Notes for contemplation from the Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent -18th February 2024

Fr. Marcus Ronchetti – St Paul’s Athens

• The Gospel, representation of the Trinity – This is my Son with whom I am well pleased.
• Blessings Abound
• Then into the Wilderness. Thinking, being tempted, focussing. How best to share what he has, what he knows, who he is? Decides to tell stories, and in so doing changes the world.
• Stories mean stuff. They convey truths and take us deeper into all of our relationships. So here are a couple for you as we begin Lent.

• Stop car to watch beautiful sunset. Sense of awe and wonder, and you focus on God.
• Time passes. Car, shopping, ready meals, crap tv, mind numbing! bookface / tictoc. Gossip with friends about your other friends, and before you know it you are making judgements.
• Why do I let myself get spun out to the edges of my enjoyment and fill my time with ‘Stuff, when I absolutely know where there is Bliss.

• Inherit a beautiful mansion. Brilliant specifications, beautifully furnished and decorated. Big four poster beds, wonderfully appointed kitchen etc etc. Go and look – absolute joy – but you don’t have keys.
• Live in a tent round the back.
• Weekend, BBQ friends and relatives come and look. Beautiful.
• Ladder up to look in the bedroom windows. Wow. So nice. Yes, well I like it – but i don’t have the keys.
• Later on, speaking to your Spiritual director or whoever. And you tell them all about it. They say, what do you mean you don’t have the keys. You live in the mansion. Oh, I am not worthy to even think about living in there. But you do. Confusion. Jesus calls it darkness.
• It is not the real you. Your shadow self. Your ego that drags you down.

The real you is made in the image of God, and he loves you, and continues to love you day by day. Our Lenten task is to accept who we are and how much we are loved and perhaps to try and let go of the things that get in the way