The just-concluded celebration of Holi — the festival of colours — like Diwali, the festival of lights, signifies the victory of good over evil. And the Christian feast of Easter to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from the dead after Lent, too, signifies the victory of life over death.
Before we can get down to celebrating any of these festivals, however, one has to go through several negative experiences.
In the life of Jesus, He had to even undergo a physical death on the Cross.
But even before that, as the Liturgy of the first Sunday of Lent tells us, Jesus had to face temptations by the devil. As Jesus was coming to the end of 40 days of fasting and prayer in the desert, there appeared the devil to break his sadhana by tempting him to give into that mortifying hunger and the lure of money and power. So as Jesus was on his spiritual journey, there comes the devil with his attempt to deviate Him from the spiritual path. The devil can never digest goodness and his basic mission is to destroy all that is good and ensure the victory of evil. He knows that human beings are weak and that it is easy to get them to do what they would rather not.
The Book of Job in the Old Testament tells us that the devil, with permission from God, goes all out to first tempt Job and then brings upon him all kinds of calamities, including covering his whole body with sores that begin to pus and stink. Job’s friends persuade him in that utter desperate situation that since God did not appreciate his holiness, he should start cursing God. Job does not budge. He keeps praising God.
Similarly, Mother Teresa went through some despairing moments of strong temptations, doubting, at times, even God’s existence whom she served single-mindedly.
These and many other instances from our own lives tell us that whenever we wish to improve upon our spiritual life, the devil gets a severe headache and heartache. He would have us break our resolutions to be good, honest, prayerful, charitable rather than follow the path of holiness.
It is my firm belief that God made us all good and that all of us wish to follow the path of holiness. But it is the devil, whose ways we are either unfamiliar with or are unaware of, that ultimately lands us into sin. He rejoices each time a victim falls into his snare and begins cooperating with him in spreading evil. Lent, therefore, is a time given to us to be aware of the tricks of the devil and to ward off his evil designs through prayer, penance and charitable deeds.
