We are called to live a life to the fullest and we can do so because God our loving Father sent His Son our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to save us from death and sin!
We cannot be more free than we are living in His presence! And so we were marked with Ashes yesterday, we have made our commitment to turn away from all sin and to be faithful to the Gospel. To love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. We have decided to renounce ourselves, take up our cross and follow Jesus each and every day of our lives.
I was overjoyed to see the turn out at my Parish, while not a day of obligation yet the church was full and overflowing! Babies, youths, adults both young and old; all gathered together as One as we began our Lenten journey! Glory and praise to our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen
Saint Polycarp Pray for us…
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First reading
Deuteronomy 30:15-20 ·
I set before you today life or death, blessing or curse
Moses said to the people: ‘See, today I set before you life and prosperity, death and disaster. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I enjoin on you today, if you love the Lord your God and follow his ways, if you keep his commandments, his laws, his customs, you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you are entering to make your own. But if your heart strays, if you refuse to listen, if you let yourself be drawn into worshipping other gods and serving them, I tell you today, you will most certainly perish; you will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today: I set before you life or death, blessing or curse. Choose life, then, so that you and your descendants may live, in the love of the Lord your God, obeying his voice, clinging to him; for in this your life consists, and on this depends your long stay in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob he would give them.’
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Gospel
Luke 9:22-25
Whoever loses his life for my sake will save it
Jesus said to his disciples:
‘The Son of Man is destined to suffer grievously, to be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and to be put to death, and to be raised up on the third day.’
Then to all he said:
‘If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross every day and follow me. For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, that man will save it. What gain, then, is it for a man to have won the whole world and to have lost or ruined his very self?’
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