Fr. Craghan offers us a reflection on today's readings. His words are worth reading and contemplating.

"Advertisers would have us believe that life is to be lived without limitations or restraint. After all, we only go around once! Today's readings discuss life and death, the reality of coping with limitations. They powerfully urge that a life without limits is not a genuine life.

The author of the Garden of Eden account shows us that limitation is a fact of life, indeed the condition for living. To live to the fullest means to exercise freedom by accepting restraints. To be fully alive means to opt for good in the face of evil. The dilemma of the couple in the garden (and of every human) is to accept full life by acknowledging the limits necessary to our authentic existence.

In his Letter to the Romans, Paul comments on the garden story against the background of the life and death of Jesus. Paul understands sin as the tremendous power unleashed upon the world from the time of the first sin. Death for Paul is deprivation of community with God, making authentic living impossible. Life is intimacy with God and the fullness of existence. Jesus accepted the limitations of death on a cross and so humankind has the opportunity to be fully alive.

The gospel presents Satan's three temptations of Jesus. The Messiah will not accept the popular notion that he should be a temporal, political ruler. He realizes full well that God's plan for the kingdom involves limitations. The kingdom will be realized through a different form of power.

Temptations abound in our living. We are urged to reject limitations in the matter of our neighbor's spouse or reputation or money. We are tempted to exceed the limits of justice in accepting racism and prejudice. The authors of today's Scriptures tell us to make resisting temptation the raw material for genuine existence. They tell us: Promote life, accept limits"

On another note. Tuesday's meeting to discuss the future of the Confirmation program is open to anyone in the parish. We will meet in Prinster at 7:30 p.m. and should finish by 9:00. No decision has been made yet. This is a time for me to present some ideas and to listen to others. May your Lent be a time of reconciliation and peace. May your Lenten practices bring you closer to the love of the Father and that may you feel more deeply the merciful forgiveness of Jesus' saving death and resurrection.