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Dear Father Angelo,

I write to you because I would like some clarification regarding this sentence pronounced by Jesus when he is tempted by the devil during the forty days spent in the desert.

Reading the commentary on the passage from the Gospel of Luke it says that the devil proposes to Jesus three main temptations: the temptation to believe that our life depends on accumulating material goods (when the devil asks Jesus to turn stone into bread), the temptation to exercise dominion over others (when the devil promises Jesus to be worshipped by all the kingdoms of the Earth if he will worship him) and, finally, the temptation to challenge God to have more security in the face of the uncertainties of life (when the devil exhorts Jesus to throw himself because angels would come to his rescue).

So I would like to dwell on this last temptation. What do we really mean when we use God for our own safety in the face of the uncertainties of life? I ask this question because I do not hide from you that I am a rather anxious type and I am trying to overcome my anxiety, my fears by relying on the Lord and I would not want to commit sin by challenging him.

What is the difference between a sincere abandonment to God and using him for greater security? Could you give me some concrete examples??

Best regards,

Mariagrazia

Response from the priest

Dear Maria Grazia,

1. Sincere and trusting abandonment to God, without complaint, coincides with the utmost security of man because we put ourselves in the hands of the One who loves us infinitely more than we love ourselves.

2. Blessed Pope John Paul I remembered a child that his father had taken to the top of the highest skyscraper in New York and from there he hung him dangling in the void.

The child was asked if he was afraid. He replied: no, because my father’s hand held me.

3. We find in Abraham a great example of abandonment in God.

The Lord said to Abram: “Go forth from the land of your kinsfolk and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you” (Gen 12:1).

Notice the future. God does not immediately show the land to Abraham.

Abraham sets out on a journey, trusting in God’s promise.

When he arrives in the land of present-day Palestine, God reveals to him that this is the land He has chosen for him: “To your descendants I will give this land” (Gen 12:7).

But here is a first test: there is a famine so great that he must emigrate to Egypt and here he runs a serious risk of death.

On the way back, he must battle four kings.

God’s promise to become a father is not being fulfilled, and yet he continues to be confident because God has promised and he knows that he does not fail in his word.

4. The son, Isaac, finally arrives. But when he reaches the age of 15, here is another test, the strongest.

God called him again and told him: ‘”Abraham!” “Ready!” he replied. Then God said: “Take your son Isaac, your only one, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah. There you shall offer him up as a holocaust on a height that I will point out to you” (Gn 22,1-2).

Abraham’s abandonment is manifested as soon as God calls him. He responds by saying: Here I am, at your disposal. And here is that, to a soul so disposed, God asks to offer him his son.

Abraham does not back down. Continues to be confident. He is certain of God’s promise even in the darkest hour of his life: “He reasoned that God was able to raise even from the dead, and he received Isaac back as a symbol” (Heb 11:19).

5. He received him back as a symbol”.

Symbol of what?

Of the trust of Jesus dying and hanging on the cross who in that extreme situation expresses the trust that the psalmist had foretold him: “Into your hands I commend my spirit; you will redeem me, Lord, God of truth” (Ps 31:6).

And here is the Father’s answer: he raises him from the dead. And he raises him for a life in which death no longer has power.

6. I would like to conclude with the beautiful testimony of Blessed Carlo Acutis.

Every time he received communion he said: “Jesus, go ahead! Make yourself at home!”.

He abandoned himself every day in the hands of the Lord.

And when at 15 years old, like a new Isaac, the Lord asks him for the offer of his life he says: “I die happy, because I have lived my life without losing any minute in things that do not please God “.

The Lord called him to heaven to give him the administration of all the goods of heaven: “Who, then, is the faithful and prudent steward whom the master will put in charge of his servants to distribute (the) food allowance at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master on arrival finds doing so. Truly, I say to you, he will put him in charge of all his property” (Lc 12:42-44).

With the hope that you too can always be confidently abandoned in the hands of the Father, I bless you and I remember you in prayer.

Padre Angelo