Then the devil left him

14 FEBRUARY (Lk 4,1-13)

Whoever knows God knows Satan. Who knows Satan knows God. Whoever does not know Satan does not know God. Who knows Satan falsely, he knows God falsely. Satan lives of perfect and unsurpassed cunning. He teaches the man one thing: that he is seen wherever he is not, that he is not seen where he is. Scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’ time had fallen in this trap. They saw Satan in Jesus and in Jesus Satan did not reign. They did not see him in them and Satan reigned in them, possessing all their thoughts, their desires, their will and their heart. In this camouflage between being and not being, changing moment by moment forms and modes of existence and manifestation is his life. Even Eve was deceived by his transformation into a harmless, innocent snake, that revealed her the true way of life, deceiving her.

With Jesus, Satan is camouflaged in prompter of mercy, pity, compassion, even in truth. But this is a false mercy, false piety, false compassion and false truth. Jesus is not only God, he is also a true man. As a real man he has always obligations to observe. The assumption of humanity does not abolish the commandments of the Father and does not release the real man that is in Christ from the obedience to every commandment, indeed compels him much more. It obliges him to observe well over the very letter, because the Holy Spirit gives him a perfect sense of it. Bread must always be both a gift of God and the fruit of human hands, sweat of his brow, blood poured from his veins in the furrows of the earth.

The real man, the true worshiper of the Father, knows that his life is ruled by the divine Providence. If the Father today sends no bread, although he is in the highest justice, truth, love, obedience, search of his reign, it is a sign that God wants to test his faith. Today the Lord does not send bread and today we fast. Tomorrow, he sends it and tomorrow you will fast no more. Whether you eat and whether you do not eat, the Lord must be blessed forever. His will be done. Jesus came so that every person is placed under the watchful, loving and solicitous providence of the Father. There is no life when you subvert the relations established by God. They must always be observed.

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was hungry. The tempter approached and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves of bread.” He said in reply, “It is written: ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.'”

Then the devil took him to the holy city, and made him stand on the parapet of the temple, and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you and ‘with their hands they will support you, lest you dash your foot against a stone.'” Jesus answered him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.'”

Then the devil took him up to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence, and he said to him, “All these I shall give to you, if you will prostrate yourself and worship me.” At this, Jesus said to him, “Get away, Satan! It is written: ‘The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve.'” Then the devil left him and, behold, angels came and ministered to him. When he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee.

Even the manners of the mission are established by God and never by his sent or by his Missionaries. To the prophets of the Living God, to his preachers, to the heralds of his will, it is of strict obligation to observe the delivery of the mission, of the word and of the prophecy itself. If you change the delivery, God might no longer operate. The missionary can also perform miracles, attract millions of people behind him, but for human and not divine things. God sends to enter man into the divine world, freeing him from the slavery and sin that reign in the world of humanity and of the earth. God sends not to conquer kingdoms, but hearts so that they worship and obey only Him. Never does God send so that the man worships Satan or worse still his prophets and missionaries worship him. Unfortunately this often occurs and it is the end of the faith, mission, conversion, justice and truth.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints, teach us the truth of faith.