Temptations Of The New Year

Temptations of 2015 will be as salacious and cunning as those in years past and personal battles to combat each time a temptation occurs will also be as difficult.  Intellectual dishonesty and denial will only cause the temptations to succeed sooner, adding difficulty and time to heal the injuries caused by the failure to resist them.  Confessions will help cleanse and return the mind, body and spirit to their wholesomeness.  To confess truthfully and fully will take courage; to start over having fallen yet once again will require will power.

The sinner willing to be saved from the dark side of life will have to seek the intercession of the Mother of God through deep prayers that will strengthen his faith in the Blessed Virgin Mary and his love for Her Son, the Child Jesus, during this Christmas season for sinning weakens the bonds of faith and love for both Mother and Child.  Without supplicating, one will succumb to Satan's patient and ceaseless beckoning.

The Blessed Virgin Mary is the only person, being born without Sin, Who was able to resist Satan.  A woman, Whose constitution was closest to man's, Who was chosen by God, protected by the angels, accompanied by the Holy Spirit and loved by Her Son, Jesus, God's only Child, has become our Mother in Heaven, Who is the Immaculate Conception, but Who understands the flesh and all its ramifications and Sin in all its permutations.  She therefore has the most compassion for those who sin and continue to sin again, and again.  Only the Lord knows how often this sinner needs Her to intercede for him and redirect his path along darkness back to one in the light.

I believe the intensity of temptations is proportionate to the intensity of one's will to walk the path of Christ.  The farther along one is on this path, the more time and energy will be unleashed by the forces of evil to thwart one from it.  Indeed, one will fall, and fall again, but one will fall less often and get up sooner, if one adheres to the plan to do the work of God and prays for the strength to continue.  No one has ever said that the path of Christ was easy, in the year that ended or in the year that has just begun.

Unlike temptations that lead to Hell, never in any new year, including 2015, has anyone been known to be tempted to love God and his neighbor and live in peace.