Defeating the Devil
Lent's first Sunday
Announcements for March 5, 2022:
Our Lenten retreat begins Sunday evening. Father Llane Briese will preach our Parish Mission on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday at 7:00pm in the church.
Take a look at our Lenten activities. Check out www.olmc.church/lent.
This year, we will go beyond the tithe in support of the Ukrainian people. The money we raise - our goal is $20,000 - will be given to churches in Ukraine to directly assist those who are most in need. Click here to give now.
Visit the OLMC Parishioner Portal for all of our recent announcements.
If you need anything at all, please be in touch with me.
Dear Saints,
This Sunday's Gospel passage recounts the Temptation of Christ. After his baptism in the Jordan and 40-day fast in the Judaean wilderness, Jesus comes face to face with Satan.
In his victory over temptation, Jesus rejects the allure of pleasure, power, and money as vain pursuits. The ways of ego-inflation (or self-medication) that sprout from being centered on anything other than God are many, but not one of them achieves the satisfaction, security, healing, 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 pouring himself completely out (to his Father, for the world) all the way to the death.
Paradoxically, this is the path that leads to life. Jesus' way - that of total self-gift - is the way of restored humanity (i.e. what we were always meant to be). Lent gives us a chance, by trusting and following Jesus, to make it our own.
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 totally for God and his purposes.
We don't make this Lenten journey alone, my friends. Check out www.olmc.church/lent, and join us in prayer, fasting, and almsgiving (in person and online) this holy season.
I love you, my friends, and I look forward to seeing you very soon.
Christ's Peace,
Father Daniel
δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ
PS Welcome Home to Healing is back. Churches in the Diocese of Paterson are open for confessions every Monday night, 7:00-8:30pm. The last Monday for the initiative is April 4.
Preparing for Mass?
Check out this weekend's readings:
First Sunday of Lent
Christ Tempted by Satan
Georg Karl Franz Cornicelius, 1888