We're in the desert with Jesus

In today's Magnificat reflection from Pope Benedict, he lays out a lucid, tight understanding of Jesus' temptations by the devil in the desert. He marks out precisely what we struggle against on this earth every day. I thank heaven for this gift of a priest and bishop, and I pray that one day all will heed his words.

Christ goes into the desert to assume all of the fundamental temptations that we face: to reduce our reality to material and political; to push aside the desires of God for our own desires and wants, and to reject that God holds all in his hands. Jesus is so remarkably decisive in his rejection of all of this: he is a model of faith and conviction for us.

Our holy father identifies the lures of this world--the lures of Satan himself--in a neat summary. These desert temptations are the exact ones that have pressed on us in every age. Do we accept that God is real, and that he is reality? Or do we substitute our own vision, desires and goals? Do we embrace the Good that he is and that he wants, or do we fashion our own good?

Let us throw ourselves on the abyss of his mercy. While we can surely see that the world has made its own good (which always involves destruction, subjugation and humiliation), which of us hasn't created his own vision of what the world should be? Which of us hasn't supplanted God's will for her own? Forgive us our failures, Lord, and give us grace to do better!