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Call Us: 617-846-7400

Address: 320 Winthrop St, Winthrop, MA 02152

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St. John the Evangelist Church

St. John the Evangelist Church

  • About
    • Ministers and Staff
    • Facilities
    • History
    • Links
  • News & Events
  • Donations
    • Donate Now
    • Planned Gifts
    • Holiday Meal Donations
    • Holiday Flowers
    • Grand Annual Collection
    • Commitment to Parish Life
    • Planned Gifts
  • Ministries
    • Community Help
    • Baptism
    • Parish Ministries
      • Bereavement Group
      • Collections
      • Eucharistic Ministers
      • Kenyan Community
      • Lectors
      • Liturgy Committee
      • Music Ministry and Choirs
      • RCIA
    • Committees
      • Commitment to Parish Life Committee
      • Buildings and Property Committee
      • Communications and Technology
      • Finance Committee
    • CYO Basketball
    • Weddings
      • Marriage Prep Program
  • Religious Education
    • Confirmation
      • Service – Why is it important?
      • Choosing your Sponsor
      • Choosing a Confirmation Name
  • Contact

Bishop Barron’s Lenten Gospel Reflection

First Sunday of Lent
MATTHEW 4:1-11
Friends, today’s Gospel tells of the Lord’s temptation in the desert. After forty days of fasting in the desert (evocative of Israel’s forty years of wandering in the desert), Jesus meets the devil, who proceeds to lure the Messiah onto the path of sin. His sacrifice will entail his coming to battle sin at close quarters, his willingness, therefore, to be drawn by its power, to come under its sway.

Satan first tempts him with sensual pleasure: “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves of bread.” One of the most elemental forms of spiritual dysfunction is to make the satisfaction of sensual desire the center of one’s life. Jesus responds: “One does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.”

Jesus enters, through psychological and spiritual identification, into the condition of the person lured by this sin, but then he manages to withstand the temptation and in fact to twist this perversion back to rectitude.

Reflect: Has the “satisfaction of sensual desire” for food, drink, sex, or another physical pleasure ever been the center of your life? How well did that pleasure satisfy you?

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