Fr. Gregory Waldrop, S.J. | STM Homily Feb 22, 2026

There is a famous fresco in Florence, Italy, in what's called the Brancacci Chapel of the Carmelite Church there. I was delighted to be able to see it for the first time in years again just last month. Even if you don't know this particular work of art, which a young Michelangelo used to sketch when he was still just an apprentice, I bet you've seen bits of it in one place or another. Advertisements. Travel brochures. Refrigerator magnets. One part that gets reproduced a lot, but has nothing to do with a vacation, is the scene of an anguished Adam and Eve being expelled from the Garden of Eden in the aftermath of the fall, the event related in today's reading from Genesis.

It's a universal image of human misery. In the fresco, the artist Masaccio depicted Adam and Eve as a truly pathetic pair, with the angel hovering above them, sword in hand. The two humans stumble naked and heartsick. Out of Paradise, across a barren patch of earth. By comparison with their original abode in the garden, this is a desert home to many future hardships and temptations.

But there's a slight difference in the emotions that the two figures display. The difference reflects what women have rightly claimed as a bum rap for the last few thousand years. While Masaccio portrays the poor, deceived Adam with head bowed and covering his eyes with both hands, a gesture in the Renaissance, usually signalling Remorse. Eve throws her head back and howls. One hand pressed to her breast, a gesture signifying mere grief. In effect, the wronged man experiences the right emotion, guilt and regrets over his terrible transgression. Meanwhile, Eve, sensual temptress that she is, grieves dramatically because she got caught. Of course, she may also be thinking about that part in pain. You shall bring forth children the way the Bible story breaks down, and the way centuries of commentary have framed it. Eve's the one who takes the human initiative in the greatest sin.

But all blaming aside, the more significant fact that the text establishes is that they both give in to temptation and together they suffer the consequences. The story of the fall may be gender biased in its specifics, but it underscores above all, our mutual, very human susceptibility to temptation, our vulnerability in the face of aggressive evil.

I'm not usually one to talk about evil a lot, per se. There are, I think, sufficiently many religious types who point their fingers in that direction. But given the readings for this first Sunday of Lent, a few things I think bear saying on the topic. For one, while the horrors of the evening news attest to the fact that evil does in fact exist, it's also true that most of us, I believe, shun it in its obvious forms. We confidently pledge to do so when we renew our baptismal promises, and most of us want nothing to do with obvious evil. But it's the subtler forms of evil that are worrisome. The ones that wear us down slowly or that masquerade as virtue.

Are we confident? Are we confident that we can always readily identify and reject what would destroy us, even when it's dressed up as something more benign? I can't help but pity poor Eve. After all, wasn't what she sought in her misguided way a good thing? Wisdom. Godly identity? Indeed. Sometimes the wrong path looks quite enticing, and we may on occasion be occasion, be tempted to do the wrong thing for the right reason. Why else would we succumb to the temptation if we didn't associate it with some kind of good comfort. Relief from pain. The end of want justice as we or our rulers see it. Some Christians these days are tempted even to shun empathy precisely in order to battle evil like Adam and Eve. They imagine themselves striving to be like God. Like the Pharisees, they exalt the letter of the law while disdaining mercy and compassion.

Jesus, in today's gospel shows remarkable resilience when he comes face to face with evil in the person of the devil. It won't be the last time, but it's certainly the most striking episode when Christ is tempted straight out to turn from the mission given him, and that he has freely accepted. Maybe in this case, testing would be a better word rather than temptation that applies equally to us. Some experiences test our mettle. Adversity tests our resolve. Many see the struggle against terrorism or battles over social policy as a testing of our nation. Others see the terms quite differently, but nevertheless agree that we're being tested.

The church is continually tested. It's not easy being Catholic in certain countries, for example, or in certain circles right here at home at dear old Yale. Many Christians have their faith tested or tested all the time in China. The secular societies of Western Europe, and in the land that we still call holy, the desert does sometimes seem very wide and very dry.

But Jesus rejects the easy fixes that Satan offers him. Ironically, that might seem to set him apart from us. How strong he is. If I were the Son of God, maybe I could be strong too. In fact, Jesus tells Satan to get away. Precisely. Out of empathy. Not for Satan, but for us to be closer to us, to our hungers, fears, and powerlessness.

Could Jesus have done justice to the people's hunger for real life giving food, if he had simply turned stones into bread? Actually he's great. He's great at meeting the most basic needs of those who come to him. Remember the feeding of the seven thousand with just a few fishes and loaves? But the Lord understood that the people's hunger was even profounder than that for bread. The hungry person sees bread everywhere. Jesus was hungry in the desert, but he saw beyond his own physical need or want, and he held out against Satan so that he could go among the people to relieve their want and to nourish them completely.

For what do we hunger? What nourishes us? Mostly, if we examine our culture, it might seem that we thrive on technology, entertainment, and dreams of success. Or is it prestige and power? I doubt that there are many of us here today and this is a good thing. Who would scramble excitedly for a scrap of bread? So maybe for us, the devil's first test of Jesus looks a little lame. But then not many of us have fasted for forty days straight. I wonder what the reaction would be among refugees in Gaza trying to make it through the winter, or desperate people in South Sudan just wanting to get to a market? That would be a test.

No. If anything, one of the biggest temptations in our culture is to overindulge, to numb our pain or forget our troubles in superabundance. But then, what chance do we have to feel a pang of hunger for every word that comes from the mouth of God? No desert is wider than the one we can't even detect.

Lent offers us a chance to find out what we're really hungry for. To measure the boundaries of our individual and communal wastelands. To pick out the particular evils that lead us astray. As God's children, we seek what's good. But sometimes we find ourselves slightly or even badly off track and in need of guidance. This season of renewal, conversion and good works beckons us into the barren places of our lives and of our world encourages us to recognize and name them.

But lent ultimately guides us towards a nourishing center, a garden where all eat, drink and rejoice. Jesus is there. He knows the desert and he knows the way out. And he calls us to return to the center. To our center where he awaits with love, mercy, and new life.