Før gårsdagens Angelus-bønn på Petersplassen tok pave Benedikt naturlig nok utgangspunkt i fastetida generelt og i teksten om Jesu faste og fristelse i ørkenen spesielt. Og han sa bl.a.:
It is evident that there is an insistence on the fact that the temptations were no accident but the consequence of Jesus’ choice to carry out the mission entrusted to him by the Father, to embrace completely his reality as beloved Son, who hands himself over entirely to the Father. Christ came into the world to free us from sin and the dangerous fascination of planning our lives without God. He did it not with high-sounding proclamations, but by personally struggling against the Tempter, right to the cross. This is an example for all: The world improves beginning with ourselves, changing what is not right in our lives with the grace of God.
Of the three temptations that Satan proposes to Jesus, the first has to do with hunger, that is, material need .. (the next one) is the deception of power, and Jesus unmasks this temptation and rejects it … Power is not to be worshiped but God alone, truth and love.
Finally, the Tempter proposes that Jesus perform a spectacular miracle … We must never try an experiment in which God is supposed to respond and show himself to be God: we must believe in him! We must not make God “material” for our “experiment”! Referring again to sacred Scripture, Jesus opposes to human criterion the only authentic criterion: obedience, conformity with God’s will, which is the foundation of our being. This too is a basic teaching for us: If we carry the Word of God in our heart and in our mind, if it enters into our lives, if we have confidence in God, we can reject any sort of deception of the Tempter.
Moreover, from the whole story there clearly emerges the image of Christ as the new Adam, Son of God, humble and obedient to the Father, unlike Adam and Eve, who in the Garden of Eden gave in to the seductions of the spirit of evil to become immortal without God.