" PAST " HE HAD BECOME A MAN, NOT AN ANGEL

JESUS CONFOUNDS SATAN'S ATTEMPT AT TEMPTATION

 

 

 "For the moment, Satan had been worsted, but perhaps he had learnt all he had cared to know. Whoever this Jesus was it was clear that He was a Power with whom he would have to reckon. He left Him, but in no confusion; he left Him, but, as the Evangelist carefully tells us, only "for a time". He had other weapons at his disposal and he would use them, even till the last night when would come

                        " Your hour
And the power of darkness."  Luke xxii: 53

Meanwhile, Jesus Himself was at peace. He could ask His Father, and His Father would give Him legions of angels to help Him in His work, but that would not be His way. He had not become an angel, He had become Man, and man should be His helper. Still, because of His humiliation, He should not be deserted; He Who had submitted to this buffeting by the spirit of evil should be visited by the spirits of good. As at the beginning in Bethlehem, as at the end in the Garden, so now in His first desolation,

                          "Behold angels came
                       And ministered to Him.""

- Extract from Archbishop Alban Goodier S.J.'s masterful " The Public Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ".