Today is “Invocabit Sunday,” the solemn beginning of the Holy Season of Quadragesima. This Sunday ranks with Passion and Palm Sundays, such that in the Roman Church no feast day ever takes its place. Thus, at Rome and wherever else the Chair of Peter is celebrated as a 1st Class feast, its solemnity is kept tomorrow. As we begin Holy Lent, the Church places before our hearts the dramatic events of the Temptation of Our Lord. Here we learn the meaning of our holy season and its essential character as profound union with Christ: we go to the desert to fast with Jesus during Lent because we want to be wherever He is. We are in Love with Him and so we go wherever He goes. Our Love makes us willing to suffer and to die with Him so that we may rise with Him at Easter. It was Jesus’s 40 Days of fasting in the desert that caused the Roman Church to add the last four days of Quinquagesima week to her solemn fast (six weeks of six fast days in Quadragesima, plus Ash Wednesday and the other three days).

Jesus’s temptations are real and entirely external. There is nothing in Him that tempts Him or leads Him to sin. The only temptation to which He can be subject is that which comes from outside, from the devil. The devil does not know that Jesus is God. If he knew, he would not dare to tempt Him. Jesus suffers His temptations after fasting for 40 days like Moses and Elijah and feeling fully the weakness of our frail humanity. He seems to be inviting the devil into the desert for combat, challenging His opponent by revealing His weakness, only to overcome the tempter not with the power of His Divinity but with the humility of His humanity.

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