The Fast and the Temptation of Jesus Christ: 1, Jesus pushed into the desert in coming out of Baptism.

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit who had rested on him under the sensitive figure of a dove, left the Jordan, and was moved by the spirit into the wilderness. That is to say that, while coming out of baptism, full of the spirit of groaning, he, innocent dove, went to begin his fast, and to mourn our sins in solitude. According to Saint Matthew; He was led there by the spirit. According to Saint Mark: He was thrown there, carried away, driven out. According to Saint Luke, he was pushed. However that may be, we see that by baptism we were separated from the world, and consecrated to fasting or abstinence, and to fighting temptation. For this is what happened to the Saviour of the world immediately after His baptism.

The Christian life is a retreat; We are no longer of the world, as Jesus Christ is not of the world. What is the world? If not, as Saint John says: Concupiscence of the flesh, sensuality, corruption in its desires and in its works; or lust of the eyes, curiosity, avarice, delusion, fascination, error and folly in the affectation of knowledge; and finally, pride and ambition. To these evils with which the world is full, and which makes them like the substance of life, we must set retreat against them, and make us like a desert by a holy detachment from our heart.

Christian life is a struggle; the demon from which a soul escapes, takes seven spirits worse than him to tempt us with new efforts, and we must never cease to fight him.

In this fight, Saint Paul teaches us eternal abstinence; that is to say, we must wean ourselves from the pleasure of the senses and never attach our heart to it. For he who enters into the competition of the fight abstains from everything, he does so for a crown which withers and withers in an instant; but the one we want to take away is eternal.

It is to repair and expiate the faults of our retreat, of our struggles against temptations, of our abstinence, that Jesus Christ is driven into the desert; his fast of forty days represents that of all life, which we must practice by abstaining from evil works, and containing our desires within the bounds of the law of God. This must be the first effect of the fast of Jesus Christ. If he calls us higher, and if he attracts us, not simply to renunciation by the heart, but also to an effective abandonment of the world, happy to go and fast with Jesus Christ, making our bliss in his desert!