1st Sunday of Lent The Word today presents the contrast between the response to temptation of the two Adams: The first Adam fell and brought death to the world, but Jesus, the second Adam, rebuked the tempter and brought us the glory of life with Him. Romans 5: For if, by the transgression of the one, death came to reign through that one, how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of justification come to reign in life through the one Jesus Christ.   God created us for greatness beyond our imagination: to participate in His divinity in love. This is what our hearts long for and Satan knows this, so crafts all  temptation to appeal to this desire, as bait to trap us into a lie. Satan can never deliver true greatness, nor true love. Satan's temptations have two elements necessary to be effective: It must lie about God to instill fear and distrust and it must offer the good things of God as a bait to ensnare us. This is what we do to kill mice: We clean the house so that the mouse can't find food and then put cheese on a mouse trap. Mice are attracted to cheese because it is good for them but they are ignorant of the trap that will kill them. The serpent first thought to plant confusion about what God had told them in order to depict Him as an oppressor:  “Did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?”  The Holy Spirit assisted Eve to see that this was not so and she correctly responded that they could if of ALL the trees except one. At this point Eve knew that she is facing one who is seeking to separate her from God and she should have immediately rebuked the serpent and refuse any further dialogue. The serpent is most cunning, much more intelligen than we are, it is a fallen angel. If we proceed in dialogue we will always be trapped. Our defense is tu turn to God as soon as we detect her presence. Eve, instead of trusting God, she opened her heart to desire what the serpent promised. Having forsaken God, the desire becomes the basis of her judgement. She apraises the situation on her own: She “saw that the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom” (Genesis 3:6). She trusts in the serpent and herself, but not in God. God had charged Adam with the protection of Eve. He is the protector, the custodian of the garden. But, like so many men today, he negleted his manly role. He allowed the serpent to prowl freely. Then he immediately given in to Eves suggeston, , however, and instead appears to give in to temptation instantaneously upon her suggestion, which perhaps suggests that he joined in this sin for a baser reason: He was hungry. Now, it is perhaps tempting to blame this first sin solely on the serpent — after all, had he not tempted Eve with those questions, perhaps Eve would never have made that ill-fated decision. Yet, it is also noteworthy that Eve and Adam were so near to the Tree of Knowledge in the first place. Imagine for a moment that you were in the Garden in this story and that God had explained to you that the fruit of this tree was the one thing that could kill you and separate you from him. How would you act on that knowledge? One reasonable response might be that you would keep as far away from this tree as possible. Perhaps you might even build a warning fence and create a buffer zone. Yet Adam and Eve did nothing of the sort. Instead, when the serpent made his appearance, they were right beside the tree. In fact, Eve was close enough to evaluate the serpent’s claim about the fruit of the tree by inspecting it with her own eyes. It appears, then, that the temptation of the serpent was preceded by grave imprudence on the part of Adam and Eve. The creation story of Genesis 2-3 thus provides us with an important lesson regarding the moral life: Overcoming temptation is oftentimes a matter of prudence. The virtue of prudence, which is sometimes called the charioteer of the virtues, is the virtue by which we are able to put our experience and sound judgment into practice to do good and avoid evil. Thus, if one wants to avoid the moral failure of grave sin or of not observing one’s Lenten penances, prudence is necessary. Thankfully, we can grow in prudence simply by asking for it from God in prayer. Yet we are also responsible for cooperating with God’s grace by seeking ways to grow in prudence ourselves — a project that can be as simple as using our intellect to think about the likely sources of temptation in our lives so as to avoid them, which is the very thing we pledge to do every time we pray the Act of Contrition after confessing our sins. When we make it a point of cooperating with God’s grace in this way, we open ourselves to a more fruitful observance of the Lenten season.