Vigils Reading – 1st Sunday of Lent

THE THINGS OF THE SPIRIT

From a commentary by St Gregory Nazianzen

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We must not expect baptism to free us from the temptations of our

persecutor. The body that concealed him made even the Word of God a target

for the enemy; his assumption of a visible form made even the invisible light an

object of attack. Nevertheless, since we have at hand the means of overcoming

our enemy, we must have no fear of the struggle. Flaunt in his face the water and

the Spirit. In them will be extinguished all the flaming darts of the evil one.

Suppose the tempter makes us feel the pinch of poverty, as he did even to

Christ, and taking advantage of our hunger, talks of turning stones into bread:

we must not be taken in by him, but let him learn what he has still not grasped.

Refute him with the word of life, with the word which is the bread sent down

from heaven and that gives life to the world.

He may try to ensnare us through our vanity, as he tried to ensnare Christ

when he set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said: “Prove your divinity:

throw yourself down.” Let us beware of succumbing to pride, for the tempter

will by no means stop at one success. He is never satisfied and is always

pursuing us. Often he beguiles us with something good and useful, but its end is

always evil. That is simply his method of waging war.

We also know how well-versed the devil is in Scripture. When Christ

answered the temptation to turn stones into bread with a rebuke from Scripture

beginning: It is written, the devil countered with the same words, tempting

Christ to throw himself down from the pinnacle of the temple. For it is written

he quoted, he will give his angels charge of you, and on their hands they will

bear you up. O past master of all evil, why suppress the verse that follows? You

did not finish the quotation, but I know full well what it means: that we shall

tread on you as on an adder or a cobra; protected by the Trinity, we shall trample

on you as on serpents or scorpions.

If the tempter tried to overthrow us through our greed, showing us at one

glance all the kingdoms of the world – as if they belonged to him – and

demanding that we fall down and worship him, we should despise him, for we

know him to be a penniless impostor. Strong in our baptism, each of us can say:

“I too am made in the image of God, but unlike you, I have not yet become an

outcast from heaven through my pride. I have put on Christ; by my baptism I

have become one with him. It is you that should fall down before me.” At these

words he can only surrender and retire in shame; as he retreated before Christ,

the light of the world, so he will depart from those illumined by that light. Such

are the gifts conferred by baptism on those who understand its power; such the

rich banquet it lays before those who hunger for the things of the Spirit.