"Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD"

Cursed is the man who trusts in human beings,
who seeks his strength in flesh,
whose heart turns away from the LORD.

-- Jer 17:5-10

Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God's command. This is what man's first sin consisted of. All subsequent sin would be disobedience toward God and lack of trust in his goodness.

-- CCC 397

Thursday, Second Week of Lent

Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter, Apostle: "“You are the Christ"

Pictured: The Altar of the Chair of Peter in Saint Peter's Basilica, Rome

"... you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it."

-- Mt 16:13-19

    The Lord made Simon alone, whom he named Peter, the "rock" of his Church. He gave him the keys of his Church and instituted him shepherd of the whole flock. "The office of binding and loosing which was given to Peter was also assigned to the college of apostles united to its head." This pastoral office of Peter and the other apostles belongs to the Church's very foundation and is continued by the bishops under the primacy of the Pope. -- CCC 881

    "The solemn Feast of today received from our forefathers the name of that of St Peter's Chair at Antioch, because there is a tradition that it was on this day that Peter, first of the Apostles, was enthroned in a Bishop's Chair. Rightly, therefore, do the Churches observe the first day of that Chair, the right to which the Apostle received for the salvation of the Churches from the Lord of the Churches Himself, with the words: Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church."

- From the Sermons of St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo.

“Ask"

 and it will be given to you;
seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you.

-- Mt 7:7-12

Christian petition is centered on the desire and search for the Kingdom to come, in keeping with the teaching of Christ. There is a hierarchy in these petitions: we pray first for the Kingdom, then for what is necessary to welcome it and cooperate with its coming. This collaboration with the mission of Christ and the Holy Spirit, which is now that of the Church, is the object of the prayer of the apostolic community. It is the prayer of Paul, the apostle par excellence, which reveals to us how the divine solicitude for all the churches ought to inspire Christian prayer. By prayer every baptized person works for the coming of the Kingdom.

-- CCC 2632 

Thursday of the First Week of Lent

"So shall my word be"

that goes forth from my mouth;
It shall not return to me void,
but shall do my will,
achieving the end for which I sent it.

-- Is 55:10-11

This petition, with the responsibility it involves, also applies to another hunger from which men are perishing: "Man does not live by bread alone, but . . . by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God," that is, by the Word he speaks and the Spirit he breathes forth. Christians must make every effort "to proclaim the good news to the poor." There is a famine on earth, "not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD." For this reason the specifically Christian sense of this fourth petition concerns the Bread of Life: The Word of God accepted in faith, the Body of Christ received in the Eucharist.

-- CCC 2835

Tuesday of the First Week of Lent

"Be holy"

“You shall not bear hatred for your brother in your heart.
Though you may have to reprove him,
do not incur sin because of him.

-- Lv 19:1-2, 11-18

The fruits of charity are joy, peace, and mercy; charity demands beneficence and fraternal correction; it is benevolence; it fosters reciprocity and remains disinterested and generous; it is friendship and communion: Love is itself the fulfillment of all our works. There is the goal; that is why we run: we run toward it, and once we reach it, in it we shall find rest.

-- CCC 1829

Monday, First Week of Lent

First Sunday of Lent: "Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil"

"Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan
and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days,
to be tempted by the devil."

We are so often tempted by the devil as we read Jesus was in the Gospel today.  We experience "deserts" when we feel alone before the world and helpless in temptation.  But this is because we so often try to do so only under our own resources.  We have to learn what Jesus teaches by His example in the first Lent, His forty days in the desert.

"The word is near you,
in your mouth and in your heart"

Jesus Christ, true God, yes, but at the same true Man, went into the desert armed with the power of His Father through grace by faith, but He had to choose to do so.  He teaches us that we must make that same choice if we are to share in His victory over sin and death at the end of the Lent of this life and this world, a desert in comparison with the glory and joy of heaven, our true homeland.

"You shall worship the Lord, your God,
and him alone shall you serve.”

Worship here together of the Lord Jesus, who shows us the Father, is our oasis in the desert and our training for the life we lead in the "desert" of daily life with its challenges and difficulties, but also with its hopes and dreams.  Faith made strong by worship is the armor we wear into battle for our salvation in Christ.  Our intimacy with the Word of God in Scripture makes it possible for the Word to be "near" us, in our mouths for prayer and proclamation and in our hearts by love for Him.

"He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you"

How does the temptation of Christ help us?  By showing us the way of escape to freedom by means of the grace He guarantees to us.  We are given Jesus Christ in our sacramental life, above all in the Eucharist, so that we will be gaurded and guided as He was by grace together with the saints and angels who intercede for us.

We are never alone in the desert of temptation for He is with us always, as He promised, even until the end of the world.

Praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever.

"bestow your bread on the hungry"

hold back your foot on the sabbath
from following your own pursuits on my holy day;
If you call the sabbath a delight,
and the LORD’s holy day honorable;
If you honor it by not following your ways,
seeking your own interests, or speaking with malice
Then you shall delight in the LORD

-- Is 58:9b-14

At the heart of the Eucharistic celebration are the bread and wine that, by the words of Christ and the invocation of the Holy Spirit, become Christ's Body and Blood. Faithful to the Lord's command the Church continues to do, in his memory and until his glorious return, what he did on the eve of his Passion: "He took bread. . . ." "He took the cup filled with wine. . . ." The signs of bread and wine become, in a way surpassing understanding, the Body and Blood of Christ; they continue also to signify the goodness of creation. Thus in the Offertory we give thanks to the Creator for bread and wine, fruit of the "work of human hands," but above all as "fruit of the earth" and "of the vine" - gifts of the Creator. The Church sees in the gesture of the king-priest Melchizedek, who "brought out bread and wine," a prefiguring of her own offering.

-- CCC 1333