A reading of the holy gospel according to Luke. Jesus said to his disciples, temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to him by whom they come. It would be better for him if a millstone were hung round his neck and he were cast into the sea, then that he should cause one of his little ones to sin. Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him.
And if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in the same day and turns to you seven times and says, I repent. You must forgive him. The apostle said to the lord, increase our faith. And the lord said to them, if you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you could say to the sycamore tree, be rooted up and be planted in the sea, and it would obey you.
This is the gospel, the good news of the lord. The name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen. In a sense, this reading today that we have from our lord as recorded by Saint Luke tells brings up this matter of temptation. I think in some ways here are in the beginning at least, Christ is talking more about scandal.
But even so, that word temptation is a buzzword. There was a song going around some time ago that the devil made me do it. Well, sometimes I wish that were so. Because if I can turn to my great and good friend, the devil, and say, you're responsible, that leaves me free. That puts the guilt on him, not on me, which would be a very comfortable situation to be in.
Of course, I I'm not at all denying that there exists a devil and that the devil, whatever he is or whoever he is, can have an influence. I'm not at all denying that. But I'm only saying we cannot shift the responsibility of sin to him. I cannot possibly sin. That is to have sin imputed to me as the formal cause unless I'm responsible for it.
So you see that's the nastiness about this business of sin. It's so much more comforting, see, to talk in terms of unethical conduct, antisocial behavior. The social guilt, society's guilt, these are all beautiful expressions and they all get me off the hook of being responsible for my own misdeeds. Now I notice I I'm talking here about responsibility and guilt, not about the deed. A crazy person can do the worst possible things and be as innocent of sin as a newborn babe.
This point of view is almost completely lost in too many minds today. That is the distinction between subjective and objective sin. We are talking here about sin as something imputable to me as it's a as the cause. Now when you think of this word temptation, so many people have a very false notion. They first of all, they think of it as something evil.
Well, there's no evil in the temptation. There's no immorality in a temptation. It's what you do about it that matters. Furthermore, what do we mean by temptation? Course, Of when you ask when you anytime you have a good argument going and you ask people, that's a nice word you use, what does it mean?
You have made an enemy for life. You see, this is the way to end a good argument. Only yesterday, there there was a discussion going around this will shock you about liberalism and conservatism. Somebody said, what is a liberal? Well, that was the end of the argument.
And that's no and that's not the way to treat human beings. I mean, that's spoiling their fun to do things like that. It's better, you see, to keep the argument going by everybody talking about something that nobody knows what they're talking about. It keeps the life, mobile and we can be friendly. But as soon as you ask, what does that word mean?
What is your conception of this? People don't like that. They don't. Take my word for it. If you don't if you don't believe me, try it out at your own cost.
I I'm not going to be liable. But temptation is inevitable to living. It's inevitable to living because all it means in a certain sense and as it's used, correctly in the mind of the church is simply our inclination not to evil. See, this is the horrible conception that some people have that we have an inclination to evil. Well, now whenever if I don't know what you people think.
I bet you've used that expression yourself. But if you have asked yourself this one little question, if I or anyone else has an inclination to evil, point number one, what is evil? And secondly, where did I get the inclination? Now that's your conception of temptation, that it's an inclination to evil, ask yourself those two questions. What is evil and where did I get the inclination?
Now I either brought it upon myself in some way, it was learned, or it came with the baby. If it came with the baby, then it's natural. Then you're saying I have a natural inclination to evil. Now let's ask yourself ask ourselves what is evil? And if evil is something positive and if it's not positive, how can I have an inclination to something negative?
Then you're going to have to ask yourself, where did that positive reality, that entity called evil come from? Then you're going to have to say, it came from its own self and that's ridiculous, or you're going to have to say it came from God, that's absurd, or you're going to have to say it came from the devil and that's even worse because that makes the devil gives him the power of creation. And remember as John Staple Lewis said, the devil can't create one single pleasure. He can't create anything. So this business of temptation is a real good little topic to meditate on, to get your thinking straight.
Some of the some of the most grievous horrors, and I'm choosing my words carefully, they're no exaggeration, that afflict human beings is the concept or are the conceptions they have about evil, inclination to evil as they think, and how they account for that inclination in themselves. Because you see, if you say I have an inclination to evil, then the next step is to say I'm evil. And when and when that comes, that's like telling the second year kid, you're dumb, you can never learn anything. And believe me, when any teacher and this happens, if a child ever gets an impression that they can't learn, they will prove you right. They won't learn.
And I know this from experience, from what people I've met. This does happen, believe it or not. And so you see how how how horrendous this kind of thinking is. So when you come back then you say, well then, what is temptation? Temptation is nothing more than our inclination to a good.
Remember, there is no such thing as evil. There is no such thing as an evil thing. So you begin there. Now then notice, I I can't go and say this was a decree of some council. I know that.
We're talking philosophical philosophically now. But my friends, a safe philosophy cannot be divorced from a good wholesome theology. The supernatural presupposes the natural. Keep that in mind. Just last week, holy father gave a very eloquent talk on Thomas Aquinas.
So when we think in these terms of temptation, just let us get our thinking straight. We have a what we generally mean is we have an inclination to something good. If you have an inclination, it's got to be towards something good. Now what where does this evil come in? It comes in when the inclination, the desire, the yen, the want, the need is towards something which is good in itself, but which for some reason or other, and they can be very various, I cannot have it now.
The married man can't or the married woman can't look at the another man or woman and desire that person as a companion. We call that adultery. Unmarried and having the ambition to be married, there's nothing wrong with it. The inclination towards sex is perfectly normal and natural. A concept that was foreign to some of the brightest thinkers of the sixteenth century and just read the history and to see what came out of all this terrible and egregious, wrong headed thinking.
And so this matter of temptation as we call it, let's get our get our thinking straight about it. That God made the world, the world is good and it we want it. And there's nothing wrong in my wanting it. The man or woman who from some reason or other is a celibate, does that mean they do not want the pleasures of of of having a companion and of expressing their sexual appetite? Of course it doesn't.
Is the appetites evil? Some people will say, yes, they are. Well, as I say, once again, that's the worst kind of crooked thinking because you've got the same questions to ask yourself, where did they come from, how did they happen, and all the rest of it. And so when our lord today talks about temptation, notice he never defines terms. Christ was not a philosopher.
He spoke with authority. Christ was the son of God. He didn't have to debate or argue, but when he did, he was pretty good at it. And when he speaks today of temptation, we have to understand this in the context of the book of Genesis, that God made the world, he looked upon it, and saw that it was good. In the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit.
Amen.