FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT (YEAR A) - MARCH 09, 2014

Saturday, March 08, 2014 

1st Sunday of LENT – Year A

5:00 pm  Novena to Our Lady 

5:30 pm  Sunset Mass in English

First Reading 

GENESIS 2:7-9, 3:1-7

7 Yahweh God shaped man from the soil of the ground and blew the breath of life into his nostrils, and man became a living being.

8 Yahweh God planted a garden in Eden, which is in the east, and there he put the man he had fashioned.

9 From the soil, Yahweh God caused to grow every kind of tree, enticing to look at and good to eat, with the tree of life in the middle of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

1 Now, the snake was the most subtle of all the wild animals that Yahweh God had made. It asked the woman, 'Did God really say you were not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?'

2 The woman answered the snake, 'We may eat the fruit of the trees in the garden.

3 But of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden God said, "You must not eat it, nor touch it, under pain of death." '

4 Then the snake said to the woman, 'No! You will not die!

5 God knows in fact that the day you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good from evil.'

6 The woman saw that the tree was good to eat and pleasing to the eye, and that it was enticing for the wisdom that it could give. So she took some of its fruit and ate it. She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it.

7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realised that they were naked. So they sewed fig-leaves together to make themselves loin-cloths.

“The Word of the Lord”

PSALMS 50:3-6, 12-14, 17

3 he is coming, our God, and will not be silent. Devouring fire ahead of him, raging tempest around him,

4 he summons the heavens from on high, and the earth to judge his people.

5 'Gather to me my faithful, who sealed my covenant by sacrifice.'

6 The heavens proclaim his saving justice, 'God himself is judge.'Pause

12 'If I am hungry I shall not tell you, since the world and all it holds is mine.

13 Am I to eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?

14 'Let thanksgiving be your sacrifice to God, fulfil the vows you make to the Most High;

17 when you detest my teaching, and thrust my words behind you?

Second Reading 

ROMANS 5:12-19

12 Well then; it was through one man that sin came into the world, and through sin death, and thus death has spread through the whole human race because everyone has sinned.

13 Sin already existed in the world before there was any law, even though sin is not reckoned when there is no law.

14 Nonetheless death reigned over all from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sin was not the breaking of a commandment, as Adam's was. He prefigured the One who was to come . . .

15 There is no comparison between the free gift and the offence. If death came to many through the offence of one man, how much greater an effect the grace of God has had, coming to so many and so plentifully as a free gift through the one man Jesus Christ!

16 Again, there is no comparison between the gift and the offence of one man. One single offence brought condemnation, but now, after many offences, have come the free gift and so acquittal!

17 It was by one man's offence that death came to reign over all, but how much greater the reign in life of those who receive the fullness of grace and the gift of saving justice, through the one man, Jesus Christ.

18 One man's offence brought condemnation on all humanity; and one man's good act has brought justification and life to all humanity.

19 Just as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man's obedience are many to be made upright.

“The Word of the Lord”

Gospel Reading 

MATTHEW 4:1-11

1 Again he began to teach them by the lakeside, but such a huge crowd gathered round him that he got into a boat on the water and sat there. The whole crowd were at the lakeside on land.

2 He taught them many things in parables, and in the course of his teaching he said to them,

3 'Listen! Imagine a sower going out to sow.

4 Now it happened that, as he sowed, some of the seed fell on the edge of the path, and the birds came and ate it up.

5 Some seed fell on rocky ground where it found little soil and at once sprang up, because there was no depth of earth;

6 and when the sun came up it was scorched and, not having any roots, it withered away.

7 Some seed fell into thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it produced no crop.

8 And some seeds fell into rich soil, grew tall and strong, and produced a good crop; the yield was thirty, sixty, even a hundredfold.'

9 And he said, 'Anyone who has ears for listening should listen!'

10 When he was alone, the Twelve, together with the others who formed his company, asked what the parables meant.

11 He told them, 'To you is granted the secret of the kingdom of God, but to those who are outside everything comes in parables,

“The Gospel of the Lord”