Pope’s Angels: Evil Agreement Leads to Slavery

Alina Tofani Diaz – Vatican

Surrendering to temptation numbs consciences because evil is justified by hiding it in good faith. This is one of the reflections of Pope Francis, in his address before the Marian Prayer to the Angels on the first Sunday of Lent, which proposes the Gospel passage that leads Jesus into the desert where Satan is tempted by him for forty days. (See Luke 4, 1-13).

Poison of feelings

“The desert – said the Holy Father – symbolizes the struggle against the temptations of evil to learn to choose true freedom.” And the experience of Jesus before beginning his public mission is precisely a “spiritual struggle” to combat temptations, such as the experience of “benefiting” from being the Son of God, and to increase his power. “A seductive proposition,” said Francis, only enslaves the heart, for it “obsesses us with the desire to possess, and reduces everything to the possession of things, power, and fame.” Temptations are the “poison of the passions” in which evil is rooted, but it is overcome by the word of God.

“One must not profit, one must not use God, others and things for oneself, and one must not take advantage of one’s position to gain privileges. Because true happiness and freedom are not in possession but in sharing; not in benefiting others, but in loving them; Not in the obsession of power, but in the joy of serviceThis was confirmed by the Supreme Pontiff.

With temptation there is no dialogue

The Holy Father reminded that the temptations that accompany us along the path of life are often presented in a “manifest form of benevolence”, “with sweet eyes”, “with the face of an angel”, and even religiosity. This is the cunning and evil deception of Satan, or falling into the temptation of justification with good deeds or gestures of everyday life. “If we succumb to their flattery — Francisco noted — we end up justifying our falsity by concealing it with good intentions.”

“We must not argue with temptation, we must not fall into the numbness of conscience that makes us say: “Deep down, this is not serious, everyone does it like this!”, added the Holy Father, recalling that Jesus does not condone evil, he resists Satan with the word of God.

som desert

At the end of his reflection, the Pope called us to live the Lenten season as a time in the desert, that is, devoted to silence and prayer so that we “stop and look at what moves our hearts.”

“Let us achieve inner clarity, placing ourselves before the Word of God in prayer, so that a useful battle against the evil that makes us slaves may break out in us, a battle for freedomThe Pontiff concluded, asking the Blessed Virgin to accompany us in the desert of Lent and help us on our journey of conversion.