1ST SUNDAY IN LENT - 2025

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

Man does not live on bread alone,

but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. MT 4:4

DEUTERONOMY 26:4-10

My Soul's Beloved,

While we are still in original sin, we wander as exiles in the wilderness and among the flesh-pots of Egypt. Our hearts are restless and our lives lack meaning and purpose. Even though we are children of the world and the world and all its pleasures cannot satisfy the deepest hungers of our soul. As slaves we are beasts of burden to the insatiable and voracious desires of the things that lack all that is good, true, and beautiful. We seek happiness in all the wrong places and find ourselves even more tightly bound in the excesses of our sinful desires. The greater our sins the deeper we find ourselves sucked into the mire of destruction, decay, and death.

Baptism washes away original sin. No sin is too great for its cleansing power to heal, to restore, to regenerate, and make of every soul a child of God and heir to His Kingdom. Through Baptism we are citizens of heaven and can rightfully call God, Abba. This Sacrament of Initiation into the Christian life opens the door to all the Sacraments of Life, Grace, and Healing. We are no longer wanderers and exiles by Your sisters and brothers. You make us members of Your Body and we receive life from Your Holy Spirit who descends in us and makes our body His temple.

In the life of the Church You founded on Peter and the Apostles, Beloved, we are led by the Shepherd to green pastures, and are fed on the Blood and Water that flows from Your pierced side. Thank You, Lord, for setting us free to worship and adore You, to give You thanks all our days, for the blessed assurance You have given us of living eternally with You in Heaven. In the safe haven of Your Church O Lord, the children of God find rest.

The Lord heard our voice and saw our misery, our toil and our oppression; and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with mighty hand and outstretched arm, with great terror, and with signs and wonders. He brought us here and gave us this land, a land where milk and honey flow. Here then I bring the first-fruits of the produce of the soil that you, the Lord, have given me.”

‘You must then lay them before the Lord your God, and bow down in the sight of the Lord your God.’


PSALM 90(91):1-2,10-15

Be with me, O Lord, in my distress.

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
and abides in the shade of the Almighty
says to the Lord: ‘My refuge,
my stronghold, my God in whom I trust!’

Upon you no evil shall fall,
no plague approach where you dwell.
For you has he commanded his angels,
to keep you in all your ways.

They shall bear you upon their hands
lest you strike your foot against a stone.
On the lion and the viper you will tread
and trample the young lion and the dragon.

His love he set on me, so I will rescue him;
protect him for he knows my name.
When he calls I shall answer: ‘I am with you,’
I will save him in distress and give him glory.

Be with me, O Lord, in my distress.

ROMANS 10:8-13

My Soul's Beloved,

We are so grateful to the Father for sending You, His beloved, first-born Son into the world not to condemn but to save. Baptism is the first step of initiation into the Christian life, we die to sin and receive life anew in You. From this moment on, Lord, we become disciples and must grow in our faith and strive to become like You in every way. You O Lord came to establish Your Church so all who enter her will be taught, fed, and nourished on the Word and the Sacraments. Both are necessary to navigate the pitfalls and snares set by the devil who roams through the world seeking to devour souls. 

Making our profession of faith is not a one-time event, we must profess it every day we are alive. What we profess to believe we must testify to and witness by example. We are children of God in a world that hates good and celebrates evil, and only by being the light of the world and the salt of the earth can we spread the Good News throughout the world and save it.

In this world You assure us that we will be hated, persecuted, imprisoned and even face death. The lot of the Christian disciple is suffering as it was with the Master and we must not shrink from it but embrace it as You did for there is no other way to enter the Kingdom of God but the way of the Cross, the way of suffering and death to self.

If your lips confess that Jesus is Lord and if you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, then you will be saved. By believing from the heart you are made righteous; by confessing with your lips you are saved. When scripture says: those who believe in him will have no cause for shame, it makes no distinction between Jew and Greek: all belong to the same Lord who is rich enough, however many ask his help, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

LUKE 4:1-13

My Soul's Beloved,

We thank You for the wisdom granted to the writers of the Old and the New Testament, through these Sacred Texts God made known His plan of salvation for the world. The New is hidden in the Old and the Old in the light of the New reveals all that was hinted at and promised in the Old. On the road to Emmaus as well as on previous occasions when You were teaching and forming Your disciples before Your resurrection, You taught them the Scripture opening their minds to understand how every Covenant of God was fulfilled perfectly in and through You.

The forty years of exile of the Israelites in the desert, where they were tempted and purified, is mirrored in Your own 40 days in the wilderness after Your baptism in the Jordan. You teach us how to combat temptation using the power of the Word of God. We need to be familiar with Scripture. We should feed and feast on it. We ought to imbibe it until it becomes second nature to us and becomes our food and drink. Only then can we do battle against the world, the flesh and the devil and with the help of the power of the Holy Spirit gain victory. 

Help us, Lord, to take our faith seriously, only then can we grow in faith, hope, and love.

Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit through the wilderness, being tempted there by the devil for forty days. During that time he ate nothing and at the end he was hungry. 

Then the devil said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to turn into a loaf.’ But Jesus replied, ‘Scripture says: Man does not live on bread alone.’

Then leading him to a height, the devil showed him in a moment of time all the kingdoms of the world and said to him, ‘I will give you all this power and the glory of these kingdoms, for it has been committed to me and I give it to anyone I choose. Worship me, then, and it shall all be yours.’ But Jesus answered him, ‘Scripture says:
You must worship the Lord your God,
and serve him alone.’
Then he led him to Jerusalem and made him stand on the parapet of the Temple. ‘If you are the Son of God,’ he said to him ‘throw yourself down from here, for scripture says:
He will put his angels in charge of you
to guard you,
and again:
They will hold you up on their hands
in case you hurt your foot against a stone.’
But Jesus answered him, ‘It has been said:
You must not put the Lord your God to the test.’
Having exhausted all these ways of tempting him, the devil left him, to return at the appointed time.