Psalm 60:3

lead us not into temptation

To thee have I cried from the ends of the earth: when my heart was in anguish, thou hast exalted me on a rock. Thou hast conducted me; (Psalm 60:3 DR)

One temptation sometimes found in the struggle with temptation is to despair of making spiritual progress. It can seem that the very existence of temptation proves something amiss in one’s soul, especially for the overly-scruplulous.

And to be fair, we are often very good at getting ourselves into temptations we can avoid and have lots of ways to justify this to ourselves. Temptations which can be avoided—especially for areas of particular weakness—should be avoided as much as possible so as to avoid near occasions of sins.

But temptation in and of itself is not a sign of failure; on the contrary, it is often a means by which we can grow spiritually. God allows temptations to give us the opportunity to cooperate with His grace and to flex develop our spiritual muscles, as it were. If we never faced temptation we would never develop in virtue. And just like building physical muscle requires resistance, so temptation can be a means of spiritual weight-lifting, as it were.

Our Lord Himself Who was without sin was Himself tempted, which should serve as a source of solace and consolation to us, for His temptation was not due to any lack or deficiency in Him. Rather, He serves as the preeminent example of how to face and reject temptation.

St. Augustine sees in his passage our Lord’s voice in His Body the Church as she through her members experiences temptations. He notes that:

For our life in this sojourning cannot be without temptation: because our advance is made through our temptation, nor does a man become known to himself unless tempted, nor can he be crowned except he shall have conquered, nor can he conquer except he shall have striven, nor can he strive except he shall have experienced an enemy, and temptations. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 60, 2.)

And while temptation should certainly not be sought out, its inevitability is certain and must therefore be prepared for and faced. Instead of viewing it as a deficiency we should view it as suffering for our Lord in solidarity with Him, for He was tempted for our sakes that we might conquer as he did. Our overcoming of temptation is not some feather in our cap of good we have done but is attributable to God’s grace which works in us to overcome as our Lord did. That is, the “crowning” that St. Augustine speaks of here is God crowing the gifts that He gives. When we resist temptation it is not to our glory but rather to our Lord Who allows temptations specifically that we might conquer them and grow in holiness and virtue which is, after all, His will:

This Man therefore is being vexed, that from the ends of the earth is crying, but nevertheless He is not forsaken. For ourselves who are His Body He has willed to prefigure also in that His Body wherein already He has both died and has risen again, and into Heaven has ascended, in order that whither the Head has gone before, there the members may be assured that they shall follow. Therefore us He did transfer by a figure into Himself, when He willed to be tempted of Satan. (ibid.)

In the Lord’s Prayer we ask “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,” by which is meant not that we will not be tempted but rather that we will not be overcome by that temptation:

Here, therefore, the prayer is not, that we should not be tempted, but that we should not be brought into temptation: as if, were it necessary that any one should be examined by fire, he should pray, not that he should not be touched by the fire, but that he should not be consumed. For the furnace proves the potter's vessels, and the trial of tribulation righteous men…

Temptations, therefore, take place by means of Satan not by his power, but by the Lord's permission, either for the purpose of punishing men for their sins, or of proving and exercising them in accordance with the Lord's compassion.
(St. Augustine, Commentary on Matthew 6.)

To be “led into temptation” is thus not identical with being “tempted,” for the former implies a consent of the will that the temptation should occur and thus some complicity with it such that we fall into it because of having already made it desirable to ourselves. We are promised the ability to escape from temptations which befall us (cf. 1 Corinthians 10:13)—that is, which we do not will. And thus while they may in the moment elicit in us a certain delight as pleasing (hence being tempting) they can be overcome and escaped. But if one seeks out temptation then one has already “greased the skids” as it were for that temptation and already kindled within oneself the delight that the temptation will present; thus making it more difficult to escape.

A paradigmatic example of this might be Odysseus who knew the dangers of the Sirens yet still desired to hear their song. While the sailors under his charge were more rational and stopped their ears so as to not hear the song, he had them strap him to the mast so that he could be tempted yet not (literally) fall. It was only because of his bonds that he escaped their deadly song.

There is no spiritual equivalent to tying ourselves to the mast so that we can have the enjoyment of temptation without the fall. That is why we pray not that we will not be tempted, but rather that we not be led into temptation:

“There has no temptation taken you but such as is common to man;” while he says at the same time, “But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that you may be able to bear it.” And in that sentence he makes it sufficiently evident that we are not to pray that we may not be tempted, but that we may not be led into temptation. For we are led into temptation, if such temptations have happened to us as we are not able to bear. But when dangerous temptations, into which it is ruinous for us to be brought and led, arise either from prosperous or adverse temporal circumstances, no one is broken down by the irksomeness of adversity, who is not led captive by the delight of prosperity. (ibid.)

However, the Psalmist’s words are not primarily about the temptations to be faced but rather about the victory to be won. Our Lord’s victory over sin and over His own temptation blazes the trail, as it were, for us who are united to Him in His Mystical Body to follow the example of our Lord and thus share in His victory. This is what the Psalmist intimates when he describes being “exalted” on a rock. God is the One Who “conducts” the soul to this exaltation and safety and victory, and there is a fine parallel between the petition to “not be led into temptation” and being “conducted” to that “exaltation on a rock.” The latter is the result of the former, and as we cooperate with God’s grace our victory over temptation and sin is sure not because of our own strength or virtue but because of His charity poured into our hearts by the Holy Ghost (cf. Romans 5:5).

This rock upon which the Psalmist speaks of exaltation is Christ, who is the foundation (cf. 1 Corinthians 3:11) and cornerstone (Ephesians 2:20-21) of the Church.

“But the Rock was Christ.” On Him therefore built we have been. For this reason that Rock whereon we have been built, [Matthew 7:24] first has been smitten with winds, flood, rain, when Christ of the devil was being tempted. Behold on what firmness He has willed to establish you. With reason our voice is not in vain, but is hearkened unto: for on great hope we have been set: “On the Rock You have exalted me...” (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 60, 3.)

In the midst of temptation we can thus have confidence that God will provide the grace to escape from it as we cooperate with that, knowing that this testing will prove us and strengthen us in virtue and charity towards God.

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For this animation I found an old medieval miniature of a Church and isolated it in Photoshop. In After Effects I precomped it and then found an image of a cliff or rockface and matted it to a rock0ish shape that I drew, placing the church on top of the rock.

I liked St. Augustine’s imagery of the rains and storms assailing the Church but it still standing on the rock. To kind of get at that a bit I applied an Adjustment Layer with some pixel sorting to kind of give the sense of rain. I’m not sure how well I accomplished it but I liked the look.

Enjoy.

View a higher quality version of this gif here: