Practical advice on rebuffing temptation

Having just posted recently a look at how almsgiving, prayer, and fasting are corrections for temptation, I thought this was a good follow up.

 

Practical advice on rebuffing Satan.

Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, 66, the archbishop of Genoa, dedicated his [2001] Lenten letter to combating the fascination of a devil who is charming, shrewd and very real. Those who follow his 10-step program are promised the ability to rebuff offers of forbidden fruit.

Ten Practical Rules to Resist Satan
Rule one: "Do not forget that the devil exists."
Rule two: "Do not forget that the devil is a tempter."
Rule three: "Do not forget that the devil is very intelligent and astute."
Rule four: "Be (always) vigilant in the eyes and the heart."
Rule five: "Be strong in spirit and virtue."
Rule six: "Tireless prayer."
Rule seven: "Adoring God."
Rule eight: "Listening to God's Words."
Rule nine: "Remembering Christ's victory over temptation. Remembering man's sharing in that victory."
Rule ten: "Be humble and love mortification."

Source

This is a good, comprehensive list. I particularly like rules four and six. If I don't notice I'm being tempted then it's hard to fight it. And once I notice, I have to ask for Jesus to give me the grace to fight the temptation. I've learned over the years that I'm lousy at doing it alone!

Why fasting, almsgiving, and prayer go all the way back to the beginning

Temptations of Christ, 12th-century mosaic in St Mark's Basilica, Venice
(click through to see a bigger image)

This is for anyone who ever felt as if the Church's prescription of fasting, almsgiving, and prayer are picked out of a hat simply as hard things to do. Au contraire, the combination of John Bergsma' commentary with Joe Heschmeyer's observations show how fasting, almsgiving, and prayer are completely logical prescription from the Church during this time.

First, let's look at the nature of temptation.

The classic scriptural formulation of the nature of temptation is found in 1 John 2:15-16 (RSV2CE):

Do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world.

In the Christian tradition, this threefold love of the world—lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride of life—is known as the three-fold concupiscence and lines up roughly with the sins of (physical) lust, avarice (greed), and pride.

We see this threefold pattern at work when Eve gives in to temptation: The woman saw that the tree was (1) good for food, (2) pleasing to the eyes, and (3) desirable for gaining wisdom.

"Good for food"—this is physical lust. "Pleasing to the eyes"—this is avarice, the desire to have more, to possess things for their beauty or value. "Desirable for gaining wisdom"—this is pride because her purpose for gaining wisdom is to make herself equal because her purpose for gaining wisdom is to make herself equal to god. As the serpent says, "You will be like God" (v. 5, RSV2CE).

John Bergsma, The Word of the Lord Year A,
First Sunday of Lent, commentary on Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7

Bergsma goes on to draw the connection between Eve giving into the three temptations and Jesus rejecting all three in turn. He rejects lust of the flesh when he will not turn stones into bread to break his 40-day fast. He rejects the pride of life when he rejects the temptation to throw himself from the temple and let the angels save him. (It never occurred to me that this would have been quite a publicity stunt until reading this commentary.) Finally, Jesus rejects lust of the eyes when he is shown all the kingdoms of the world and rejects the act of worship that would make them his.

The Lenten disciplines are intended to help us overcome the temptation to the same sins. Fasting combats lust of the flesh. Almsgiving combats lust of the eyes. Prayer combats pride because we must acknowledge our dependence on God.

Helping Our Relationships in the World

Joe Heschmeyer in his Shameless Popery podcast points out that these three forms of sin not only hurt us but others. He begins with the Catechism, paragraph 1434:

The interior penance of the Christian can be expressed in many and various ways. Scripture and the Fathers insist above all on three forms, fasting, prayer, and almsgiving, which express conversion in relation to oneself, to God, and to others. "

He then points out that the pattern of the three temptations hurts our relationships - with ourselves, with our neighbors, and with God. Lust of flesh hurts us and  fasting is a form of self mastery to help combat it. Lust of the eyes damages our relationship to others (our neighbors) because we desire their goods so almsgiving (giving to our own goods away) is an appropriate correction. Pride of life means we put ourselves in the place of God and obviously prayer is a way to correct our relationship with him.

This was a brand new connection for me and one that has added a deeper meaning to my fasting, almsgiving, and prayer. It is a way to help fix the damage that our sin has done in the world. Simply amazing.

Heschmeyer's commentary is best listened to, however I pulled this from the episode transcript for those who want a quick excerpt.

Now, there’s a cool connection that [the Catechism] just made there because the point is this, in sin, we hurt our relationship to ourself, we hurt our relationship with God, we hurt our relationship with our neighbor.

So if you are struggling with lust of the flesh, you have a disordered relationship with yourself. Okay, well, what’s the tool that combats that, the relationship with ourself? Well, fasting, it’s a form of self mastery.

Or I’ve got pride of life. I am putting myself in the place of God and I’m desiring these worldly things and I’m getting puffed up. Well, what’s the cure for that? Prayer.

Or I’ve damaged my relationship to others, I’m being greedy. I’m dominating those around me. I’m trying to get my neighbors goods, covetousness, all of that stuff. Well, what’s the cure for that? Almsgiving. That these worldly goods that maybe I really want will give that money away. And so rather than damaging your relationship to your neighbor by getting richer and richer while your poor neighbor languishes, you give to your neighbor.

So you can see this is hopefully very clear that the damaged relationship to myself is related to lust of the flesh. The damaged relationship to my neighbor is related to lust of the eyes. My damaged relationship to God is related to pride of life.

... Therefore fasting, which works on myself, prayer which works on my relationship with God, almsgiving works on my relationship with my neighbor, are especially kind of calibrated.

Joe Heschmeyer, Shameless Popery,
The 3 Spiritual Traps (and 6 Spiritual Weapons) of Lent

Crushing Temptations

Obviously from a couple of years ago, this is a good reminder to me of my own Lenten realization.

In Mel Gibson's movie The Passion of the Christ, in the very first scene in the garden, as Jesus is praying in agony, he sees a snake creeping up to him. The instant he sees the snake, he crushes it, he stomps on it, he has no mercy toward it and no second thoughts, no hesitation. That's what we all have to do with temptations: stop them at their very source, their very first beginnings, the very first thoughts.

Peter Kreeft, Food for the Soul, Year C First Sunday of Lent

I must say that one of my personal advances during this Lent is to recognize some temptations when they occur. This might sound obvious, but most of my temptations creep up for sins that are habitual. That makes sense. Sometimes I am fighting myself and sometimes I'm being assaulted by enemy barrages. When I'm in the middle of the battle, do I stop to ask where the blows are coming from?

Too often I don't. But having had the grace given to ask myself the question, "What if this is a temptation?" I've been able to simply say, "Go away!" I'm not always good at repeating it too many times, but sometimes just knowing it might be coming from outside is enough. Now, part of my morning prayer is to ask Jesus to show me when I'm being tempted so I have that extra help.

It strikes me, having read the quote above, that another part of my battle needs to be the immediate crushing with no second thoughts. Too often I feel as if it is natural to have a long battle with temptation, which I may win or I may lose. But the times when I've crushed the thought and refused to allow it entry, however many times there is a knock on the door — those are the times I've won.