He’s known as the Quad God. Have you heard of him? Who is he? Ilia Malinin, the Olympic skater known as the Quad God. He’s self-proclaimed, because he was the first one ever to land a quad axel in competition, and he was expected to do it in the Olympics. He was not only expected to do it in the Olympics—he was expected to take gold. It was not only an expectation, it was an assured expectation. The whole world was just waiting for him to take gold. It is fascinating to watch, and it is very sad, too. Obviously, he’s worked his whole career for this. But you can see, as he takes the ice and is about to compete for this gold medal, he enters the arena and you can almost see on his face that there’s something wrong.
He gets into his routine and makes the very first jump—the second most difficult quad—and he lands it. But then he makes another jump, and he makes one rotation and lands. He stops early. And that was supposed to be his quad axel. A quad axel is actually four-and-a-half rotations. I don’t know if you know what that means, but it means you’re flying really, really fast and landing on a very thin piece of metal.
So he launches up to do the quad rotation, and he does something they call “popping.” Popping is when he lets go of the energy he has and puts his arms out like this to catch his balance, and he lands it—but he only makes one rotation. After that moment, you can see that something got into his head. He ends up falling two more times and missed another rotation.
Now, did you know—and I didn’t know this until I researched it—that when you fall in Olympic skating, it’s a one-point deduction? Falling is not actually that big of a deal. Skaters do it all the time. He was going to get over 200 points in this championship. Where he lost all of his points was by popping, by bailing out early on the jump he was trying to land. That’s how he lost all of his points.
Something got into his head. He talked about it afterwards when he was being interviewed and posted about it on social media—that at the moment when he began to lose confidence, every single tragedy in his life came to mind, and it completely shook him to his core.
I want to propose that that’s what Satan does to us. He shakes us of our confidence. He convinces us that one fall in life means it’s over. Might as well let it all go, right?
I was talking to a priest yesterday, and he said, “How’s your Lent going?” And I’m like, “Oh, it’s awesome. I’m really excited. But it’s Friday. We just had Ash Wednesday and it’s two days later.” Now, I don’t know about you, but has anyone already fallen in their Lenten resolution? Be honest. Did any of you make all your Lenten resolutions?
Satan is going to try to get into our heads this Lent. And I want you to notice how he tries to do it from the very beginning of creation. Adam and Eve are formed and they’re given every single pleasure in the Garden of Eden. You can eat from any tree that you want. Think about it—Adam and Eve lived in perfection, had every single pleasure and every good thing. God was denying them nothing, and Satan was able to tempt them. If he was able to do that to Adam and Eve, who had everything, how much more can he do to us, who are broken, sinful individuals, who are often lacking?
Before they take of the fruit, Satan gets into their head and asks a question, “Did God really say, did God really say, don’t take that?” From that first moment of getting into their minds, the temptation already began. And shortly after that what happened, the fall.
For each and every one of us, because of the fall of Adam and Eve, we hear St. Paul say in the second reading, that that fall is perpetuated. But just as by their transgression it forever impacted us, so much more did Jesus’ overcoming of the fall impact us.
Jesus is also tempted by Satan. Satan tries to get into his head. We hear in the Gospel these three temptations: He is tempted to take all power and glory and honor for himself. He is tempted to test God and cast himself off the temple. He is tempted to take stone and transform it into bread to feed himself. With each of these temptations, Satan says, “If you are the Son of God…” Well, he is the Son of God, right? But Satan is trying to mess with his head—get into his head. “If you are the Son of God…”
We’re entering into Lent, first Sunday, and I guarantee you, if it hasn’t happened yet, Satan is going to try to mess with your mind. He is going to try to get into our heads and shake us off of our routine.
When you’re watching Olympic skaters, they will often say that when that happens—especially if they fall—the best thing a skater can do is go back into muscle memory, to go back into what they have been training for this whole time, and to get out of their heads. To get back to the basics of what they trained for. The basics of what we are training for in Lent—the three resolutions we make—are prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. These are the basics of Lent. And when we fall, what should we increase? Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. When Satan gets into our head, what should we do? Increase our prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. These are the basics that get us back into the routine of God. These are the basics that help us recover when we fall.
We’re often tempted to think, “I’m going to get through Lent and be totally perfect. I’m going to keep all my resolutions and nothing’s going to happen.” And then when we fall, Satan gets into our mind and makes us think it’s disastrous—and then we can’t recover. But the only thing that’s disastrous is that we stop skating. The only thing that’s disastrous is when we stop our prayer, our fasting, and our almsgiving.
And so, as we enter this season—we’re only a few days in—perhaps Satan has already attacked you, perhaps he’s already tried to get into your mind. Let’s make a resolution now at this Mass that no matter what happens, no matter how many times we fall, no matter how many times he tries to get into our minds, we will, with Jesus, always resolve back to the basics of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
