{"id":2341,"date":"2013-02-17T12:23:00","date_gmt":"2013-02-17T12:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.catholicnewsagency.com\/news\/pope-says-lent-is-spiritual-battle\/"},"modified":"2013-02-17T12:23:00","modified_gmt":"2013-02-17T12:23:00","slug":"pope-says-lent-is-spiritual-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2013\/02\/pope-says-lent-is-spiritual-battle\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope says Lent is spiritual battle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Vatican City, Feb 17, 2013 \/ 05:23 am (CNA\/EWTN News<\/a>).- Pope Benedict XVI used his second to last Angelus to tell thousands of pilgrims gathered in St. Peter\u2019s Square that Lent is a \u201cspiritual battle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tLent, he said, \u201calways involves a battle, a spiritual battle, because the spirit of evil naturally opposes our sanctification and seeks to divert us from the way of God.\u201d
\n\t\u00a0
\n\tPope Benedict has just 11 days left as head of the Catholic Church until his almost unprecedented resignation takes effect Feb. 28. Over 35,000 people have officially registered with the Pontifical Household to bid him farewell.
\n\t\u00a0
\n\tThe Pope, speaking from the window of the Apostolic Palace, explained that the Lenten \u201cspiritual battle\u201d is the reason why the Gospel of the first Sunday of Lent relates each year to Jesus\u2019 temptations in the desert.<\/p>\n

\tHe reflected on the Sunday gospel, which tells how Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil after having received the Holy Spirit in his baptism at the Jordan river.
\n\t\u00a0
\n\t\u201cUpon starting his public ministry, Jesus had to expose and reject the false images of the Messiah that the tempter proposed,\u201d said the Pope.
\n\t\u00a0
\n\t\u201cBut these temptations are false images of man and during all times undermine the conscience, disguised and proposed as affordable, effective and even good,\u201d he added.
\n\t\u00a0
\n\tPope Benedict said the evangelists Matthew and Luke reveal three temptations of Jesus, but differ only in the order in which they present them.
\n\t\u00a0
\n\tHe said the core of these temptations is always to exploit God for some lowly ends, giving more importance to success or to material goods.
\n\t\u00a0
\n\t\u201cThe tempter is sneaky: he does not go directly to evil, but to a false good, making one believe that the true reality is power and that this meets one\u2019s basic needs,\u201d said the pontiff.
\n\t\u00a0
\n\t\u201cGod becomes secondary in this way, (he) ultimately becomes unreal because he no longer matters and thus vanishes,\u201d he added.\u00a0
\n\t\u00a0
\n\tPope Benedict said that faith is what is ultimately at stake in temptations because God is at stake.
\n\t\u00a0
\n\t\u201cBut in hindsight we are at crossroads \u2014 do we want to follow the \u2018I\u2019 or God? The individual interest or the real good and what is really good?\u201d said the Pope.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cAs the Fathers of the Church teach us, temptations are part of the \u2018descent\u2019 of Jesus in our human condition and in the abyss of sin as well as of its consequences,\u201d he said.
\n\t\u00a0
\n\tHe explained that Jesus is \u201cthe hand that God has tended to man, the lost sheep, to bring him back to safety.\u201d
\n\t\u00a0
\n\tBut the pontiff said we do not have to fear facing the fight against the spirit of evil since \u201cJesus took our temptations to give us his victory.\u201d
\n\t\u00a0
\n\t\u201cThe important thing is that we do this with him, with the Victor,\u201d said the Pope.<\/p>\n

\tPope Benedict said Lent is a time of \u201cconversion and penance\u201d and a \u201cfavorable time to rediscover faith in God as the criterion of our life and the life of the Church.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\u201cThe Church, which is mother and teacher, calls all her members to be renewed in the spirit, to re-orientate closely to God, denying pride and selfishness in order to live in love,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\tHe then greeted the pilgrims in different languages. He told the Italian pilgrims their attendance in such large numbers is \u201ca sign of affection and spiritual closeness that I have been shown these days.\u201d
\n\t\u00a0
\n\tSunday Pope Benedict was scheduled to take part in spiritual exercises with members of the Curia at 6 p.m. local time in the Apostolic Palace.
\n\t\u00a0
\n\tThe retreat will finish on Feb. 23. For this reason, he has no appointments scheduled this week and he will not hold his weekly general audience on Feb. 20.<\/p>\n

\n<\/a>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vatican City, Feb 17, 2013 \/ 05:23 am (CNA\/EWTN News).- Pope Benedict XVI used his second to last Angelus to tell thousands of pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square that Lent is a “spiritual battle.”<\/p>\n

\tLent, he said, “always i…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1031,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe"],"yoast_head":"\nPope says Lent is spiritual battle<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Vatican City, Feb 17, 2013 \/ 05:23 am (CNA\/EWTN News).- Pope Benedict XVI used his second to last Angelus to tell thousands of pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square that Lent is a “spiritual battle.” Lent, he said, “always i...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2013\/02\/pope-says-lent-is-spiritual-battle\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta 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