Catholic First - Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola

Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola:

"Third Rule. The third: With cause, as well the good Angel as the bad can console the soul, for contrary ends: the good Angel for the profit of the soul, that it may grow and rise from good to better, and the evil Angel, for the contrary, and later on to draw it to his damnable intention and wickedness."

In this the rythem of consolation and desolation seen in the psalm and Jesus being driven into the wilderness meets the theme of temptation and sin head on. While desolation is a tool of God, where he hides himself from us, a tool that we all expereince even second Adam, it is part and parcel to temptation.

I don't think that it is only about testing and trying, but the temptation surely comes when we are in the wilderness of desolation.