Today, on the First Sunday of Lent, the church leads us into the desert with Jesus Christ. The Gospel from the Gospel of Matthew presents the powerful story of His temptation - a story that is not only about Him, but about us. After the Baptism of Jesus, He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. The desert is not a place of punishment, it is a place of preparation. Before beginning His public ministry, before preaching, healing and saving, Jesus fasts and prays for forty days.

On the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time. In today's Gospel, Jesus continues the Sermon on the Mount, and He brings us deeper - much deeper- into what it truly means to live as His disciples. At first, His words may sound demanding, even unsettling. But if we listen carefully, we discover that Jesus is not trying to burden us, He is trying to free us.

On the Fifth Sunday in ordinary Time, in Gospel Jesus speaks to His disciples and to us with words that are both affirming and challenging. He does not say, "Try to become salt," or "One day you might be light," He says clearly and confidently: "You are the salt of the earth. you are the light of the world." This means that by our baptism, by our relationship with Christ, we already carry a mission. The question is not whether we are salt and light, but whether we are living as salt and light in the world.

On the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, we hear one of the most familiar and yet most challenging passages in all of Scripture: the Beatitudes. At the beginning of His public ministry, Jesus goes up the mountain, sits down like a teacher and opens his mouth to speak. What He says is not a list of rules, not a moral code, not even a set of commands. Indeed, Jesus speaks words of blessing.