Today’s readings: Gen. 2, 7-9; 3, 1-7; Rom. 5, 12-19; Matt. 4, 1-11.

At the start of this year’s Lenten journey, I would like to recall the myth of Sisyphus. The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly roll a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back due to its own weight. There is no more dread-ful punishment than futile and hopeless labour.

Is the enterprise of yet another Lenten journey futile and hopeless labour? Our humanity is often so weighed down with good intentions and propositions that at times we seem to be ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of the mountain only to watch it falling back again due to its own weight.

We’re used to comparing Christian life to a battle against evil, and hence, we understand life only in terms of an ongoing struggle. But the biblical understanding may suggest otherwise, particularly in the way St Paul narrates the dynamics of Christian life in his letter to the Romans.

In his book, Covenant of the Heart, Valentin Tomberg, a Russian Christian mystic, presents an interesting parallelism between what is involved in coming to terms with temptation and how homeopathy relates to conventional medicine.

He writes: “Whereas in conventional medicine chemical substances work against specific symptoms of sickness, in homeopathy, chemical indistinguishable energies work, not against specific symptoms, but in support of the healing activity of the organism itself”.

Rather than as a battle against evil, our daily struggles would perhaps be better rendered in terms of a process of healing, seeking to preserve ourselves from degeneration and constantly making us aware of the regenerating impulses of the Spirit.

According to Tomberg, degeneration and regeneration are the key concepts for understanding the intricate reality of who we are and how we always react to whatever is considered temptation. The concept of degeneration is a gradual step-by-step descent from an originally higher level to a lower one. It is a gradual sinking into earthliness, it is an expression of the generally prevailing force of earthly gravitation.

Regeneration, on the other hand, is the re-ascent to that higher level. The whole regenerating acitvity which works against the natural process of degeneration, is the constant revelation of God’s presence in our history, at least for those who have eyes to see it. Lent is meant to gradually lead us exactly there.

The three temptations of Jesus in the wilderness represent the essence of all temptations to which mankind is exposed in the course of history. The history and challenge of the Christian life is nothing else than the constant coming to terms with these temptations in the wilderness of life.

Coming to terms with temptation does not mean a smooth and immediate rejection of the temptation, nor does it mean immediately becoming a complete prey to it. It is a procedure comparable with digestion, slowly but constantly overcoming inner conflict.

Life is made of inner conflicts which can be of an intellectual kind, involving doubt; but they can involve also enticement, or seduction. Seduction relates to the will, enticement to feeling, and doubt to thinking.

Doubt, enticement, and seduction are temptations which provoke inner conflict and make of us people divided in our very being.

The same old story of the devil tempting Adam and Eve continues to be true for all mankind as well as for each and everyone of us individually, with the sole exception and interruption of Jesus.

During Lent we need to aspire to that same interruption in our life, otherwise repentance becomes a pious thing and easily reduces itself to the absurdity of the Sisyphus futile and hopeless labour uphill. We would simply become like the idols we worship, impotent to change and to refuse what we dislike.

The Lenten journey can show us the way ahead to discover our way out of the historical and personal puzzles that simply lead to degeneration.