Embedded Files
It’s Day 364!!
“AND LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION”
Wait a second, are we asking God not to tempt us?
NO!!
“BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL”
With the battle with Principalities and Powers, we are asking the Lord to deliver us
ARTICLE 4: THE FINAL DOXOLOGY
This is when we give God praise
Let’s pray!!
Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in Heaven, we give you praise. In this moment, at this day, at this hour, right now, may you be praised. Lord God, you have put us in this world, and you have made us for this world, but you have made us also for the next world. You have made us in such a way that you have destined us to have eternal life with you. And yet in this world, there are many slings and arrows. In this world, there are so many forces that are trying to keep us from the heavenly homeland, the home, the dwelling that you have prepared for us. There are so many forces internally and externally. Lord God, even in our own broken hearts and in this broken world, there are so many battles, so many trials, so many tests, and so much evil that can get in our way, that can stumble us, may cause us to stumble, that can be obstacles for us. And Lord God, we ask you to please help us. Help us through the snares of this world, this valley of tears, Lord God, this exile. Help us with your grace. Lord, I know you already do, but please fight for us. Continue to fight for us. Fight for us now and always. Never let us go. Never let us go. And help us to never let you go. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen”
So there we have it!!
“AND LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION”
Paragraph 2846 says, “This petition goes to the root of the preceding one, for our sins result from our consenting to temptation; we therefore ask our Father not to ‘lead’ us into temptation. It is difficult to translate the Greek verb used by a single English word: the Greek means both ‘do not allow us to enter into temptation’ and ‘do not let us yield to temptation.’ ‘God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one’; on the contrary, he wants to set us free from evil. We ask him not to allow us to take the way that leads to sin. We are engaged in the battle ‘between flesh and spirit’; this petition implores the Spirit of discernment and strength.”
Paragraph 2847 says, “The Holy Spirit makes us discern between trials, which are necessary for the growth of the inner man, and temptation, which leads to sin and death. We must also discern between being tempted and consenting to temptation. Finally, discernment unmasks the lie of temptation, whose object appears to be good, a ‘delight to the eyes’ and desirable, when in reality its fruit is death. God does not want to impose the good, but wants free beings…There is a certain usefulness to temptation. No one but God knows what our soul has received from him, not even we ourselves. But temptation reveals it in order to teach us to know ourselves, and in this way we discover our evil inclinations and are obliged to give thanks for the goods that temptation has revealed to us.”
If we are not tested through trials, we cannot grow
This is true when it comes to biological life
It is also true when it comes to our spiritual lives
We have to face some kind of opposition in order to grow
This is how muscles grow
If your muscles are not challenged, they become weaker
This is how our brains learn things
In those challenges, the brain becomes smarter
Temptation is different
Sometimes we have invasive thoughts
We did not ask for these thoughts, but there they are
The correct response would be to ask for the Lord to banish them, or to help you distract yourself from them
Those thoughts are only temptations
Since you did not entertain them or consent to them, there is no sin
THERE IS VICTORY OVER THAT TEMPTATION!!
BUT…
If you do entertain those thoughts or consent to those thoughts, that would be sinning
But just having the thought pop into your head is not sinning
Being tempted to sin is not the same thing as consenting to sin
How often do we justify our sin to ourselves because we think, how could this possibly be bad?
Let’s listen to Fr. Mike talk about Adam and Eve…
We need discernment to unmask the lie of temptation
Paragraph 2848 says, “‘Lead us not into temptation’ implies a decision of the heart: ‘For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also…No one can serve two masters.’ ‘If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.’ In this assent to the Holy Spirit the Father gives us strength. ‘No testing has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, so that you may be able to endure it.’”
We are free, but we limp
We have strength, but not all strength
We need to consent to the Holy Spirit to surrender to the Lord and the Father gives us strength
Sometimes we have a perspective on our temptations that we might be tempted to exceptionalism
We might think that I am the exception that no one else does
You might have a particular kind of testing, but you are not the exception
Paragraph 2489 says, “Such a battle and such a victory becomes possible only through prayer. It is by his prayer that Jesus vanquishes the tempter, both at the outset of his public mission and in the ultimate struggle of his agony. In this petition to our Heavenly Father, Christ unites us to his battle and his agony. He urges us to vigilance of the heart in communion with his own. Vigilance is ‘custody of the heart,’ and Jesus prayed for us to the Father: ‘Keep them in your name.’ The Holy Spirit constantly seeks to awaken us to keep watch. Finally, this petition takes on all its dramatic meaning in relation to the last temptation of our earthly battle; it asks for final perseverance. ‘Lo, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is he who is awake.’”
Fr. Mike invites us all to pray for THE GRACE OF FINAL PERSEVERANCE on a daily basis, every morning and every evening
“Ok, Lord. Right now, I belong to you. Right now, I am saying YES to you. God, please give me the grace to say YES to you with my last breath. Please give me the grace for final perseverance.”
None of us know what the last temptation of our earthly battle will look like or what it is going to be
The Lord God wants to be a part of it
He wants to be there to give us discernment and strength in that moment
When you are praying the Lord’s Prayer and you say, “...lead us not into temptation…” add that note of EVEN AT THE LAST HOUR, THE LAST TEMPTATION OF MY EARTHLY BATTLE, GIVE ME THAT FINAL PERSEVERANCE
“BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL”
Paragraph 2851 says, “In this petition, evil is not an abstraction, but refers to a person, Satan, the Evil One, the angel who opposes God. The devil (dia-balos) is the one who ‘throws himself across’ God’s plan and his work of salvation accomplished in Christ.”
Yes, we want to be delivered from the temptation to evil
Yes, we want to be delivered from committing evil
BUT…
We are praying to be delivered from the Evil One specifically
Paragraph 2852 says, “‘A murderer from the beginning…a liar and the father of lies,’ Satan is ‘the deceiver of the whole world.’ Through him sin and death entered the world and by his definitive defeat all creation will be ‘freed from the corruption of sin and death.’ Now ‘we know that anyone born of God does not sin, but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him. We know that we are of God, and the whole world is in the power of the evil one.’ The Lord who has taken away your sin and pardoned your faults also protects you and keeps you from the wiles of your adversary the devil, so that the enemy, who is accustomed to leading into sin, may not surprise you. One who entrusts himself to God does not dread the devil. ‘If God is for us, who is against us?’”
I cannot fight the devil on my own
Neither can you
None of us can
He is smarter than us
He is more powerful than us
We are not called to fight the devil on our own
Every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we are asking God to fight him for us
Paragraph 2853 says, “Victory over the ‘prince of this world’ was won once for all at the Hour when Jesus freely gave himself up to death to give us his life. This is the judgment of this world, and the prince of this world is ‘cast out.’ ‘He pursued the woman’ but had no hold on her: the new Eve, ‘full of grace’ of the Holy Spirit, is preserved from sin and the corruption of death (the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of the Most Holy Mother of God, Mary, ever virgin). ‘Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring.’ Therefore the Spirit and the Church pray: ‘Come, Lord Jesus,’ since his coming will deliver us from the Evil One.”
Paragraph 2854 says, “When we ask to be delivered from the Evil One, we pray as well to be freed from all evils, present, past, and future, of which he is the author or instigator. In this final petition, the Church brings before the Father all the distress of the world. Along with deliverance from the evils that overwhelm humanity, she implores the precious gift of peace and the grace of perseverance in expectation of Christ’s return. By praying in this way, she anticipates in humility of faith the gathering together of everyone and everything in him who has ‘the keys of Death and Hades,’ who ‘is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.’”
The Our Father is such a confident prayer
We dare to say…
It is a bold prayer
Not because we are bold or because we have confidence in ourselves
It is because God, in His love for us, has made us His adopted sons and daughters
He is our Father
He wants us to come to Him as Father, trusting Him with EVERYTHING
“Ok, Father. I trust you even with the evil within the world, overwhelmed by the evils of this world. And Father, I entrust you with the Evil One that you are going to fight him. You have already had victory over him. You are going to continue to battle him in his role in my life. But also, I pray that you deliver the whole world from the evils that afflict the whole world.”
Paragraph 2855 says, “The final doxology, ‘For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are ours, now and forever,’ take up again, by inclusion, the first three petitions to our Father: the glorification of his name, the coming of his reign, and the power of his saving will. But these prayers are now proclaimed as adoration and thanksgiving, as in the liturgy of heaven. The ruler of this world has mendaciously attributed to himself the three titles of kingship, power, and glory. Christ, the Lord, restores them to his Father and our Father, until he hands over the kingdom to him when the mystery of salvation will be brought to its completion and God will be all in all.”
Remember, Judah goes up first
Praise goes up first
And in the end, praise goes up last
We continue to praise God AT ALL TIMES
We pray AT ALL TIMES
Fr. Mike is praying FOR YOU!!
Please pray for Fr. Mike and for each other!!
Should I……?
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse