While all the confused western world watches and reads Fifty Shades of Grey, which elevates the degrading practices of bondage-discipline-sado-masochism, the church instead invites us to impose our own spiritual self-discipline during the six weeks of Lent: more prayer, more repentance, more fasting, more charity and almsgiving, all to be done with joy and without drawing attention to oneself.  Today’s gospel describes how Jesus prepares himself for his public ministry by 40 days of fasting in the wilderness.  Download today’s readings here:

Word format: Year B Lent 1st Sunday

Pdf format: Year B Lent 1st Sunday

What does all this have to do with the picture of Noah shown above?  Listen to Fr Barron’s homily here:

 

… and for a Scripture Study on these readings, go to Dr Michael Barber’s commentary here.

By the way, if you want an entertaining read about where the craze for Fifty Shades of Grey comes from, you can’t do better than Fr Dwight Longenecker’s Why Sado-Masochism is going to be huge and his excerpt from The Gargoyle Code, Pipteazle on Porn for Gals.  Seriously though, it’s scary that so many people are taking the wide and easy road to a place that ends in spiritual death.  Please pray for them.  By the way, no, I haven’t read it – the Wikipedia entry was enough for me to get a general idea.