Fifth Tuesday of Lent

Then the people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned in complaining against the LORD and you. Pray the LORD to take the serpents away from us." So Moses prayed for the people, and the LORD said to Moses, "Make a saraph and mount it on a pole, and whoever looks at it after being bitten will live." Moses accordingly made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole, and whenever anyone who had been bitten by a serpent looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.

The people ask Moses to pray for the Lord to take the serpents away from them, but God doesn’t take away the serpents. Instead, He tells Moses to erect a saraph for the people to look on after they are bitten. This is how it is with temptation and sin. We might want to avoid the temptation to begin with, but sometimes we are bitten and give into our sins. This is when we need God’s Forgiveness and He is more than willing to heal us if we look upon the sacrifice Jesus made for us, make a good confession, do penance, and strive to sin no more. God doesn’t take away our temptations, He gives us the grace to resist them in the first place and a remedy to heal us if we do fall.

How can we better resist the temptations in our lives? When we do fall do we turn to God and seek His Forgiveness? Do we thank God for all the healing grace He has given us through the cross of Christ?

O Lord, we look on you and ask to be healed.

Amen.