But first a note from Robert Royal: Fr. Scalia reminds us that the Devil divides: us from others and us from ourselves. And, because yesterday was the 225th anniversary of Saint John Henry Newman's birth, Amy Fahey pays tribute to that great saint and those saints and martyrs who may have made him possible.

Now for The Limits of Salvation

by Fr. Paul D. Scalia

If God didn't want them to eat of the tree, why did He put it there? That question is not as adolescent and petulant as it might sound. God is not haphazard in His Creation. He must have had a reason to place that one forbidden tree in the garden. The Catechism explains it nicely: that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil "evokes the insurmountable limits that man, being a creature, must freely recognize and respect with trust." (CCC 396)

Now, to "freely recognize and respect with trust" is one thing the Devil just cannot do. He wants his created gifts on his own, without a Creator or Giver. He refuses to recognize or respect his creaturely limits. Non serviam, he boasts. I will not serve. . . .I will not observe limits.

Misery loves company, so the Devil wants to reproduce his mindset in others. His first victims are Adam and Eve. (Genesis 3:1-7) He asks, "Did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?" He's not asking to get an answer. He's suggesting that limits are absurd and anyone who sets them is hostile. God is against you because He's limited you. Adam and Eve take the bait. They reach beyond their appointed place, and in their very grasping, they fall.

The Devil has the same game plan when he approaches Jesus in the desert. (Matthew 4:1-11) Now, if the Devil cannot understand the blessings of creatureliness, then the limitations of the Incarnation are absolutely impenetrable to him. The Incarnation is not a fiction or make-believe. God really did confine and limit Himself to our human nature – to be born of a woman, to experience exhaustion, hunger, thirst, and sorrow. Even to be tempted.

The Devil cannot grasp the eternal Son's joyful dependence on the Father: "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord. . . .I can do nothing on my own authority." (John 5:19, 30) Nor can he understand the Son's joyful embrace of our created human nature. For Satan, divine power means doing whatever you want – not serving anybody. It certainly doesn't mean setting limits for yourself by humility.

So he nudges Jesus beyond the limits. If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves of bread. Jesus experiences hunger in His human nature and joyfully trusts His Father to sustain Him. Nor will He use His divine power to create a shortcut in His ministry, to provide physical instead of spiritual nourishment. His response points to dependence, limits, and trust in God: One does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.

Someday, Jesus will feed people miraculously with loaves of bread. Indeed, He will give Himself as the Bread of Life. Adam was deceived by a false hunger and grasped for the fruit of the tree. Hung on the tree of the Cross, the New Adam nourishes us with the Eucharist, His own Body and Blood. He does so not for Himself but in obedience to the Father's will for our good.

Then the second temptation. The Devil proposes a daring display, that Jesus cast Himself from the parapet of the temple and presume that the Father will save Him. If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. In effect, Prove it.

Jesus' divine power is boundless, but not pointless. It is, in a sense, confined by reason and purpose. He will one day work miracles. He will exorcize and heal, walk on water and multiply loaves of bread. But these miracles are not parlor games. He doesn't perform them to prove Himself. Indeed, He rebukes those who (like the Devil) demand signs. (Matthew 16:4; 12:39) His divine power is not wielded capriciously, but for our good – to reveal, instruct, and i...