WELCOME TO ST AGNES ECCLESTON

First Sunday of Lent

On this Sunday the Rite of Election or Enrolment of Names may be celebrated, after the homily in Cathedrals, for those catechumens who are to be admitted to the Sacraments of Christian Initiation at the Easter Vigil.

• Pope Benedict XVI called the temptation of Jesus in the desert “a descent into the perils besetting mankind”. This happened so that we may be counted among those “who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness [and] reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ”. The “one act of righteousness” that Saint Paul speaks about in the Letter to the Romans is Jesus’ unfailing fidelity to the Father’s will. As the serpent comes close, we will not be duped by the suggestion that somehow God is jealous at the prospect that we “will be like God”. For God himself planted that hope in our hearts. The Lord’s greatest joy and glory is that we share his image and likeness, not through self-seeking but through the obedience by which “many will be made righteous.”