First Sunday of Lent

On Temptation from Sermons of St. Francis deSales for the first Sunday of Lent.

Quotes of the Saints on Temptation

Do not grieve over the temptations you suffer. When the Lord intends to bestow a particular virtue on us, He often permits us first to be tempted by the opposite vice. Therefore, look upon every temptation as an invitation to grow in a particular virtue and a promise by God that you will be successful, if only you stand fast.

--St. Philip Neri

Virtue is nothing without the trial of temptation, for there is no conflict without an enemy, no victory without strife.

--Pope St. Leo the Great

The beginning of all temptation lies in a wavering mind and little trust in God, for as a rudderless ship is driven hither and yon by waves, so a careless and irresolute man is tempted in many ways. Fire tempers iron and temptation steels the just. Often we do not know what we can stand, but temptation shows us what we are.


Above all, we must be especially alert against the beginnings of temptation, for the enemy is more easily conquered if he is refused admittance to the mind and is met beyond the threshold when he knocks.
--St. Francis De Sales

Your first task is to be dissatisfied with yourself, fight sin, and transform yourself into something better. Your second task is to put up with the trials and temptations of this world that will be brought on by the change in your life and to persevere to the very end in the midst of these things.

--St. Augustine

Stop entertaining those vain fears. Remember it is not feeling which constitutes guilt but the consent to such feelings. Only the free will is capable of good or evil. But when the will sighs under the trial of the tempter and does not will what is presented to it, there is not only no fault but there is virtue.

--Padre Pio of Pietrelcina

Trials are nothing else but the forge that purifies the soul of all its imperfections.

--St Mary Magdalen de'Pazzi

When tempted, invoke your Angel. he is more eager to help you than you are to be helped! Ignore the devil and do not be afraid of him: He trembles and flees at the sight of your Guardian Angel.
--St. John Bosco

His Majesty [the Lord] . . . rewards great services with trials, and there can be no better reward, for out of trials springs love for God.
--St. Teresa of Avila