Greetings. Happy first of Lent to all fellow Christians on steemit. It's our Sabbath day, hope We all went and worshipped God.

Preface:

As i've been doing on every Sunday, I wish to share with you again guys about today's homily (Sermon) from my church minister but before then, permit me to tell you what I've been doing lately which it feels to me somehow weird.

Lately, I've developed this habit of paying 95% attention to the homily (preaching) and 5% jotting down some key points with the aim of publishing it after the church service.

This development however started feeling crazy to me in the sense I've been having this feeling that I ought to devote 100% of my time listening to the preaching however, I can't conclude. I would love to read your observations/suggestions in the comment section please.

About Today's Homily

Just like other days I worshiped God today with the the Christian community of Saint Elizabeth Catholic Church Akiama, Bonny Island Rivers State Nigeria What3words

^{Congregations during theass}

Today been 6th of March is the 1st Sunday of lent.
for non-Catholics please check my Post published on Wednesday last week to know what Lenten period is.
During the service, readings were carried out accordingly as usual. See the readings in a tabular form below:

Readings	Bible
FIRST READING	Deuteronomy 26:4—10
RESPONSORIAL PSALM	Psalm 91:1—2, 10—11, 12—13, 14—15 (see 15b)
SECOND READING	Romans 10:8—13
GOSPEL ACCLAMATION	Matthew 4:4b
GOSPEL	Luke 4:1—13

Summary of the First Reading

• The first reading is centered on Thanksgiving. It narrates how Moses was speaking to the people of Israel about the priest taking the first basket of fruit from their hand and place it before the lord's altar.
  He (Moses) instructed them of the response they shall make before God. The response is about a wandering Aramean who went down and sojournered there, although few but later became a nation, great and mighty . And now he (The Aramean ) brought and gave the fertile land to them the Israelites.

Summary of the Second reading

• The second reading centered on strengthening our Faith in the Lord. According to the letter of Saint Paul to the Romans, anyone who confesses with his lips that Jesus is lord and also believe that God raised him up on the third day from the dead, he/she will surely be saved.

Summary of the Gospel

• The gospel for today centered on temptations.
  It narrates how the devil tempted Jesus after fasting for 40 days and nights.

The Homily

The homily for today also was carried out by the parish priest who celebrated the mass, Rev. Fr.Dr. Godspower Amele.

^{The priest preaching}

The homily started at 8:22am. In his Preaching which he emphasized on "Temptations"/ Overcoming temptations, the priest began by saying life is all about journey...given example on how a child transmit from infancy to education then ambition.
He furthered that, the Lenten season is a very important journey in the life of Christians.

About 3 importance of Lenten season, he mentioned

• Arms giving
• Prayer
• Thanksgiving.

Explaining each of the importance The priest said, Arms giving will deepen our love for our neighbours. Concerning prayer he stated, we communicate with God through prayers and as well deepen the knowledge of ourselves in Thanksgiving .

During this season of lent the priest said, a prayer we should say during this always is the PSALMs for today.

Stressing the need of prayer he lingered that, Nigeria as a country need the prayer, many people are in distress and they need prayers also.

According to him , In this journey of life, we forget easily how we started...Paul reminded the people to confess themselves to the faith.

Referring to the gospel reading for today the priest said that, during Jesus baptism,the proclamation, the Devil was there that was whyin his first temptation he said

"If you're the true son of God command these stones to become bread."

"On the journey of success man almost lost faith in God. Also on the journey of life, before you make it in life there's always a comment of temptation." So said the priest.

He continued, Israelites were conquered and cried out to Moses . They encountered many temptation, they lost patience and asked aron to make them an idol.
They also complained when they were tasty .they were unable to control their appetite, their anger.

Coming to ourselves he rhetorically asked, What about you and ourselves..the Devil test us at the point of our strength. He tests us on what we need.
As long as you're alive, as long as you're living the Devil will want to disgrace you with temptation.

^{Me before the mass}

He warned us to be very careful with our appetite and pride which he mentioned repeatedly.. giving example on today's families.

"Be careful of your power, your authority also..the Devil will want to destroy it. Learn to control"The priest added.

He ended with a story his homily with this story at 8:50am:

3 boarding students decided to loose 3 tied goats in the school. But before they loose the goats, they labeled the first goat goat 1, second goat as goat 2 but the 3 goat they labeled it goats 4 instead of 3.

So it happened that when the authority discovered that the goats has been loose, they tried to searching for the goat and found got 1, 2 and 4. Unknowingly for them, they continued looking for the 3 goat as their thoughts has it but only looked for it in vain.

He then urged members that,
During this season, do not look for goat no 3 that never existed.

Goat no 3 always comes with temptation.
We pray never to involve, waste our time for goat no 3 this season. He prayed that we shall never search for it in Jesus name.
Thanks for reading.

Cc:
@focusnow
@ijelady
@steem-alive
@steemalive

God bless our new week with love and happiness