In today's Gospel passage, we read Jesus' radical words about how to handle temptations in our lives. The greatest gift that God has given to human beings is freedom, a freedom to choose good. Abuse of this freedom leads to sin. Scripture tells us that we should never say that God tempts us [James 1:13]. Jesus was tempted by the devil but did not misuse his freedom: he fought against the temptations. In our weakness we may at times give in to various temptations without fighting against them. Our determination and will-power to fight against temptations may be weak and certainly requires God's grace and support. In the modern world there seems to be a growing loss of a sense of sin. This is a dangerous thing. We need to be constantly aware of the fragility and vulnerability of our human existence. Jesus wants all of us to enter into the kingdom of heaven and encourages us to take our struggle against temptations seriously and come up triumphant. That can be one meaning of the salt (Mk. 9:50) that he speaks about. Jesus has already achieved triumph against sin, death and evil. We, too, will have a share with him in this triumph when we rely on his grace alone against temptations