St Peter’s Square
Wednesday, 1st May 2019
Dear Brothers and Sisters: In our continuing catechesis on the “Our Father”, we now consider the penultimate invocation: “Lead us not into temptation”. Here our dialogue with God enters into the drama of the battle between our freedom and the snares of the evil one. It is not easy to accurately capture the exact meaning of the original Greek, but we can certainly say that God does not seek to put temptations in our way. Both tribulation and temptation, moreover, are mysteriously present even in the life of Jesus, and this experience makes him completely our brother. In the desert and in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus overcomes any temptation to abandon the Father’s will. When we in turn are tempted, we know that we are not alone: for Christ has already taken on himself the weight of our cross, calling us to carry it with him and to entrust ourselves to the Father’s faithful love.
