First Sunday of Lent 2026

First Sunday of Lent: Facing Temptation with Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving | Mary’s Message Podcast

Cristy Murray and Father Perry Kenaston open the Lenten season on the First Sunday of Lent with prayer and a reflection on Jesus’ temptations in the desert. Father Perry connects the Gospel to everyday struggles such as doubt, sexual temptation, anger, gossip, and workplace compromises, emphasizing that temptation is part of the human condition and differs from giving in. He outlines three core temptations—self-centeredness, ignoring God by acting as the arbiter of morality, and sacrificing faith for power or advancement—and invites listeners to ask Jesus how to have a better Lent and become more like Him. The episode highlights the three Lenten practices as spiritual “weapons”: strengthening prayer through a schedule, fasting that targets unhealthy habits rather than superficial sacrifices, and almsgiving as concrete outreach to others. Father Perry also encourages a kind of spiritual “spring cleaning,” giving Jesus permission to prune spiritual baggage and surrender to God’s work. The hosts mention a brief technical interruption, discuss local weather in Anchorage and Fairbanks, note parish Lenten ceremonies sending candidates to the Rite of Election, invite listeners to subscribe to the new newsletter via QR code or show notes for comments and spiritual direction, and close with the Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, and a final blessing.

00:00 Welcome to Mary’s Message
00:39 Opening Prayer for Lent
01:41 Gospel Temptations Overview
02:59 Three Temptations Explained
04:28 Technical Glitch and Return
05:26 Tempting God and Morality
06:55 Power vs Faithfulness
07:53 Lenten Weapons Three Practices
08:36 Fasting with Real Intent
11:43 Almsgiving and Serving Others
13:20 Everyday Temptations and Driving
15:02 Spiritual Spring Cleaning Surrender
18:50 RCIA and Letting Jesus Prune
21:50 Wrap Up Newsletter and Subscribe
23:07 Closing Prayers and Blessing

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Transcript

Restream recording Feb 22, 2026 • 01:31:37 AM 0:01

Welcome to Mary's Message, leading Hearts to Jesus Today, the podcast where we listen to the voice of the blessed mother and allow her to guide us ever closer to her son in our modern world. I'm Kristi Murray, along with Father Perry Kenton, and each week we explore stories of faith, conversations with Catholic voices and practical spiritual tools to help you encounter Christ more deeply. In a world longing for peace and clarity, Mary continues to speak to her children with love, hope, and a mother's gentle wisdom. Thank you for joining us as we open our hearts to Mary's message and let her lead us into the loving embrace of Jesus. And since it's Lent, we are starting our Lenten season. So Father Perry, um, today is the first Sunday of Lent and I will have you start us in prayer. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Heavenly Father, we come before you today and we ask you to continue to bless each of us, and especially during this season of Lent. Share with us your wisdom and understanding and ask of us to be brave enough to ask you the question, Jesus, what is there that I need to do to have a better lent and at the same time become more like you. The first, first Sunday of Lent, you know, there's, it has to deal with temptations, et cetera, and I prepared a, a brief. Reflection in reference to that. And the purpose of the, the next four or five Sundays will be, uh, a reflection on each of the Sundays. So let's begin. As you well know, lead began last Wednesday, Ash Wednesday, this Sunday's Gospel is an account of the temptation to the Lord. The account of his temptation is always presented on the first Sunday of Lent because it notes that the Lord fasted for 40 days. Many times people will say to me or to you, usually in confession, that they have had the temptation of doubt, God, or that they have had to find out. Temptations of the sexual nature or temptations to hurt another person physically, or the type of gossip that would destroy the person's life. For example, someone might be tempted to tell a superior at work or at school that someone who is a applying for a position that he or she wants is fighting alcoholism or some other chemical dependency. Temptations are part of the human condition. In fact, if you no longer experience any temptation in your life, you're probably dead. Temptations are having a temptation and giving in temptations are two different things. The three temptations the Lord withstood are really temptations that confront all of us. Petition temptation to be self-centered, the temptation to ignore God and the temptation to sacrifice our Christianity to power and authority. Let's, for example, take these stones and turn them into bread is echoed by us when we make the goal of our lives, keeping our stomachs full, or basically being selfish, man does not live on bread alone. Jesus counters. Our lives are certainly empty. When we are self centered. We need God. We need this word to give us purpose. What will remain of us 500 years from now here on earth. We will all be gone and probably forgotten, but there is part of us that can remain here on earth. There is part of us that will last. That part of us is the presence of the Lord. You and I have strived with real power in the world. There is nothing self-centered in living for the Lord.

Restream recording Feb 22, 2026 • 01:42:10 AM 4:28

All right. Welcome back. We are resuming. We just had a little bit of technical difficulty, but we are back now. Okay. I know, I remember you were talking about someone who's applying for a job and then there's like gossip and temptation. Yeah. Okay. So, 'cause you could dump something, but. Hi, welcome back. We had a small technical difficulty. It seems that the battery was low and I didn't know my battery and it, its battery was low too. So I have to go to Walmart to get a battery for myself. Please God. But there is part of us that can remain here on Earth. There is part of us that will, will, will last. That part of us is the presence of the Lord. That you and I have strived to make real in the world. There's nothing self-centered in living for the Lord leap from the top of the temple and force God to save you. The devil tempts Jesus. It is the temptation that somehow you, we have a power over God. Just as the devil tempted Adam and Eve to disobey God and become equal to him, I don't think any of us believes. That we can be more powerful than God or that we can force God into actions on our behalf. But I think that there are, we are tempted to follow the revelent, the world's thinking, and see ourselves as the center of the universe when we say that our choices in life depends on our own desires, not one. Of us is objective enough either right or wrong or more. When we say that we determine morality in our ourselves. We act as though we are little Gods Pope Benedict wrote about the scourge of and modern man sacrifice principles, his own selfish desires. Who are we to tell God what is right and wrong? Who are we to tell God that he know needs to accept our choices, even if they are against objective morality? We do not have the right to tempt our God. The final temptation brought before Jesus was a temptation to sacrifice our faith for the sake of a power. This might not seem to apply to us until we consider the question of the Lord to his disciples. What prophet is there for man to gain the whole world, but sacrifices for itself. People in the business world are tempted to make compromises in their Christianity, to advance their career. Even in the home, people will push Christianity charity aside in order to assert their position in the marriage and family. I used to say the Pilgrims prayer. Lord Jesus, we have mercy. Have mercy on me as sinner. I have refined it to say, Lord Jesus, have mercy on me, an arrogant sinner. We spend the 40 days of lent during doing battle against these and all the temptations we have to push God outside of our lives. The weapons we use in our war for the Lord are the three main practices of Lent prayer, fasting, and alms giving. During Lent, we strengthen our prayer life, our communication with God. Perhaps this means formulating a new prayer schedule. Maybe we need to add evening prayers to our routine and say them before dinner. Or perhaps we can add my night prayers immediately before we go to bed. Next one is fasting. Huh? Oh, now fasting could be interesting during the Lent. When we, when we have a fast, what does that mean to us? Are we giving something up? Is there little? It could be that piece of candy. Oh, you got any chocolate bars laying around loose? Throw 'em away. Especially for Glen if you want that extra cup of soup, give it to the poor. There's nothing about giving up candy it says, but continuing to feed an unhealthy practice that has become root routinely, such as drinking to excess, watching other things. Giving up something for Lent is meaningless. If we do this while our, we are planning to attend a party where we know we will get wasted. It is silly to stop eating ice cream while we are looking at certain things that we shouldn't be looking at. If we want to be an Easter people, we have got to get in control of ourselves. That's the mandate. Huh? So if you're watching tv, turn it off or maybe throw away the. Throw away the clicker to the microwave. Hide the remote. Well, if you hide the remote, then when it comes time to find it, then you can't find it. What if you lock it and then you time it to open after lent? Well, that's an idea. Telephones, you know, telephones have got that. Find me phone thingy on it. I don't know if the remotes have that same thing, but I have a tendency sometimes. To lose my iPhone. Sometimes it's right in front of me one day. I remember that quite clearly. It's at the church that I'm working with. It sees three of us hunted for an hour, trying to find that Turkey. I'm talking about the cell phone now, not the Turkey, but it's a, oh my God. I looked and looked and looked and looked and then we finally went back into the car and you know what my, my friends. That that iPhone was right where I put it and it was laying right there on the, the handle box that that's in the car. And one of them said to me, father, you know what you need to do? You need to put a string on the iPhone and the other string around your neck. And I thought to myself, that could be disastrous. Iry wouldn't hurt the iPhone anyway. It could desert. It could really hurt me. Especially if I lost that Turkey. I couldn't find it then I couldn't breathe. But that's alright. I'm a Catholic priest. I can go ahead and say last rights any day, so, okay. Yeah. And, uh, our lenon practices should not be limited to prayer and fasting, if that is all we do. Then we can easily turn into ourselves. This is why the third Lenin practice is so important. Alms giving alms giving takes it name from the act of giving money to the poor, but it is much more than that. Alms giving is getting is letting ourselves and reaching out to others. This might mean something as simply as helping an elderly person. With your yard work? Of course, right now, it'd probably be a little difficult when you have, I look out the window here and I have 350 feet of snow. Uh, that's, that's an exaggeration. That will be, but the snow that we have here now, it's been so cold that it's blocks of ice. So I saw when the snow first started, I saw a bunch of individuals, young, young people and everything else with snow shovels. And you know, they'd go up to the somebody and say, you want your walk shovel, and everything else like that. And of course they said yes. And you know the little kids, you know, they got some spending money. So all well and good. Yeah. We spend the 40 days of land to join him Jesus. And saving others for the one who has life. Dwells within each of, has intimately involved us in the transformation of the world that we live in. Which is the Kingdom of God. So the first Sunday of Lead is all about temptations. So alls we have to do now, my friends, is look at all the temptations that are around us. And if you want, if you get brave enough to go on the highway and drive those temptations out there, be sure to leave the. The jackhammers and the guns and the baseball bats at home, because you might have a temptation who might wanna use those turkeys, especially the way some people drive. I swear some of these people, they, when they try, they're supposed to be 30 miles an hour and they're going 60, and I'm, I'm fighting. I'm sitting there and they're about maybe a half an inch away from my door. Oh. And you just have to answer. You just have to say, well, praise the Lord. The guy knows how to drive. That's what you're supposed to say anyway. Boy, is it hard And some, some people they just don't understand that you're supposed to drive the road, the conditions. That's why I generally, I generally try when I leave my apartment about 20, 25 miles an hour and that way I'm set at the way that I get there. Other people just passed me up. Some of them look at me and sheer words, but that's okay. I can't hear 'em. So that's already cool. But, you know, but temptations is one thing, and then there's, there's other, the other, other things too, you know, but hey, that's part of it. Remember also, one thing that's that's really, really important is that. Spring, spring cleaning is, is always lit so long as you have to know. Repeat this again because it's true even for myself. And that's the case that if, that, if you have a, a lot of stuff that you've accumulated, especially for those of you who are who've got houses and things of that sort, and you have a garage. Sometimes it's necessary, especially during spring cleaning time, to look in the garage and ask yourself these questions. Ask yourself the question, do I really need all that stuff that I need in the garage? It's all those treasures. Oh, right. And those treasures that you've had for 30 years, when are you gonna get rid of 'em? Eventually you have to, but you know. Maybe they, they, you just like to look at 'em, you get outta a camping stool and just look at all the stuff you've accumulated over 30 years. And then of course, this same idea goes for your spiritual life too. We live, well in many years. We've accumulated spiritual baggage and guess what? My friends. That's a time for Lent, giving permission to Jesus, saying, Lord, I give you permission to prune me in any area that I need to be pruned in so I can become more like you and more loving like you. And just let him do it. Sit as Martha and Mary. You know, Mary was the one that sat at the master's feet. Just sit there and just let it go. Let it go and see what happens. See what kind of an Easter present he can give you if you just let go and let God do everything. So, and I've said this to you before, you sit there at the Master's feet and you shut up. You don't have to worry about what's he's gonna do because you just turn your will over to him and say, okay, Lord, I'm that new vessel. You're the potter and I am the clay. Just have at it and guess what? You'll be surprised. Oh my God, you'll definitely be surprised. 'cause once you give them permission to prune you and, um, and make sure that you're the, the potter and the clay syndrome thing. They all go in ahead and they're gonna take you and they're gonna put you on the ground and they're gonna stomp on you. That's probably too strong, but, but it's, it's just the idea that you just gotta lend some time to have some fun. Just let him prune what, what he needs to prune so you can become more loving like him. And I think that's good enough. I'm sure for, for like during Lent, are temptations stronger? Are we tempted more because it's Lent or, well, it all depends, your disposition. So, you know, you can sit there in TV and you can do one thing, or you can sit there and do a TV with a bag of popcorn and a pop and a beer in Zoom home. Well, I'm good to go here. Len season is right here. They're gonna have a, they're gonna have a special mass at some of the churches today to, uh, for all the candidates that are preparing for, they're entering into the church. Uh, I know the church that I, that I go to, the five 30 mass tonight is a sending forth mass all the people that are studying for priest for the. You know, for the holy communion, et cetera there, there's a special ceremony that they do before they go through the actual ceremony tomorrow on Sunday, and it's called Ascending Forth one. And that's just when the pastor says, okay, all the candidates come forward and in the name of Jesus and in the name of this parish, we send you to the right of election. And that's it. They're on their way And come Easter. All of them will be brought into the church and, and in time, all those that are studying for confirmation will be confirmed too. So that's a good time just to relax, enjoy, and just let, and just like I said, let Jesus prune you in the way that he wants you to be pruned, surrender, just like. Mary did at the feet of Jesus. So anyway, hopefully that's enough. Hopefully that that's part of Temptations. The other part is just, there's a little shit away. There's a, a refrigerator thing. It calls Laura, gimme patience. Then it says below that, but now, Hmm. Oh my God. You gotta have patience with the Lord. He is got patience with us, so we should have patience with him. So besides that, my friends, as we broadcast this thing today, we have blue sky sunshine. It's, it's about 25 30 degrees today here in Anchorage. I am not gonna tell you how cold it is in Fairbanks unless you're sitting down. Because if you're sitting down, I can tell you it's minus 35. So maybe the person that you're listening with me knows CPR, but when you hear, when you hear minus 35, that's cold. So anyway, I guess that's it. I have no idea. Okay. I don't have any other questions. Oh good. It's plugging in. It's charging now. Okay. Praise the Lord. So that is it for this Sunday. Do you have anything more, father Perry? Well, no, just, uh, just enjoy the weather. Uh, just enjoy everything and we'll talk to you next Sunday, on the second Sunday of Flint. Okay, so I wanted to remind everyone that we do have our, um, newsletter subscription page ready now. So if you scan the QR code, if you're watching on YouTube, scan the QR code, it'll take to a page. Welcome to our newsletter. So you can send us your comments or questions and, um, seek spiritual direction from Father Perry. And if you're on podcast, um, just click on the link in the show notes. And we will, um, get you on our newsletter and send you some prayers. So thank you for joining us today on Mary's message, leading Hearts to Jesus today. If this conversation brought you closer to Jesus, I invite you to subscribe. Leave us a five star review and share this episode, but someone who needs a little hope every time you do you help Mary's message, reach more hearts. And for links and resources and ways to stay connected, be sure to check out the show notes below. And until next time, may Mary's message echo in your heart and lead you ever closer to the loving embrace of Christ. Oh can you say a closing prayer? We didn't. We forgot the father and son, the Holy Spirit. Amen. I think it would be really appropriate today to do the following. Let's begin with the Our Father. Our Father who art in heaven, halla, be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. On earth is in heaven. Give us a stay our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses. As we forgive those who trespassed against us and lead us not into ation, but deliver us from evil. Amen. I'll Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women and blessed as you. Fruit of you. Woo Jesus, holy Mary, and mother of God, pray for us sinners now the of our death. Amen. Glory be to the Father and to the Son of the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning is now and never shall be. World without in. Amen. The Lord be with you. Amen. God bless us, the Father, this Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Have a nice week, guys. All right. See you next week.