Daily Gospel Reflection
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March 6, 2022
Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan
and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days,
to be tempted by the devil.
He ate nothing during those days,
and when they were over he was hungry.
The devil said to him,
“If you are the Son of God,
command this stone to become bread.”
Jesus answered him,
“It is written, One does not live on bread alone.”
Then he took him up and showed him
all the kingdoms of the world in a single instant.
The devil said to him,
“I shall give to you all this power and glory;
for it has been handed over to me,
and I may give it to whomever I wish.
All this will be yours, if you worship me.”
Jesus said to him in reply,
“It is written
You shall worship the Lord, your God,
and him alone shall you serve.”
Then he led him to Jerusalem,
made him stand on the parapet of the temple, and said to him,
“If you are the Son of God,
throw yourself down from here, for it is written:
He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,
and:
With their hands they will support you,
lest you dash your foot against a stone.”
Jesus said to him in reply,
“It also says,
You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.”
When the devil had finished every temptation,
he departed from him for a time.
In the Gospel of Luke, the temptation of Jesus in the desert occurs directly after he is baptized—after his identity and mission are confirmed with the words, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22).
Satan, unable to resist the allure of tempting the Son of God, waited until Jesus was alone before coming to prey on his humanity. Yet, Christ rejected Satan.
Jesus rejected the temptation to abuse bodily satisfaction, earthly power, and divine protection in no uncertain terms. Satan sought to corrupt the corporeal, communal, and spiritual goods possessed by Jesus in the desert, and he seeks to corrupt those same goods in every person in every time and place today.
As Christians, we strive to imitate Christ in all things, and this gospel passage reminds us that we are called, by virtue of our Baptism, to uncompromisingly reject the temptations by which Satan seeks to corrupt all that is good. In Baptism, we reject Satan and all his works and empty promises. Through Baptism, we are born into new life through Christ’s death, and it is through our identity as sons and daughters of God we are given the strength to overcome temptation and pursue virtue.
We know who wins in the end. By uniting ourselves with Christ and seeking to imitate him in all we do, we are given immeasurable grace, secure in the hope of eternal life and a God who conquers all.
Prayer
Loving Father, like Christ in the desert, the world will always tempt us with pleasure, power, and fame. It will seem to offer us a more immediate gratification to the desire in our hearts that can only be filled by you. As we begin our Lenten journey, may our prayer, fasting, and almsgiving help us to keep our eyes fixed on you and the promise of your kingdom. May we, like Jesus, have the strength to see through the deceptions of the evil one and seek you alone. Amen.
Saint of the Day
St. Colette lived a life of extremes in service to God's will.
She was born in France in 1381, daughter to a carpenter. Both of her parents had died by the time she was 17 years old, and she gave away her possessions to the poor and joined a community of Franciscans.
For a time she lived as an anchoress—someone who lives in solitude and prayer—by having herself sealed in a brick cell with only one small, grated window looking in to a church. She became known for her spiritual insight and wisdom.
She had a vision from St. Francis in which he told her to reform the order of Poor Clares. To do this, she had to leave her cell. She decided to travel through France without shoes and in a patched nun’s habit, begging and encouraging greater faithfulness, especially among the religious orders there.
Her efforts were met with great opposition—she was even accused of sorcery—but she persisted, and began a movement that reformed convents in parts of France, Spain, and Belgium. She founded 17 additional convents in the reformed, stricter rule of the Poor Clares.
She was well-known for her holiness and for the depth of her prayer, which often led to ecstatic visions. Her relics rest in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica, and her image is used here with permission from Catholic.org.
St. Colette, you called people to greater holiness by your own example and dedication to prayer—pray for us!
Image Credit: Our featured image of St. Colette is available for use under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Last accessed February 6, 2025 on Wikimedia Commons.
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