[0:11]Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and this is Ascension presents. Um one of the things that I think every single one of us experiences is we experience um temptation. I obviously, that's kind of like a no-brainer, right?
[0:21]Um, but what we don't always experience is wisdom in the face of temptation. Like what do you do in the face of temptation? There's a number of options. There is this ancient Greek myth of the sirens.
[0:30]And who are the sirens? The sirens were these two like half bird, half women type creatures. Um and they were ugly, they were hideous, they were monsters essentially who would lure men to their deaths.
[0:41]Like why would these men be lured to their deaths by monsters? Well, the sirens would sing and they would sing this beautiful sounding um music that when men hear heard this,
[0:52]they would look at the sirens and their siren's appearance would change from being monsters to being like, you know, incredibly beautiful, incredibly attractive. And so these men would throw their lives away on this illusory beauty, right?
[1:03]They would throw their lives away on evil passing itself off as something good. And this is exactly what uh we experience, right? When it comes to sin.
[1:10]Every single one of us, we experience the temptation to sin, like to gossip, right? passes itself off as connection. Um to lust passes itself off as love.
[1:19]Um to greed passes itself off as like, here's what I'm, here's what I'm owed or here's what will give me security and safety and that kind of peace. How do we survive temptation?
[1:27]Well, um in kind of ancient Greek myths there are three sets of people who end up surviving the call of the sirens.
[1:35]Um the first is Ulysses or Odysseus and his men. Coming back from the Trojan Wars, Ulysses and his men are going to pass by the sirens. And so they get warned ahead of time.
[1:43]They're given this beeswax. And so Ulysses says, okay men, take these beeswax, warm it up, put it in your ears so that you can't hear the sirens song when you drop, when you, when we go by.
[1:53]But he was going to do is he would said, but if you want to listen to them, if you want to listen to the siren song and see how beautiful it is and see how beautiful they look when you hear them sing,
[2:03]what you need to do is have your men lash you to the mast. And so Ulysses does. He wants to hear the siren's song and he has his men lash him to the mast.
[2:11]As they drive, as they've drive by, as they row by, Ulysses can hear the sirens and he looks over and and and describes, he says that, uh, um, to him they were as beautiful as Helen of Troy.
[2:22]Um and he he's yelling at his men, untie me, untie me. I want to go, I want to die. He wants to dive off into the water. Now, the men who have their ears, you know, stopped up, ears plugged with beeswax,
[2:30]they look over and they just see two monsters who are, you know, look like they're shrieking out um at at the men. But Ulysses wants to dive off.
[2:40]This is two ways to deal with temptation. One is Ulysses. It's not a very good way.
[2:47]It's the idea of like, okay, so I don't I don't want to do the thing, so I'm going to restrict myself.
[2:51]But I I want a little taste. That's good to have the restrictions on myself. It's good to have these these kind of guardians or blocks in me.
[2:59]But what Ulysses had done was very unwise. He he didn't want to eat, he just wanted a taste.
[3:05]It's like the the image I have is of an alcoholic who says, hey, what are you drinking? He takes it.
[3:09]No, no, I don't want to drink it. I just want to smell it. Like no. Like no, I'm just smelling. I'm not drinking it at all. That's right. But why?
[3:19]If you know that this is not going to be good for you, why in the world would you expose yourself to it? Well, no, I have my friend here and there, my friend's not going to let me drink.
[3:25]That's the beginning of wisdom, because you know yourself, but it's not full wisdom, because why? Because I'm opening myself to the possibility.
[3:32]How many times do you and I find ourselves doing that? It's even wiser to do what Ulysses' men did.
[3:37]What they did was they they stopped their ears up. And that image for us is, um, we see temptation, actually walk away.
[3:44]It's really actually a possibility. I don't know if you realize this, that when you and I face temptation, one of the possible responses is to get up and walk.
[3:54]It's to leave the room. It's to get up and walk away from temptation. That's a possibility in virtually every single temptation you have.
[4:01]When it comes to gossip, excuse me, I just have to go. I'm sorry. When it comes to lust.
[4:06]Okay, nope, that's that's not anything I want, I'm walking away. When it comes to greed, when it comes to gluttony, when it comes to, um, think of, just go down the list, right?
[4:14]Ulysses saw the illusion, but the men saw the truth. His sailors saw the truth.
[4:19]Why? Because they weren't even toying with the idea. When you make it a practice to get up and regularly walk away from temptation,
[4:26]what will happen is you will see the truth behind the illusion of beauty and the illusion of the attractiveness of sin.
[4:33]The illusion of the goodness of this thing that actually is evil. But there's a third way. There's a third way to deal with the sirens and that was Jason and the Argonauts.
[4:39]Uh whole different story. But Jason and the Argonauts, they had to pass by the sirens as well. Jason was traveling with a guy named Orpheus.
[4:46]Orpheus was an incredible singer, he played the lyre, like basically an ancient guitar, right?
[4:52]And as they're sailing by, rowing by the sirens, and they're sirens are calling out to them, what Jason and his crew did was they had Orpheus sing.
[5:00]And Orpheus's singing, his music was incredibly beautiful. It was truly beautiful. It was truly good.
[5:08]And they filled their ears, they filled their minds, they filled the whole ship with the true song of Orpheus.
[5:16]With the beautiful song of Orpheus, they didn't want to dive off and pursue the illusion. Why? Because they were filled with the true, with the good, with the beautiful.
[5:23]And this is what we're called to as Christians. Yes, sometimes we are called to put restrictions on ourselves. Absolutely, because we know our weakness. Yes, sometimes we are called to get up and walk away from the sin.
[5:32]But every single one of us is called to fill our lives with the true, the good and the beautiful. What he did was what Saint Paul said in his letter to the Philippians chapter four, he says, finally, my brothers and sisters,
[5:41]whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there's anything excellent,
[5:50]if there's anything worthy of praise, think of these things. See as Christians, this great news is we don't just have to plug our ears.
[5:57]We don't just have to restrict ourselves, although we probably sometimes will, but there's even something more powerful.
[6:05]The true, the good and the beautiful. To gaze upon the face of Jesus, to actually fill our lives with good friends and good conversation, with real truth and real beauty and real love.
[6:14]And with God's word, with prayer, I'm not saying that prayer takes away temptation.
[6:21]What I am saying is that when we are tempted, rather than pursue the illusion,
[6:30]what you and I can do, is we can be filled with the true, the good, the beautiful, whatever is gracious, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever comes from God, to think of these things.
[6:39]And to be filled with those things so that the cheap imitation no longer has any power over us.
[6:47]From all of us here at Ascension presents, my name is Father Mike. God bless.
