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irst Sunday of Lent
February 26th, 2012
REPENT AND BELIEVE IN THE GOSPEL
 Lent is the time of year we devote to scrutinizing our lives in the light of our baptism into the death and resurrection of Jesus. Today’s readings are a nice shorthand catechism of what our baptized lives mean. As Noah passed through the waters of the flood to a covenant with God, so did we enter into a covenant, a promised relationship with God through our baptism.
Peter’s letter gives an explicit explanation of what our baptism means: it is an appeal we make to God for a clear conscience. How do we obtain this clear conscience? The words proclaimed by Jesus immediately following his temptation show us the way: “Repent, and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). It might be a good spiritual exercise to keep these readings before us throughout the entire season of Lent, a means to help us return to a life lived by our baptismal promises.
Copyright © J. S. Paluch Co.
SUNDAY’S READINGS
(February 26th, 2012)
First Reading — God’s covenant with Noah when he was delivered from the flood (Genesis 9: 8-15).
Psalm — Your ways, O Lord, are love and truth to those who keep your covenant (Psalm 25).
Second Reading — The water of the flood prefigured baptism, which saves you now (1 Peter 3:18-22).
Gospel — This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand (Mark 1:12-15).
The English translation of the Psalm Responses from the Lectionary for Mass © 1969, 1981, 1997, International Commission on English in the Liturgy Corporation. All rights reserved.
READINGS FOR THE WEEK
Links Courtesy of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Website
( February 20th to February 26th 2012)
Monday: Jas 3:13-18; Mk 9:14-29
Tuesday: Jas 4:1-10; Mk 9:30-37
Wednesday: Jl 2:12-18; Ps 51; 2 Cor 5:20 -- 6:2; Mt 6:1-6, 16-18
Thursday: Dt 30:15-20; Lk 9:22-25
Friday: Is 58:1-9a; Mt 9:14-15
Saturday: Is 58:9b-14; Lk 5:27-32
Sunday: Gn 9:8-15; Ps 25; 1 Pt 3:18-22; Mk 1:12-15
SAINTS AND SPECIAL OBSERVANCES
Monday: Presidents' Day
Tuesday: St. Peter Damian; Mardi Gras; Shrove Tuesday
Wednesday: Ash Wednesday; Fast and Abstinence; Almsgiving; Washington's Birthday
Thursday: St. Polycarp
Friday: Abstinence
TREASURES FROM OUR TRADITION
 By the First Sunday of Lent, many people have given up on “giving up.” Yet experiencing hunger for favorite things is a sign of a desire to face our deepest hungers. We do not embrace fasting as individuals, but rather as the community’s way of life in this season. Sometimes it helps to see Sunday as an oasis in the Lenten desert, a place where fasting is not as strictly observed. If we count the days of the Lenten calendar, starting backward from the end of Lent on Holy Thursday, it is difficult to measure the forty days. Many are surprised to learn that the Sundays are counted as part of Lent, but are not counted in tallying the forty days of the Lenten fast. For that, we count the fast backward into last week, beginning on Ash Wednesday. So, until today we have been in the Lenten fast, days that function as a kind of overture to a symphony of conversion.
Today Lent solemnly begins, marked in many places by the sending of catechumens and candidates to the bishop for the call to the Easter sacraments. Tomorrow with them, we embrace the Lenten fast again. Today we are exactly forty days from the opening of the Paschal Triduum on Holy Thursday.
—James Field, Copyright © J. S. Paluch Co.
From the Bishop
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I write to you concerning an alarming and serious matter that negatively impacts the Church in the United States directly, and that strikes at the fundamental right to religious liberty for all citizens of any faith. The federal government, which claims to be “of, by, and for the people,” has just dealt a heavy blow to almost a quarter of those people—the Catholic population—and to the millions more who are served by the Catholic faithful.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human services announced last week that almost all employers, including Catholic employers, will be forced to offer their employees’ health coverage that includes sterilization, abortion-inducing drugs, and contraception. Almost all health insurers will be forced to include those “services” in the health policies they write. And almost all individuals will be forced to buy that coverage as a part of their policies.
In so ruling, the Administrations has cast aside the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, denying to Catholics our Nation’s first and most fundamental freedom, that of religious liberty. And as a result, unless the rule is overturned, we Catholics will be compelled either to violate our consciences, or to drop health coverage for our employees (and suffer the penalties for doing so). The Administration’s sole concession was to give our institutions one year to comply.
We cannot—we will not—comply with this unjust law.
People of faith cannot be made second class citizens. We are already joined by our brothers and sisters of all faiths and many others of good will in this important effort to regain our religious freedom. Our parents and grandparents did not come to these shores to help build America’s cities and towns, its infrastructure and institutions, its enterprise and culture, only to have their posterity stripped of their God given rights. In generations past, the Church has always been able to count on the faithful to stand up and protect her sacred rights and duties. I hope and trust she can count on this generation of Catholics to do the same. Our children and grandchildren deserve nothing less.
And therefore, I would ask of you two things. First, as a community of faith we must commit ourselves to prayer and fasting that wisdom and justice may prevail, and religious liberty may be restored. Without God, we can do nothing; with God, nothing is impossible. Second, I would also recommend visiting www.usccb.org/conscience, to learn more about this severe assault on religious liberty, and how to contact Congress in support of legislation that would reverse the Administration’s decision.
-Bishop Armando X. Ochoa
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