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The Lord be with you.

A reading from the Holy Gospel is written to us by Matthew.

The Lenten season always begins with this same gospel of the temptation of Jesus in the desert.

He has gone into the desert for 40 days

for his own initiation as it were.

And this is a beautiful telling, I think, of the demons we all have to face

to grow up, become mature.

And if we'll take just a few minutes afterwards to try to explain it,

but they're all three temptations to the misuse of power.

And we all, it seems, want power in one way or another, but we'll talk about that later and there's good power and there's

good power and there's bad power but with that let's read from the text.

At that time, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,

to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for 40 days and 40 nights and afterwards

he was hungry. The tempter approached and said to him, if you are the son of God,

command that these very stones become loaves of bread.

He said in reply,

it is written,

one does not live on bread alone, but in every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.

Then the devil took him to the holy city and made him stand on the parapet of the temple.

And he said to him, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down.

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