Lead us not into temptation: sermon on Laetare Sunday

By a Dominican Friar   |   26 March 2025

“He said to Philip: Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat? And this he said to try him, for he himself knew what he would do.”

This remark of the evangelist St John, that our Lord asks Philip this question in order “to try him”, recalls the sixth of the seven petitions of the Our Father. The word that is translated in the gospel here as “to try” is translated elsewhere as “to test” or “to tempt”; and so, in the sixth petition of the Our Father, we say to God, “lead us not into temptation”. But what do we mean when we pray this prayer? Can God lead anyone into temptation?

In general, there are two ways in which one person might lead another into temptation. The first is by encouraging or inciting him to do evil. It is obvious that God can never lead anyone into temptation in that way. As St James says in his epistle, “God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one”. As St John puts it, “God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.”

What, then, do we mean when we pray this petition? Although God can never lead anyone into evil by inciting them to it, He may sometimes do so in the sense of allowing us to lead ourselves into evil. Sometimes God does not intervene to save us if we put ourselves in what is called an occasion of sin. He does this by His justice. If we deliberately put ourselves for no good reason in circumstances that make it likely that we will sin, then we are acting foolishly, and so we need to be corrected, like a silly child who keeps going near a fire even when he’s been told not to. One way that God corrects us is to allow us to fall into the sin to which we exposed ourselves, in order to make us more humble in the future. So, when we say “lead us not into temptation”, we’re asking that He may not let us put ourselves into unnecessary occasions of sin, and that if we begin to do so, that He may have mercy on us and quickly deliver us from them.

But are we asking, when we say the Our Father, that God will not test or try us in any way at all? No: God does test us, for our good, just as He tested Philip in this gospel. It was quite a gentle test, just asking him where they should get bread for all the people, but it was a test. And if St Philip will forgive me for saying so, I think that he probably didn’t get a very good mark in this particular test, since he answers in too human a way; he just replies, “Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that everyone may take a little.” I think that our Lord tested him like this so that, later on, St Philip would realise that he had been at fault for having too lowly and limited a view of his Master, so that he might then correct himself, and rise up to a clear belief in Christ’s divinity.

At other times, God tests us to give us an opportunity to grow not so much in self-knowledge as in merit. This is what St Paul is talking about when he says, “he that strives for the mastery is not crowned, unless he strive lawfully”. In other words, God allows us to enter difficult circumstances so that we may exercise the virtues that He’s given us — faith, hope, charity, and all the others — and in this way may merit a crown, that is, an eternal reward. That’s why St James can say, “Blessed is the man who endures temptation, for when he has been proved, he shall receive the crown of life.”

These are general remarks that arise from today’s gospel, but they also have an application for the ceremony of betrothal in which those who mean to marry publicly committed themselves one day to enter the state of holy matrimony. As you know, that is a state of life that God blesses with many graces. At the same time, every marriage is accompanied by trials of one kind or another. Through marriage, as well as, I hope, giving much happiness, God will also test the husband and wife. But in whatever way He does, He will be giving them the opportunity to grow in self-knowledge, and to prove themselves worthy of Him, and of His kingdom. I pray that by responding generously to whatever tests come their way, married couples may “strive lawfully”, and one day receive together a “crown of life”.