The First Sunday of Lent – 22 February – Our Lenten Journey With St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), Doctor of the Church
The First Week of Lent – Sunday
It was fitting that Christ should be tempted
“Jesus was led by the spirit into the desert,
to be tempted by the devil.”
Matt iv. i
Christ willed to be tempted:
- That He might assist us against our own temptations.
St Gregory says: “That our Redeemer, Who had come to earth to be killed, should will to be tempted, was not unworthy of Him. It was. indeed but just that He should overcome our temptations by His own, in the same way that He had come to overcome our death by His death.” - To warn us that no man, however holy he be, should think himself safe and free from temptation.
Whence again, His choosing to be tempted after His Baptism, about which St Hilary says: “The devil’s wiles are especially directed to trap us at times when we have recently been made holy because the devil desires no victory as much as a victory over the world of Grace.”
Whence too, the Scripture warns us, “Son, when thou comest to the service of God, stand in justice and in fear and prepare thy soul for temptation” (Ecclus ii. i). - To give us an example of how we should overcome the temptations of the devil, St Augustine says: “Christ gave Himself to the devil to be tempted that, in the matter of our overcoming those same temptations, He might be of service, not only by His assistance but too, by His example.”
- To fill and saturate our minds with confidence in His Mercy.
“For we have not a High Priest Who cannot have compassion on our infirmities but One , without sin but ttempted in all things, like as we are, (Heb iv. 15).
ST THOMAS AQUINAS (1225-1274)
Priest, Theologian, Dominican
Doctor Angelicus (Angelic Doctor)
Doctor Communis (Common Doctor)
Added by Pope Saint Pius V in 1568
AnaStpaul 