Salve, Regina, Mater Misericordiae.
Praised be Jesus and Mary.
Today we celebrate the first Sunday of Lent,
and we have wonderful exhortations and admonitions for our consideration
and also to put into practice during this time of Lent.
The epistle is from the second letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians,
and the first thing he says is that we need to be faithful in cooperating with God's grace.
He says,
We entreat you not to receive the grace of God
in vain.
Now we have all received the grace of God at our baptism.
When we were baptized,
we received sanctifying grace in our souls.
And then throughout our lives,
we receive other graces,
some of them sacramental graces,
when we receive absolution and confession,
or when we receive the body and blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist.
And then,
other graces are actual graces sent by God,
which are transient.
These are passing graces to help us fulfill our duties,
be faithful to the commandments and in practicing virtue.
And so St. Paul is saying with all of these graces that we receive from God,
let us not receive them in vain.
That is, let's not let them go to waste.
Let's not be negligent in our Christian duties.
But instead we should strive to always cooperate day after day with the graces we receive from God,
with the lights and inspirations that he gives us,
and with the strength that he gives us to resist in time of temptation.
And so St. Paul says,
Behold, now is the acceptable time.
And so the church,
the church gives us this time of Lent in particular to focus once again on our spiritual life,
and to consider all of the graces that God has given us.
And then St. Paul continues to name the virtues which we should put into practice during this acceptable time of Lent.
Patience, innocence, purity, kindness, unaffected love,
the word of truth and justice.
So all of these things we need to be putting into practice.
Let's make our Christian faith concrete in our daily lives,
and not simply let it be something that we think about and practice only on Sunday by merely coming to Mass.
No, our faith should vivify every single day of our life.
And we should never let anything draw us from the path of virtue.
St. Paul mentions all of these difficulties that he and other believers had to deal with.
Dishonesty and evil reports,
being considered deceivers,
and all of this suffering, being chastised and everything.
And yet, through all of these sufferings,
he never gets discouraged,
and is never drawn away from the path of virtue.
And so we must do the same thing in our lives,
considering that the difficulties that we face are nothing like the ones that St. Paul faced.
Although, we can say our society is becoming more and more anti-Christian and hostile to religion,
so we may have to suffer something similar.
But, at least for now, our daily trials are just those normal things.
Dealing with difficult people and stressful situations at work.
And in all of these things, we need to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world
by living virtuous Christian lives.
And now we turn to the Gospel,
and we see our Lord, after he is baptized,
and receives the baptism from St. John,
he is led by the Spirit into the desert
to prepare for his public ministry.
So he goes off in solitude
to pray and to fast,
and to be tempted by the devil.
Here is the first learning point for us.
When we have big decisions to make,
perhaps deciding our state in life,
whether we are going to pursue marriage,
or perhaps religious life,
the priesthood,
in making a big decision like that,
or in undertaking some significant apostolate,
joining a third order,
or something like that,
we should take time,
make a retreat,
a solitary retreat,
in which we can fast and pray
and ask enlightenment from God.
And in making these decisions,
and I can say especially,
with deciding your state in life,
discerning what is the will of God for you,
for anyone who has not already chosen their state,
that can especially be a time of trial.
The devil will tempt you
and try to confuse you
and bring up all kinds of difficulties
and temptations.
So you need to arm yourself
with prayer and fasting,
and ask enlightenment and strength from God.
Now we see our Lord,
notwithstanding he was the Son of God,
did not exempt himself
from being tempted by the devil.
And thank God he did not exempt himself,
because we can look to him
as a model of what to do
to know that our Lord understands our weakness
and what we suffer.
Although we must make a distinction that,
when we talk about our Lord's temptations,
they are not precisely like our temptations.
When the devil tempted Jesus Christ,
the Son of God,
these temptations remained merely exterior,
on the external, outside of Christ.
Whereas with us,
because we suffer from the effects
and consequences of original sin,
we have that inclination
towards sin.
That sin and evil
really does hold
a bit of an attraction for us.
That is not the case with Jesus Christ,
and it is not the case
of the Blessed Mother,
because she is the Immaculate Conception.
But we see our Lord
permits himself to be tempted by the devil,
and we notice that the devil,
being the clever serpent that he is,
is clever enough to quote Scripture.
He quotes sacred Scripture.
And so what does this tell us?
This tells us that it is not enough
to know what sacred Scripture says.
Saint Peter warns in his second letter
that there are those who twist
and distort the Scriptures
to their own.
To their own destruction.
Just as Satan is twisting
and distorting the Scripture,
trying to obtain the destruction of our Lord,
but this is impossible.
And so we need to have
an authoritative interpreter.
Someone with the authority of God
to explain to us
what the Scriptures mean.
And this is where
Holy Mother Church comes into play.
Established by Christ
and given the same authority.
When our Lord said to the Apostles,
He who hears you hears me.
He who rejects you rejects me
and him who sent me.
As the Father sent me,
so I send you.
Go and teach all nations.
With all of these words and others,
our Lord gives the same authority.
To the Church.
The Magisterium.
The only authentic interpreter
of sacred Scripture.
Now we see our Lord,
again,
responds to all three temptations
by citing sacred Scripture.
The Word of God.
And this is a lesson for all of us as well.
The just man will live by faith.
And so when we are tempted,
we find ourselves in some kind of
spiritual trial,
we need to have recourse
to the truth.
To the Word of God.
To the truths of our faith.
Remember the words of Saint Peter
when he says that the devil
is prowling like a roaring lion
looking for someone to devour.
And then what does he say?
He says, resist him
solid in your faith.
So we need to resist the devil
being solid in our faith.
And our faith, of course,
being the truth.
Divine truth.
So this is one way in which we can
avoid the darts and snares
of the devil.
Alright, so let's take to heart
the admonitions and exhortations
that Holy Mother Church
presents us today.
That is to always be faithful
in cooperating with God's grace,
to take time for prayer and fasting
and making important decisions
in our lives,
and being aware of the trials
that God will permit in our lives,
and to be strong
and persevering through them,
being fortified with the Word of God,
the sword of truth.
In the name of the Father,
and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
.