On this First Sunday of Lent, we hear the account of the fall of our first parents, Adam and Eve. The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes this scene in the following words:
Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God’s command. This is what man’s first sin consisted of. All subsequent sin would be disobedience toward God and lack of trust in his goodness. (CCC 397)
Disobedience is at the heart of all sin, therefore when Christ came into the world as one of us, He brings about our reconciliation through obedience, as St. Paul recounts:
Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. (Phil 2:5–8)
Where Adam and Eve were unsuccessful in remaining obedient to God after succumbing to the temptation of the devil, we see in the Gospel for the First Sunday of Lent Jesus remaining obedient and thus resisting the temptations of Satan. This incident at the very beginning of His public ministry would define His whole life – obedience to the Father in all things, even to the point of dying on the Cross. I have therefore chosen the following invocation from the Litany of the Sacred Heart for this week:
Heart of Jesus, obedient to death, have mercy on us
When Jesus taught us how to pray in the Lord’s Prayer, one of the petitions He asks us to pray is: “thy will be done.” This is a prayer in which we are asking to exercise the virtue of obedience. We have to fight the constant temptation within ourselves that says: “my will be done.” Again, that is basically what sin boils down to. We know what we are supposed to do, but we prefer what we want to do, thus obeying our will over the will of God. That is, of course, in those circumstance when what we want is opposed to God’s will, for what we want to do can certainly be what God wants for us, but we should be obeying first becauseit is His will, not because it is ours and that it just so happens to also conform with His will.
Obedience can be difficult, and choosing to act against our selfish will can be a painful experience. In those moments, we often turn in on ourselves, becoming preoccupied with the anticipated discomfort. The better reaction is to turn our gaze toward Christ and learn from His example. I find the following words from the Letter to the Hebrews helpful to recall when obedience can be challenging:
Consider Him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood (Heb 12:3–4)
These words, strong though they may seem, are not meant to discourage us, but rather to encourage us to find in the Heart of Jesus the strength to resist temptation and remain obedient to the Father, just as He was, even to the point of dying on the Cross.