God, You are my Strength and my Song – Walk in Faith – Wrestling with Temptation – First Sunday of Lent Day 5- Matthew 4:1-11 

Vincentian Day of Prayer and Fast

God, You are my Strength and my Song

You are the reason for my joy. Fill me with your Holy Spirit; you are my strength and my song. You are the reason for my joy. Fill me with your Holy Spirit, and drive away the forces of discouragement and despair. Jesus, I trust in you! St. Teresa of Calcutta prays for us! Jesus, I trust in you! St. Teresa of Calcutta prays for us!  I know you are with me and I suffer when I drift from you.  You are my rock, my strength.  I search for you in every person I serve.  My goal is always to lift them from poverty and so I raise my hands up to you so you will know I need your help.  You are the ultimate strength in all we do.  We are never afraid to call on you.  We always share with you who we think needs the most help.  Even though we know you already know we need your guidance and so we call out to you to give to us the strength and knowledge we need.   You are definitely our strength, so we always put out trust in you.

Walk in Faith

Mother Mary is right there with us, granting her graces and lovingly pushing us forth towards her son, Jesus, so that we will be able to continue each day to put one foot in front of the other to walk in faith.

We walk in Faith with our Vincentian Family.  We are a family which shares our love, our success and our Failure.  We stand together in Faith.  We share our faith and teachings always.  We need each other.  No one person is always right or has all the answers.  We walk in faith tenderly and with prayer. We are a family who has the same goals.  We cannot ever do this alone.  We must always pray and read Scripture to bring us to a love which is like God’s. Our common Goal is to lift the poor and give hope.  It is the most important.

Wrestling with Temptation

Let us remember this: at the moment of temptation, of our temptations, there is no arguing with Satan, our defense must always be the Word of God! And this will save us. Trust God to do in us what we cannot do for ourselves.  We have to admit to trying to take the easy road even though we are called to take the high road.  Our messages come to us each day.  When we feel unsure and are tempted, it is time to pray and lay it at the feet of Jesus. Temptation is always before us and that of our friends the poor, our Gospel for the first Sunday of Lent is the story of the temptation in the desert. At every point in the Gospels, we are meant to identify and encounter Jesus. Jesus has just been baptized; He has just learned His deepest identity and mission. And now He confronts—as we all must—the great temptations. What precisely is entailed in being the beloved Son of God?

First Sunday of Lent Day 5 – Matthew 4:1-11

The temptation of Christ in the desert.  No one is immune to temptation, even Jesus.  Satan does not discriminate.   What precisely is entailed in being the beloved Son of God?  With God, change is very possible — and joyful!  Have you noticed that when you’ve made great progress on your spiritual journey, Jesus smiles at you and says, “Ahhh!, this is good, very good”! The Father and I are very pleased with you.” But then he adds: “There’s something else I want you to do.” He knocks you off your chair of cozy self-contentment and invites you to more purification.  I never get tired of this. I don’t like people pushing me around.  But I love it when God does it.  He means business and it is good business.  I hope you look to the Gospel when lost, it truly gives us a boost. Matthew is generally the Gospel I turn to first.

Have a wonderful Lenten Experience

Blessings,

Lynn