Going the Way of Love
Lent's first Sunday
Announcements for February 20, 2021:
Take a look at our Lenten activities. Check out www.olmc.church/lent today.
We're holding the line on our Mass and Confession schedule this week:
Inside Masses: Saturday at 5:15 and 7:00pm (Spanish); Sunday at 7:30, 9:00, and 11:00am.
Outside Mass: Sunday at 9:00am (Walmart).
Confessions: Take place inside after the 8:00am Saturday Mass (8:30-9:30am) and before the 5:15pm Saturday Mass (4:00-5:00pm).
All of our announcements are now online. Keep tabs on that page for all up-to-date information.
Please be in touch with me if you need anything at all, or if you'd like to share any questions or concerns.
Dear Saints,
This Sunday's Gospel passage recounts the events immediately following Jesus' Baptism. Saint Mark presents a somewhat terse account of Jesus' Temptation and the beginnings of his Galilean Ministry. These two events, we're meant to conclude, go hand in hand.
In his victory over temptation, Jesus rejects the allure of pleasure, power, and money as vain pursuits. The paths of ego-aggrandizement - the wicked ways that sprout from self-centeredness - are many, but not one of them achieves the satisfaction, security, or happiness it promises.
Jesus lives out, rather, faithfulness to his Father, supreme trust in his identity as God's Son, and commitment to the path that is pure self-gift to accomplish his objectives. God's newly anointed king will come to rule not by worldly success of any sort, but by giving himself totally and recklessly away (to his Father, for the world) all the way to death.
Looking at the other side of the coin, we see that love is the animating force of Jesus' teaching and healing ministry. It is by love that Jesus takes Galilee by storm.
By prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, we strive to make God and his love the very center and source of our life. By drawing on the strength of Jesus' victory over the Devil - a victory made complete in his death and resurrection - we can reject the allure of power, pleasure, and money to live for God and his purposes.
Jesus' way - the way self-gift - is the way of restored humanity (i.e. what we were always meant to be); it is the path of life. Lent gives us a chance, by trusting and following Jesus, to make it our own.
We don't make this Lenten journey alone, my friends. Check out www.olmc.church/lent, and join us in prayer, fasting, and almsgiving (online or in person) this holy season.
I love you, and I look forward to walking this way with you!
Christ's Peace,
Father Daniel
δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ
PS Like last year, I'd like to recommend a practical review of whether or not we've made God's way of life our own. The Litany of Humility and these 17 signs we lack it are indispensable aids.
PPS Welcome Home to Healing is back. Churches in the Diocese of Paterson are open for confessions every Monday night from 7:00-8:30pm. The last Monday for the initiative is March 22nd.
Preparing for Mass?
Check out this weekend's readings:
First Sunday of Lent
Christ in the Wilderness
Ivan Kramskoy, 1872