FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT - 2021

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

Man does not live on bread alone,

but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.
Praise to you, O Christ, king of eternal glory! MT 4:4

GENESIS 9:8-15 

My Soul's Beloved,

Over and over again God reaches out to us, His ungrateful creatures, and establishes Covenants with us sinners, and over and over again we have gone against Him and broken each one of them.

When Noah, and his family, along with all the creatures he had taken in the ark at God's command, came out of it and on to dry ground, He spoke to Noah and his sons saying, ‘See, I establish my Covenant with you, and with your descendants after you; also with every living creature to be found with you, birds, cattle and every wild beast with you: everything that came out of the ark, everything that lives on the earth. I establish my Covenant with you: no thing of flesh shall be swept away again by the waters of the flood. There shall be no flood to destroy the earth again.’

God does not desire the death of the creatures He created and loves. It is we who willfully disobey our great God. In order to assure Noah and his descendants for all time, He placed a sign of another Covenant in place of all the ones we had broken, saying, ‘Here is the sign of the Covenant I make between myself and you and every living creature with you for all generations: I set my bow in the clouds and it shall be a sign of the Covenant between me and the earth.' 

Each time we see a rainbow in the clouds we are reminded of God's faithfulness and our unfaithfulness. How often He must have stayed His hand in wiping us off the face of the earth when the stench of our iniquities was unbearable. 

Our loving God, in order to stop Himself from ever destroying us gave us a new sign, an indestructible, an everlasting sign, a permanent sign that nothing we do no matter how egregious, would or could sever our bond with Him. He gave us You, His only, beloved Son, and He gave us the Sign of the Cross. You, my Beloved, are the Sign of the New and eternal Covenant that God makes with us for all eternity. Thank You.   

PSALM 25:4-6,7b-9 

My Soul's Beloved,

All who desire to enter heaven are welcome. The way is not hidden, it is not obscure, it is not uncertain, but clear, unmistakable, visible, and everyone is invited to walk in it. You Yourself are our teacher and our guide. You have not only walked the Way but You are the Way.

So how do we know Your ways, Beloved, we have Your Word,  Your Holy Spirit, and Your Church to teach and guide us. 

Your mercies O Lord are inexhaustible as is Your love. You never tire of standing before Your Father interceding for us sinners. Your wounds are a reminder of what it cost both Him and You to redeem us. May we never take for granted Your horrific crucifixion. You suffered unimaginable agony in Your passion that culminated in Your being nailed to the Cross. There You hung for three long, agonizing hours in torment until You bled and died and with Your final breath commended Your Spirit to Your Father. 

Let us never for an instant forget that we cannot attain salvation without You. We cannot be pleasing to the Father if we do not strive to be like You. Grant that we keep on the right path no matter how difficult, rough, and narrow it may get. May You remain ever before us and in us and may we always be docile to the promptings of Your Holy Spirit as long as we live.

1 PETER 3:18-22

My Soul's Beloved,

We will never fathom God's love. He had no reason to save us and not at the price that He did. We certainly are not worth it. At any time He could have tossed us out as a bad bargain and started over again or not at all if He so wished. God does not need us. We certainly add nothing to His glory, and we can take nothing away from it. He is who He is.

This is why we must NEVER FORGET the price that was paid to ransom us from the clutches of Satan.

Innocence took on guilt, Life took on death, Goodness, Holiness, and Purity took on the overwhelming weight of the sins of the world and was crushed by them like grapes crushed in the winepress, like wheat ground in the millstone.

We live because death and the grave could not hold You. Paying our ransom to Death by becoming like us and drinking the cup of suffering to its dregs. You defeated death on our behalf and saved us. 

St. Peter tells us that the floodwaters on which Noah's ark floated, are a type of baptism that saves us now for it has the power to wash away original sin and restore a right relationship with God. Seated at God's right hand in heaven, all power, all rule, all authority is given to You. We enter heaven only through You for You are the gate by which we are permitted into the Kingdom of God.

MARK 1:12-15 

My Soul's Beloved,

God permits us to be tempted in order to strengthen us in virtue. You were not preserved from it and neither can we. The angels too were given a one-time choice either for or against God and Lucifer along with a third of the angels who rebelled were thrown down from heaven. 

Temptations are a necessary touchstone through which the quality of our faith is tested. We are able to gauge how strong or weak we are only when we battle them and either conquer or give in. 

You show us how it is done. Immediately after You were baptized in the Jordan, the Spirit drove You out into the desert, and there You remained fasting from food and drink for forty days. We too need to fast if we are to discipline and conquer the flesh.

You were able to vanquish Satan because You spent the entire time in the desert praying and fasting. He retreated defeated for while. The more we distance ourselves from the world the easier it is to draw nearer to You, drawing strength from You to resist temptation. 

All who stand firm in the face of evil can expect persecution and suffering. Now is the time to declare our faith, to witness to it, to press on in it, and we will be given the grace to endure to the end. The world needs the Good News from God that You came into the world to reveal - this is the moment, ‘The time has come and the kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent, and believe the Good News.’