Happy Friday Everybody,

Well shoot, it’s Saturday. Evening. Just after I sat down to write this yesterday, a call came in for a custom casket on the other side of the country to be shipped out Tuesday and I’ve been working on it nonstop (excepting 6 hours of sleep last night) since. But this is the season of confrontation with our earthly dustiness so, on this first Little Triduum of Lent, let’s look at Jesus’ perfect example of worldly renunciation as we seek to imitate him in our Lenten discipline. Here is the upcoming Sunday Gospel to read in the Light of the Grave:

This Sunday's Gospel is Matthew 4: 1-11 (from the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible)

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And he fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “if you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written,

‘Man shall not live by bread alone,

but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’

Then the devil took him to the holy city, and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written,

‘He will give his angels charge of you,’

And

‘On their hands they will bear you up,

Lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”

Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’” Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them; and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Begone, Satan! For it is written,

‘You shall worship the Lord your God

And him only shall you serve.’”

Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and ministered to him.

We’ll lose our grip if we hold too tightly onto this world.