Stay Close to God and He Will Stay Close to Us.

As our Lenten journey begins, we are thrown out into the desert of our lives to refect upon how the evil one continues to harass and tempt us to turn from God. Jesus is lead out into the desert by the Holy Spirit, where He fasts and prays for forty days and nights, and the devil, the tempter, comes to Him and challenges Jesus. Because Jesus had prepared Himself by praying and fasting, He was ready for the challenge. We, too, need to pray and fast in order to face the tempter and his challenges in our days. Jesus reminds us to stay close to God and He will stay close to us and take care of us. By God’s graces we can move away from sin and evil in our lives, we are stirred by the Spirit to confess our sins and be made clean once again, building up the relationship God so desires to have with each of us. Lent is the perfect time to strive to purge ourselves of sinful inclinations that the evil one challenges us with, and this can be accomplished through prayer, fasting and almsgiving, the Lenten disciples. Giving up certain activities that we are so accustomed to doing and replacing them with making time for God by meditating on the Scriptures, praying the Stations of the Cross, focusing on Jesus’ passion, and sufering for us and charitable works are all ways to fll our lives with good things. The sin of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden has been overcome by the passion and death of Jesus and through His action, we have all been saved. Let us worship and serve God alone and keep the evil one at bay!

In Prayer,
Fr. Fred