First Sunday of Lent. Year C - Sunday, March 9, 2025 (EPISODE: 521)
Readings for Sunday, Lent 1 Year C - March 9, 2025
First Reading: Deuteronomy 26:4-10
Psalm: Ps 90:1-2. 10-15. "Be with me Lord when I am in trouble."
Second Reading: Romans 10:8-13
Gospel Acclamation: Matthew 4:4
Gospel: Luke 4:1-13
Image Credit- https://creator. nightcafe. studio/creation/NDOCtXK0p5qR12GT2ZGT/jesus-is-tempted-in-the-desert?ru=Paul-Evangelion
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Please listen to the audio recordings of the Mass – (Readings, prayers and homily), for the First Sunday of Lent. Year C - Sunday, March 9, 2025, by clicking this link here: https://soundcloud.com/user-633212303/faith-hope-and-love-ep-521/s-Jo1aJIOaj77
(EPISODE: 521)
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(Fr Paul Kelly)
As Lent begins, the Church enters a period of spiritual renewal, leading to Easter, so Lent is a type of retreat. We journey inward, to places of solitude and silence, so that we can rediscover God's utter love for us and for all. Can we let our Lord, who lived in the wilderness for forty days, and who was assailed by temptations, that would later resurface in other ways during his ministry and knowing that he faced suffering and eventually the cross, but he was taking the path of love and forgiveness.
Can we let Jesus lead us on this journey, as we face so many different aspects of spiritual wilderness in our lives and allow his Spirit to fill us up with all the virtues that simply crowd out any sins. Virtues like love, faith and hope, and patience, goodness, chastity, temperance, diligence, kindness and humility. Jesus is ably suited to leading and guiding us through this and every other experience of wilderness.
{FHL}
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The message by Saint Paul in the second reading is beautiful, especially where he says God's word is very near to you. It's so close, it's on your lips, it's in your heart, and it's important that God's word resides equally in both places, the heart and the lips, not only on our lips but truly making its home in our hearts, in the very centre of who we are, completely filling our hearts with its life-giving message. In the gospel, the word of God is clearly in our Lord's heart and in his mind and soul, and of course his very being is the word of God.
It's also on his lips. By contrast, the tempter, the devil, as it says in the gospel today, also knows the word of God and can quote it easily. It's on his lips, but it is most certainly not in his heart.
The devil doesn't live the word of God, doesn't love the word of God, but is just quoting it for his own purposes. It seems like this gospel that surely inspired the great poet and playwright William Shakespeare to write, "the devil can cite scripture for his purpose. An evil soul producing holy witness is like a villain with a smiling cheek, a goodly apple rotten at the heart. Oh, what a goodly outside falsehood has."
So true.
As we listen to the gospel, it's very interesting.
The devil in that passage tries three times to tempt Jesus and our Lord bats these temptations away like a good cricketer, straight to the boundary. The first time Jesus' reply is, it is written in scripture. Second time he says, it is written in scripture.
The devil gets a bit clever and the third time he says, Ah, but scripture also says that God will send his angels to lift-up your feet, lest you dash your foot against a stone. So, the devil's changed his tactics so that he's using the scriptures to try and convince, and that doesn't work at all with Christ either. He doesn't give it any ambit.
Taking our cues from the gospel, Christ does not enter into long dialogues with the temptation or with the adversary. He swiftly and efficiently dismisses the wiles of the temptation and doesn't dwell on them. Like that expert cricketer who swiftly dispatches a fast delivery without delay, straight to the boundary.
No messing around. The evil one is the father of lies. So why would anyone spend any time listening or debating with error and hatred? Christ doesn't want us to engage in dialogues with temptation.
He wants us to dismiss it and move forward with him. Temptation may keep on talking at us, but if we're not giving it a hearing, it will go off and find some more appreciative audience, who hopefully will send him packing then too. Sadly, in this world, there's any number of people around who might like the company of the kind of flattery and sweet nothings that we witness being tried, quite unsuccessfully, to be given to Christ in today's gospel.
And so whether this Lent is about doing the extra things we do or what we give up, let's do it with the deliberate intention of not permitting those conversations with temptation to go very far in our lives. It's a bit like someone who's walking around the bushland looking for fire risks. If there's things around, things lying around that could be fuel for a disaster, you clean it up.
So, if there is fuel for values inconsistent with the good news of Jesus that happen to be lying around in our daily routines or attitudes, we should judiciously remove it swiftly. And if idle time itself is the match that most often gets struck when we fall into temptation, let's strive to fill those spaces with good works, prayer and healthier conversations. Better than increasing our willpower, which is a great trap we can fall into in Lent, we can build up our inner immunity by allowing God, and it is God's action in us, we allow it and God fills us up with it.
He fills us with everything positive, to the point where we're so full of the good things of God's virtue and grace that the bad and harmful things simply have no room to take hold inside. Lent is not primarily about what we're doing. It's more importantly about what God is doing and how we can cooperate with God's activity in our lives and in our hearts.
After Jesus is baptised, we're told he's led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where he experiences our human temptations. Temptations like to pre-empt the Heavenly Father's place in our lives. He feels the allure of being self-serving, of gaining worldly power over others, of controlling or dominating things around him.
Well, at least that's the worldly understanding of the word. But he does not fall for it. He's not going to be enthralled by it.
Our Lord displays true greatness by being attentive to his Heavenly Father's word in Scripture, confessing his faith that the Father has first and foremost place in his life, without any reservation. Temptation leads to losing a sense of priorities and putting God down the list of our priorities with all sorts of excuses. But they're all hollow.
Although Jesus is God the Son, he's also fully human, and he was truly tempted just as we are. And because he knows what temptation is like and overcame it, he can empathise and help us in our temptations. And yes, we too can overcome temptation, through reordering our life, our priorities and our heart.
It's good at this time of Lenten reflection to ask ourselves in prayer, do I remember to offer God the first fruits of my efforts? Do I nurture the virtue of gratitude in my heart daily? Our Lord rejects Satan's temptations for immediate gratification and power and safety. How am I going regarding these temptations in my own life? What help do I need and can find in the traditional practices of Lent that will help in those areas? Namely prayer, which includes taking time out, space, silence, stillness. Then there's fasting and practical help to the needy.
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References:
Fr Paul W. Kelly
William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice. Act I, Scene III, Prepare the Word;
(February 10, 2008—First Sunday of Lent), https://preparetheword.com ).
Image:
First Sunday of Lent. Year C (EPISODE: 521)
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The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all..
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{{Hi}}. Welcome. everyone, we gather - Listen to God's Word and contemplate the sacraments.
Brothers and sisters, the Lord is full of love and mercy. And so, as we prepare ourselves to celebrate the sacred mysteries, let us acknowledge our sins.
Lord Jesus, you healed the sick: Lord, have mercy//Lord Jesus, you forgave sinners: Christ, have mercy//Lord Jesus, you give us yourself to heal us and bring us strength: Lord, have mercy.
May Almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life. Amen.
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GOSPEL ACCLAMATION (Romans 5:12-19). Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ, king of endless Glory. No one lives on bread alone. But on every word that comes from the mouth of God.
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Memorial Acclamation
3. Save us, Saviour of the world, for by your Cross and Resurrection you have set us free.
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PREFACE: Sundays Ordinary IV
Ep II
(theme variation: have Mercy )
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{Cheers and thanks everyone for this time of prayer and reflection - I hope you have a blessed week. }
Go forth, the Mass is ended.
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Archive of homilies and reflections: http://homilycatholic.blogspot.com.au
To contact Fr. Paul, please email: paulwkelly68@gmail.com
To listen to the weekly homily audio podcast, please click this link here: https://soundcloud.com/user-633212303/tracks
Further information relating to the audio productions linked to this Blog:
"Faith, Hope and Love - Christian worship and reflection" - Led by Rev Paul Kelly
Prayers and chants — Roman Missal, 3rd edition, © 2010, The International Commission on English in the liturgy. (ICEL)
Scriptures - New Revised Standard Version: © 1989, and 2009 by the NCC-USA. (National Council of Churches of Christ - USA)
"The Psalms" ©1963, 2009, The Grail - Collins publishers.
Prayers of the Faithful - " Together we pray" by Robert Borg'. E.J. Dwyer, Publishers, (1993) . (Sydney Australia).
"Quiet Time." Instrumental Reflection music. Written by Paul W Kelly. 1988, 2007. & This arrangement: Stefan Kelk, 2020.
Lenten Hymn: "Have Mercy," inspired by Psalm 50(51). Music by Paul W. Kelly. Arranged and sung, with additional lyrics by Stefan Kelk. 2020. https://www.airgigs.com/user/stefankelk
[ Production - KER - 2025]
May God bless and keep you.
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