into our prayer life we need to take counsel. Are we seeking our own will, our own fulfillment? “MY FOOD IS TO DO THE WILL OF THE ONE WHO SENT ME, AND TO COMPLETE HIS WORK.” (Jo 4:343)

The second temptation occurred when he devil took Jesus to the parapet of the Temple and proposed: “IF YOU ARE THE SON OF GOD, THROW YOURSELF DOWN FOR SCRIPTURE HAS IT, HE WILL BID HIS ANGELS TAKE CARE OF YOU, AND THEY WILL SUPPORT YOU WITH THEIR HANDS THAT YOU MAY NEVER STUMBLE ON A STONE.” (Mt 4:64)
     Taking this temptation literally, we judge that we haven’t even a remote prospect of this sort of experience. Yet we do have moments when we expect God to supply some spectacular help, and want to assert our own personality rather than seek the will of the Father.
     Anyone who gets serious about their spiritual life has some variety of this temptation. God may draw the beginner with inner consolation, and later, when He moves an individual to spiritual growth which requires one to give without counting the cost, we may want that inner glow of consolation continued so as to confirm that we are truly in tune with the Lord.. The charismatic may desire the gift of tongues to affirm that he or she is someone special in God’s eyes. We have our moments wishing for a vision or two. It’s a common hubris of beginners in spiritual life....looking for some special spiritual phenomenon which, like every inordinate desire, springs more from pride than from self-surrender, from narcissistic self-love more than from love of God. It’s a temptation that recurs in spiritual life , when, after plodding along for awhile, we want some signal that we are getting somewhere. It springs from the drive to mastery, from the false premise that what we accomplish is what counts, rather than from staying steadily on course. We ignore the words of St Paul, ‘THIS IS YOUR SANCTIFICATION, THE WILL OF GOD.” (I Thess. 4:3) Mother Teresa recognized the temptation when she said, “God has not called me to be successful; he called me to be faithful.”
     Our Lord gives a strong clue to this temptation in his rebuttal to Satan. “ YOU MUST NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.” We test God by asking for a special sign over and above the ordinary clues of providence in our lives. The spiritual program we began with commitment loses its glamor and our enthusiasm fades into routine. The old question arises: “Is this all there is.” Thus comes the temptation to pressure God, like Zachariah who asked, “HOW CAN I BE SURE OF THIS?” (Lk 1:18) We bring upon ourselves the temptation to seek signs..
     We see this conflict in the life of Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton. Mother Seton, you recall, was asked by Bishop Carroll to establish a religious congregation of women to educate youth. Mrs. Seton, a widow, had young children, and she brought her daughters who had been raised in relative comfort to the austere life of a pioneer. One daughter, Rebecca, became consumptive and died. Then the disease struck another daughter, Anna. Mother Seton was plagued with doubt and guilt that she had asked too much of her daughters, that she should not have undertaken this new life and deprived her daughters of the comfort of an ordinary family. She prayed that God would spare Anna’s life, so she would know she had done the right thing.
     But for the second time Elizabeth Seton suffered the most severe trial of a mother: her daughter Anna died. . Then Elizabeth Seton realized that she had tested God. She had asked him to sweep her out of the depths of doubt by a special sign. She came to see that God was asking of her a heroic faith, a faith without the signs asked for by the wicked generation (Lk. 11:28)
     It is not that God will not give us a sign. But he gives the sign of his choice, as did Jesus when He changed he water into wine as his first sign, and as he cured the lepers, and sent them to the priests to make the offering prescribed by Moses “AS EVIDENCE FOR THEM’’ (Mt 8:3)
     The second subtle temptation is to require God to give a stamp of approval, preferably spectacular approval, to force a sign from him.

The third temptation makes the devil look rather preposterous. He took Jesus to a great height (Luke), a high mountain (Matthew) and showed him the kingdoms of the world. “I WILL GIVE YOU ALL THESE,: he said, “IF YOU PROSTRATE YOURSELF IN HOMAGE BEFORE ME.” Mt 4: 9)
     Satan seems to be so exasperated and disorganized by Jesus rejection of the first two temptations that he now seems to have lost his composure and is making a fool of himself.
     But we should give the devil his due. Having failed twice he actually was using his best strategy. The first temptation as to do something harmless, to make bread. It was the temptation of too much self reliance. The second temptation (in Matthew’s sequence) is seeking a sign , expecting God to do something special, telling him to do it my way.
     AWAY WITH YOU SATAN. SCRIPTURE HAS IT “YOU SHALL DO HOMAGE TO THE LORD YOUR GOD. HIM ALONE SHALL YOU ADORE.” (Mt 4:8-10)
     The third temptation leads us not to rely on self, nor on God, but to put our trust elsewhere, on some third source of strength and protection. We replace God, and thus the temptation is to idolatry, allowing Satan to take God’s rightful place.
     The third temptation is the temptation of the short cut. Satan approached Jesus by taking aim at His chief concern, the establishment of the kingdom. He does the same with us. He takes aim at what should be our chief concern, our spiritual life, our chastity, our charity, the establishment of the kingdom of God within.
     The third temptation is the spiritual life version of a get-rich-quick scheme. Modern advertising is forever telling us how to get rich quick, to get smart without effort, to get trim without hunger pangs. Not too long ago a sales pitch proposed a tape player with a speaker under one’s pillow, playing tapes subliminally while one is asleep, and lo! The sleeper wakes the next morning knowing Spanish or whatever. There are now pills to lose weight, neither exercise or diet needed. We are immediately skeptical of such proposals but we re-read the ad because we long for the quick and easy fix.
     In spiritual life as well as in work and family life we want to bypass the boredom of fidelity, the tedium and routine of repeated everyday cycles.
     There are get-holy-quick schemes too, the temptation of the short cut. We endow perfectly good practices with the promise and power of sudden advance in spiritual life. It may be the intense group experience of the Cursillo, the conscious experience of being slain in the Spirit, the quiet embrace of Centering Prayer. The pre-Vatican II church had its own favorite devotions which are fine in themselves but which we can spoil by making them salvation charms: nine first Fridays, or a bigger bargain, five first Saturdays, brown scapulars, green scapulars. Please do not think I am criticizing these devotions when kept in perspective. I am , however, pointing to the danger of making them into a talisman, an empty ritual, a spiritual crystal, and endowing them with the promise to deliver what only God can grant. Jesus said “MY GRACE IS SUFFICIENT FOR YOU. POWER IS MADE PERFECT IN INFIRMITY”. (II Cor. 12:9) And, “TAKE UP YOUR CROSS DAILY AND FOLLOW ME.” Which probably means, get holy slowly.

St James gives us a note of cheer about temptations. “COUNT IT A PURE JOY WHEN YOU ARE INVOLVED IN EVERY SORT OF TRIAL. REALIZE THAT WHEN YOUR FAITH IS TESTED IT MAKES FOR ENDURANCE.”. (James 1:2).

In brief, temptation is an invitation to sin, yes, but it also is an invitation to growth, to virtue.