“The Cadbury Egg of Sin” by Rachael Flanagan, Fiat Ventures
First Sunday of Lent
Today marks the first Sunday of Lent, and during Lent (especially when we give things up as a sacrifice) there is an extra emphasis on avoiding temptation.
The first time I can remember being tempted was when I was 4 years old in a grocery store, looking up at a delicious display of Easter Candy in the checkout aisle. We weren’t allowed to eat candy at home because my brother and sister both had allergies to sugar, but since I didn’t have the allergy and I’d tasted the sweet nectar of chocolate in the past, the seeming injustice that I could not have candy was more than I could bear. I looked up at the forbidden fruit of a Cadbury egg, wrapped in golden foil, and it seemed to be glowing and telling me to take it. It was as if I had a little cartoon devil with a pitchfork on my shoulder telling me, “Think about how yummy that chocolate egg would be! No one will know! Just take it home with you and sneak it into your room and then you can enjoy the delicious chocolate and creamy, carmelly inside all by yourself and not have to share it!!” But on my other shoulder, there seemed to be a little cartoon angel with a shiny halo saying, “No, you should not take the egg because it doesn’t belong to you! Taking Cadbury Eggs from the grocery store without paying is wrong!”
The angel and devil both presented their arguments, and at 4 years old, I decided that the devil had a stronger argument, so I swiped the golden egg from the shelf and hid it deep in my chubby four-year-old hand. I remember my mother grabbing that same hand to hold as she pushed the cart of groceries with the other hand to our car in the parking lot. Somehow she did not notice the chocolate egg in my hand. I thought it was a miracle, but I sweated the whole time hoping I wouldn’t be found out. It was when we got to the car and my mother picked me up to buckle me in my seat that she discovered that her seemingly perfect-angel-of-a-daughter had committed the crime of petty larceny. She caught me red-handed, my guilt was exposed for all to see as she exclaimed her disbelief and disappointment, and brought me straight back into the store to return the egg and apologies the cashier.
Thus began my long, sordid history of shop-lifting and larceny, which cost me some serious time in the slammer as a child. Well…not exactly. Luckily, I did learn my lesson about taking things that didn’t belong to me, but I can’t say that that was the last time I ever gave into temptation.
Unfortunately, temptation to act on our selfish impulses and sin (or turn away from God) is a part of our fallen human existence. And the thing is, in the moment of temptation – sin always disguises itself as something appealing and desirable, as opposed to something that distracts you and turns you away from God. In the moment, it always looks like the thing to do. But the word “sin” is actually an archery term that means, “to miss the mark.” When we sin, we miss the mark of the good things God has for us in His perfect plan, which includes growing in our self-control and other virtues. When we do this, we learn to put others first and experience the greater good of what God has planned, instead of constantly seeking to please and gratify ourselves.
The greatest example of someone who was able to accomplish following God’s perfect plan was, of course, Jesus Christ. You might be thinking, “But that’s not fair! Jesus was God, so it was easy for him to not sin!” Actually, in today’s Gospel, we see that that wasn’t the case. When God became man, He was all in. Though He was 100% God, He was also 100% human, and He experienced human emotions and temptations just like we do. When Jesus went into the desert, He experienced some serious temptation by Satan. Since He was fasting (denying himself food and drink as a sacrifice to God), the temptation He experienced when the Devil offered Him bread must have been 1000 times worse than my 4 year old lusting for chocolate, with His stomach aching for food.
But Jesus, through His strength of virtue, was able to withstand the temptations. He must have asked for God the Father to help Him through the time of temptation, because the scripture references how angels come to minister to Him.
I think that we bring 90% of the temptation we experience upon ourselves by situations we get ourselves into. And so often, we find that we can’t get out of those situations alone. Temptation can be too strong for us to handle by ourselves. So when you find yourself with the little cartoon angel and devil on your shoulders, and the devil seems to be presenting a drastically more appealing argument – call on your Father in Heaven to help you. He might even send you a whole battalion of cartoon angels to put that devil in his place.
