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Showing posts from January, 2026

First Sunday of Lent (Cycle A)

The Temptation of Jesus Lectionary:  22 Reading 1 -  Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7 Responsorial Psalm -  Psalm 51:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 17 Reading 2 -  Romans 5:12-19 Verse - Matthew 4:4b Gospel -  Matthew 4:1-11 One does not live on bread alone. Every year, we begin our Lenten journey in the same place: the desert.   The Gospel for this Sunday places Jesus in the wilderness, fasting and praying, confronted by temptation. In that stark setting we find the pattern of our own Lenten journey: a movement away from distraction toward the heart of God, a testing that reveals what truly sustains us, and a call to conversion that reshapes our lives.  Throughout our lives, we are frequently confronted with tests … and these tests generally reveal something about ourselves: In school, we demonstrate that we have mastered an academic subject with a test  in sports, we demonstrate our level of a particular skill with a contest  In life, we demonstrate the integri...

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time (Cycle A)

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Word of God Sunday Lectionary:  67 Reading 1 -  Isaiah 8:23—9:3 Responsorial Psalm -  Psalm 27:1, 4, 13-14 Reading 2 -  1 Corinthians 1:10-13, 17 Alleluia - Matthew 4:23 Gospel -  Matthew 4:12-23 The Promise of Salvation Under a New Davidic King.   The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light … In the first act of creation, God created light and “saw that the light was good. God then separated the light from the darkness.” (Genesis 1:4) … However, light and darkness are more than just opposites; they are symbols, metaphors, and emotional currents that have shaped our understanding of the world around us for centuries. Within the stories we tell each other, we find a natural contrast between what is seen and what is hidden, between safety and the unknown, between clarity and mystery. This duality of light and dark exists because of one’s relationship to the other … and our experiences of the two. For those of us who have spent any time on the w...