22 Feb 2026 – 1st Sunday of Lent (A)
22 Feb 2026 – 1st Sunday of Lent (A)
During Lent we may reflect on our Baptism as a sharing in the life of Jesus. Our growing in the image of God has an aspect of dying to self and another aspect of rising to God’s new life of love. The seed of this movement or growth was planted in us when we were first reconciled to God in the grace and sacrament of our rebirth.
(1) Genesis 2:7-9, 3:1-7
How sin came into our world
The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, “You shall not eat from any tree in the garden”?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.”
But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.
Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.
Responsorial: Psalm 50: 3-6, 12-14, 17
Response: Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned
Have mercy on me, God, in your kindness.
In your compassion blot out my offence.
O wash me more and more from my guilt
and cleanse me from my sin. (R./)
My offences truly I know them;
my sin is always before me.
Against you, you alone, have I sinned;
what is evil in your sight I have done. (R./)
A pure heart create for me, O God,
put a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from your presence,
nor deprive me of your holy spirit. (R./)
Give me again the joy of your help;
with a spirit of fervour sustain me.
O Lord, open my lips
and my mouth shall declare your praise. (R./)
(2) Romans 5:12-19
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned — sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned when there is no law. Yet death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come.
But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many.
And the free gift is not like the effect of the one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification. If, because of the one man’s trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.
Gospel: Matthew 4:1-11
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.””
Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, “He will command his angels concerning you,” and “On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour; and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”
Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”” Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.
Shun not the Struggle
A reflective way of looking at life is to see it as a struggle between sin and grace, selfishness and holiness. Our time on earth will be successful in the measure that we put aside sin and try to live by the grace of God. Today’s Scriptures show two contrasting reactions to temptation. The first humans, Adam and Eve, are imagined as preferring their own inclinations to the will of God. Jesus, the Saviour, on the contrary resisted temptation, remaining faithful to what God the Father required of him. St Paul reflects on how these choices affect ourselves: Adam’s sin brought trouble on all, but we are saved and offered new life because of the fidelity of Christ.
An old priest who was blind for many years before his death, liked to urge his penitents to renew their efforts with these inspirational lines:
“We are not here to play,
to dream, to drift.
We have good work to do,
and loads to lift.
Shun not the struggle.
Face it. �Tis God’s gift.”
Temptation in one form or another is an unavoidable part of life. If we honestly examine our daily experience, we can find many aspects of temptation: impulses or tendencies counter to the right way of doing things. To rationalise away these temptations, so that they become socially acceptable and politically correct — is itself an insidious temptation. We want to dictate for ourselves what is right and wrong, to draw for ourselves the boundaries of “acceptable” behaviour, unencumbered by any notional commandments of God. This is rather like Adam demanding to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Our real growth to Christian maturity comes by acknowledging and accepting the vocation of struggling against temptation, to achieve the kind of behaviour and attitudes Jesus expects. We must submit our behaviour to his gospel. Christ and Adam show the two opposite reactions in face of temptation: Adam, archetype of sinful, evasive, self-seeking humanity, finds plausible reasons to yield to it, and rebels against God’s will. Jesus, archetype of the new God-seeking man, resists temptation even repeatedly. It can only be conquered by this blend of patience and loyalty, supported by trust that what God requires of us is what is best for us.
The right options
Since he was alone in the desert, only Jesus himself knew what he felt. The implication of the temptation story is that he had to struggle within himself to find the best way to live his life for God. We ordinary mortals will hardly imagine ourselves turning stones into bread; but in the first temptation Jesus seems to toy with the possibility of providing a limitless supply of bread for people, like the daily dole-out of food by which Roman emperors kept popular with their followers. But Jesus saw how a focus on food and drink can lead to forgetting spiritual values. “Man does not live on bread alone.”
Jesus sensed that his ultimate service to mankind, the effective one that would endure, would be through suffering and the Cross, after which would come the crown. Without his crucifixion and resurrection his message would be forgotten. In every event of life, God is saying something to us too. The story of the Temptations is warns us not to let selfishness govern our lives. We need to be guided by the Holy Spirit, who continues to prompt our conscience throughout our days. Imitate Our Lord by taking up life’s challenges, not with an air of gloomy resignation, but cheerfully accepting what providence may bring. Let Jesus be a major influence in our lives, reflect upon his words and actions with reverence and affection, so as to bring about an inner purification of our minds and wills.
The second temptation was to seek fame and celebrity, and indeed, throughout the next few years the people kept asking him for further miracles. What if he were to throw himself from off the pinnacle of the Temple and be unscathed. But this would be just showmanship. He answered, “You must not put the Lord your God to the test!” as a warning not to be rash and superficial. Finally, in the scene on the mountain-top, seeing all the kingdoms of the world, suggests a temptation to become a political messiah, ruling all nations and having power to impose his will on people, like it or not. He dismisses this notion too, since we will enter into a true union with God only if we are drawn to it in spirit.
Our temptations
The story of Jesus’ temptations is not to be taken lightly. It’s a warning that we can ruin our lives if we stray from the path God wills for us. The first temptation was decisively important. On the surface it is a desire for something innocent and good: why not call on God power to satisfy our hunger. “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves of bread,” the tempter says to Jesus. His reply is surprising: “One does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.” We must always seek God’s will above all. At every moment we must listen to God’s Word, seek God’s will.
Our deepest needs are not met by physical food and drink. Human beings need and yearn for more, for spiritual nurture. To help save other people from hunger and misery, we need to listen to God our Father, who awakens in our conscience a hunger for justice and solidarity.
Perhaps our great temptation today is to “change things into bread”, to reduce our desires to what is tangible and consumable. Indiscriminate consumerism is all around us, but it is hardly the way to progress and liberation. A consumerist society leads to emptiness and discontent. Why do the number of suicides keep growing? Why do we barricade ourselves in gated communities, and build walls and barriers to stop hungry people from sharing our prosperity and disturbing our peace?
Jesus wants us to be aware that human beings do not live on bread alone. We also need to nurture the spirit, know love and friendship, develop solidarity with those who suffer, listen to our conscience, open to the ultimate Mystery of sharing, that joins us with God.
Key Message:
When temptation is over, angels will come in.
Homily:
Testimony: In a church on Saturday there was First Confession, and the
following Sunday was First Holy Communion. After Confession, the
teachers told the kids “You are Holy now. Till you receive your first
Holy Communion you should not sin”. One of the children thought and
thought about the sins she would likely commit. She understood that she
may shout at her grandma. So before entering her house, she asked her
mom to tell her grandma to be more kind with her till the next day, so
that she will not have the opportunity to shout back. Now the story
gets interesting. The mom updated her Grandma. But Grandma forgot too
quickly and started shouting. The little now remembered that she
should not shout back and started crying. The Grandma understood her
mistake and both of them enjoyed peace with each other”.
After Baptism, the Holy Spirit led Lord Jesus into the desert to pray.
And our Lord Jesus fasted and prayed for 40 days. Now the devil will
not be excited and throw a red carpet welcome for Jesus to preach. He
chose the weakest moment of our Lord Jesus to make all His fasting and
prayers useless.
Before every public ministry there comes a private testing.
Have you ever said this?
“Tomorrow I will not lose my temper.”
“Tomorrow I will pray more.”
“Tomorrow I will stop this habit.”
And tomorrow comes… and somehow, we are back in the same cycle. Good
intentions are not enough.
The desert is not a punishment:
God leads us to the desert to prepare us. The Israelites were 40
years in the desert to prepare for war.
The Gospel says: “Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be
tempted.” The Holy Spirit led Him there.
Sometimes we think temptation means God abandoned us. No, not at all.
Are you dwelling in your desert days now?
The desert is not where God leaves you. Desert is the place where God
becomes close to you. If the other noises are very loud in your mind,
then how can you listen to the silent soft voice of our God? The
desert is a place where God can speak to you all alone.
Testimony of a cancer survivor: “One day after my fifth chemotherapy,
while I was sitting still, I felt the presence of God all around me.
After that I started enjoying God’s secret presence. The world does
not see who is beside me, but now I know that my Jesus is real and my
Jesus is always beside me. Now I truly enjoy His loving friendship.”
If you are in a desert season right now, dry, tired, tested you are
not outside God’s will.
You may be exactly where your transformation is happening.
Temptation Is Subtle:
We often think temptation is about big dramatic sins. But Satan does
not trouble us with big temptations. He was subtle with Jesus.
He said: “Turn stones into bread.”, “Throw yourself down.”, “Bow and I
will give you everything.”
These were not ugly offers. They were shortcuts. And that is how
temptation works.
Temptation is always subtle, like…
The temptation to do what works instead of what is right.
The temptation to do what is easy and quick.
The temptation to serve yourself.
Does this sound familiar?
The devil rarely says, “Do something evil.”
He always says, “Do something easier.”
The Three Core Temptations:
1. Bread (Physical Appetite)
Our Lord Jesus was hungry. There is nothing wrong with hunger.
But Satan said, “Satisfy yourself outside of God’s timing.”
Temptation often begins with a legitimate desire fulfilled in the
wrong way, like food.
Food is good. But he tempted to obtain in the wrong way.
When desire becomes urgent and controlling, it becomes dangerous.
2. Jump (Pride):
“Prove who you are.” Satan attacks identity.
Satan says, “Show them”, “Prove yourself”, “Make them admire you.”
But Jesus did not need to perform to be loved.
And neither do you.
3. Power (Shortcut to Power or Glory)
Satan tempted : “All this I will give you, without a cross, without
suffering.” It was only instant success.
The temptation to skip obedience and go straight to reward.
How often do we want resurrection without crucifixion?
How did our Lord Jesus win? By refocusing.
HE did not argue nor panic.
He refocused.
Each time He said: “It is written…”, our Lord did not focus on the
tempting words of Satan but He focussed on the Scripture.
The more time we spend meditating on the temptation, the more likely
we will yield to it.
So at that time we should refocus on that action, which we were supposed to do.
Practical Steps for Our Desert:
Step 1: Identify your vulnerable areas:
Do we analyse our weak areas and avoid them?
Step 2: Plan to avoid unnecessary triggers.
If something constantly pulls you down, do not stand next to it.
Move.
Wisdom is spiritual maturity.
Step 3: Guard your heart.
Temptation starts inside.
Negative emotions within us like bitterness and anger tempt us to sin.
Identify your negative emotions and do not yield to them.
Step 4: Pray quickly
Sometimes the most powerful prayer is one word:
“Help!”
God is not annoyed by your struggle. So pray quickly.
If you are unable to pray, then you are saying what is there in
your heart to our Lord Jesus.
Step 5: Refocus
Capture the thought. Shift your attention. Replace the lie with Scripture.
You cannot always control how you feel.
But you can control what you think about.
The Gospel ends beautifully:
“The devil left Him, and angels came and ministered to Him.”
Temptation is not forever.
When you stand firm, help comes.
The Lenten Medicine of Mercy
Pope Francis spoke of the Church as a field hospital, coming to the aid of the wounded. Every year, at a well-timed moment, the Church comes to our aid with the medicines of Lent. We are all wounded by sin, and the medicines the Church proposes include repentance, penance, prayer, holy discipline, good deeds, recollection (mindfulness), spiritual reading, the sacraments–all well-known homely remedies, which restore us to spiritual health. Psalm 50, the Miserere, strikes the keynote of Lent and is itself a vehicle of the graces that flow so freely in this season.
The context of the psalm is mentioned in the words introducing it: ‘A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.’ In fact, David had also committed murder at the service of adultery, by having Bathsheba’s inconvenient husband, Uriah, placed in the front line of the battle against the Ammonites. (He wrote to Joab, his most brutal general: ‘Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, that he may be struck down and die,’ 2 Sam 11:15). We may suppose that David committed both sins with no consciousness of sinning. But Nathan told a story that prompted David to condemn himself out of his own mouth: There was a poor man who ‘had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.’ But a rich man ‘took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man’ and prepared it for a guest of his. ‘David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die!”’ Nathan replies with two words that pierce the conscience of David like a sharp arrow: ‘atta ha-ish… Ýou are the man!’ Unanswerably convicted of transgression and guilt, David acknowledges the truth in two words: ‘chetati le Adonai… I have sinned against the Lord.’ As the chapter shows (2 Samuel 12), it is not only against the Lord that David has sinned. The human wreckage caused by his secret sin includes the disgraceful betrayal of his nation’s honour by having Uriah slain by the enemy. This aspect is not taken up in the psalm, which places the sinner before God, bracketing out all the concrete details of the sin and the damage it has caused. Another aspect not taken up in the psalm is the contrast between David’s shifty private behaviour and the public exposure of his crime ‘in broad daylight before Israel’ (2 Sam 12:12).
The omission of concrete details makes the psalm one that any sinner can use. One might expect sinners to be crushed by the weight of their sins and to sit down in despair. But the psalm makes the sin an occasion of grace, and enables the sinner to discover the reality of God, not only as judge, but as one whose very nature is to have mercy. That is the first note the psalm strikes:
Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
Relentless condemnation, often sweeping up the innocent as well as the guilty, is the favoured tone of our public discourse, and severe punishment is our remedy for every ill. We forget or reject Pope John XXIII’s stress on ‘the medicine of mercy’ in his opening speech at Vatican II. If we seek this medicine for ourselves at the beginning of Lent, should we not apply it to ‘those who trespass against us’?
A second positive note struck by the psalm is cleansing:
Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin…
Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
Lent will bring a daily inner cleansing and will culminate in healing waters: those of the Cross: ‘Wash me, ye waters, streaming from his side,’ and those of baptism, bringing the new life of Easter.
A third positive note is knowledge of self, which goes hand in hand with knowledge of God:
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight.
The prayer of repentance places us in an ‘I-Thou relationship’ with God, one in which we learn wisdom from God in the secret place of the heart.
A fourth positive note is joy:
Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
A fifth positive note is sanctification:
Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Luther and Calvin carefully distinguish the free, unmerited justification of the sinner from the sanctification that follows upon it. ‘Son, your sins are forgiven’ (Mk 2:5) are the first healing gift of Christ, and the second is: ‘Stand up and walk.’ In Lent we may hope to hear both words and to receive both graces, lifted from the paralysis of sin by the Lord’s mercy and made able to walk in newness of life by his Spirit.
“Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour…”
This was very obviously a temptation to covet – to want something currently possessed by someone else – and therefore also a temptation to violence, since the current rulers of those kingdoms would not relinquish them readily.
If we still so seldom hear warnings about the importance of Commandments Nine and Ten – and the word ‘covetousness’ is replaced by ‘avarice’ in the list of seven ‘deadly’ sins in Article 1866 of the 1994 Catechism, why is that? Given that avarice can be satisfied simply by amassing money legally it is not at all the same thing as covetousness – which fastens on something proudly owned by someone else and is therefore likely to be a cause of both enmity and conflict.
Covetousness was often what drove Christian rulers into conflict with one another in the long centuries of Christendom but, beholden to those same rulers for protection and patronage, Christian churchmen could not easily point that out. Eventually, in the global conflict of World War 1 1914-18, this association of the churches with warring covetous empires disgraced those churches as well – and secularism burgeoned everywhere.
That a 21st century US president might covet a large arctic island, the colonial possession of a small European country, makes that word indispensable again – because here too we see the potential for not only conflict but the destruction of an alliance that has lasted since the last Great War of 1939-45. This surely was why we were warned originally against covetousness, and why in particular we need to heed and cherish Jesus’ renunciation of this temptation.
Covetousness – allowing our more affluent neighbours to determine our desires – explains not only absurd fashion crazes but the global climate crisis, for it lies at the root of all insatiability, all futile consumerism. Can our ministers see and explain this to the young, before the churches disappear altogether due to perceived irrelevance – like the word ‘covetousness’ itself?
You did not need what others possessed, O Lord. Teach us to seek what you had and still have – that closeness to the Father that puts an end to all wanting!
CCC 1866 lists pride, avarice, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony, and sloth; envy is discussed alongside covetousness in the section on the Tenth Commandment. The Baltimore Catechism had: Pride, Covetousness, Lust, Anger, Gluttony, Envy, and Sloth. Wikipedia gives a list of Evagrius, translated by John Cassian:
Gula (gluttony)
Luxuria/Fornicatio (lust, fornication)
Avaritia (greed)
Tristitia (sorrow, despair, despondency)
Ira (wrath)
Acedia (sloth)
Vanagloria (vanity, vainglory)
Superbia (pride)
In AD 590, Pope Gregory I revised this, and in order of increasing severity lists lust, gluttony, avarice, sloth, wrath, envy, pride. He combined tristitia with acedia; combined vanagloria with superbia; and added envy, invidia.
CCC 2552 : “The Tenth Commandment forbids avarice arising from a passion for riches and their attendant power.”
This is a classic missing of the point. Girard is surely correct in calling covetousness a ‘metaphysical’ desire – a futile desire for the BEING of another person – whatever it is that gives that person an apparently far superior ‘status’ in the eyes of others. To tranmute covetousness into avarice is, crucially, to miss the imminent potential for violence in this futile desire – and especially the dynamic behind all dangerous rivalries – the Cain and Abel / Saul and David / Caesar and Pompey / Constantine and Maxentius / Constantine and Licinius problem.
So the CCC is a late Christendom product, averting its gaze from what lies behind all violence – fear of the negative judgement of others because of what one lacks in comparison to someone else. Avarice is easier to think and write about than violence, so why not go there in explaining covetousness?
Missing as it does also this highly dangerous chemistry in the opposition to Jesus, the Catechism therefore also lacks a genealogy of violence, even a willingness to face that problem squarely. No wonder then that we get in YouCat that rhetorical excess of attributing the death of Jesus to God alone – the dismissal of the ‘tragic external circumstances’ of the crucifixion as of no account.
Inevitably this mistakenly compromises the Father in the violence of the Crucifixion, when Jesus acceptance of the Cross was very clearly a REJECTION of violence, in accordance with the will of the Father.
So what, then, were the particular sins of Jesus’s enemies that were ‘taken away’ by his forgiveness? When will theologians and homilists (and the Catechism) get around to discussing that – especially the obvious fact that those sins were NOT sexual?
Covetousness, much discussed in Romans 7, would be concupiscentia or cupiditas in Latin, and the CCC says that the ninth commandment refers to carnis concupiscentia. The tenth commandment is a supplement to this. The aspect to which the CCC devotes most attention here is envy, invidia. It does not replace covetousness with greed (which it calls aviditas here, and not avaritia as in the list of the capital sins in CCC 1866). The line Sean quotes from the compendium is only the first line of the concluding summary and does not represent the full teaching on the Tenth Commandment.
2536 reads Decimum praeceptum aviditatem (italicized) vetat et desiderium appropriationis bonorum terrestrium sine mensura; inordinatam prohibet cupiditatem (italicized) natam ab immoderata passione divitiarum earumque potentiae. Etiam desiderium interdicit committendi iniustitiam per quam proximo damnum in eius bonis inferretur.
2538 Decimum praeceptum invidiam (italicized) ex corde humano exigit expellere.
There is a long discussion of invidia as a diabolical vice, with thought-provoking quotes from Augustine and others. The social effect of this vice is noted.
2538 The tenth commandment requires that envy be banished from the human heart. When the prophet Nathan wanted to spur King David to repentance, he told him the story about the poor man who had only one ewe lamb that he treated like his own daughter and the rich man who, despite the great number of his flocks, envied the poor man and ended by stealing his lamb. Envy can lead to the worst crimes. “Through the devil’s envy death entered the world”:
We fight one another, and envy arms us against one another…. If everyone strives to unsettle the Body of Christ, where shall we end up? We are engaged in making Christ’s Body a corpse…. We declare ourselves members of one and the same organism, yet we devour one another like beasts.
2539 Envy is a capital sin. It refers to the sadness at the sight of another’s goods and the immoderate desire to acquire them for oneself, even unjustly. When it wishes grave harm to a neighbor it is a mortal sin:
St. Augustine saw envy as “the diabolical sin.” “From envy are born hatred, detraction, calumny, joy caused by the misfortune of a neighbor, and displeasure caused by his prosperity.”
2540 Envy represents a form of sadness and therefore a refusal of charity; the baptized person should struggle against it by exercising good will. Envy often comes from pride; the baptized person should train himself to live in humility:
Would you like to see God glorified by you? Then rejoice in your brother’s progress and you will immediately give glory to God. Because his servant could conquer envy by rejoicing in the merits of others, God will be praised.
Most certainly the Resurrection calls us to rejoice in the mercy of the Father, so why instead – in YouCat Q98 – the opposite emphasis, the call to contemplate the Father’s will that Jesus should die? And why the complete absence in both Catechisms of an affirmation of scripture’s revelation of the aetiology of all violence in our fear of shame?
Especially in the account of the violence of Jesus’s accusers and judges?
Despite the insistence of Dignitatis Humanae (1965) that the truth cannot be conveyed by force, Catholic teaching still baulks at insisting that this was the Trinity’s reason for not opposing (as obviously distinct from positively willing) the Crucifixion. CCC 615 and YouCat Q98 still mark the mistaken compromising of the Father in that violence, when the clear challenge of ‘mission’ is the opposite inference.
This is ‘legacy’ Christendom theology – overshadowed by the Constantian heresy that the Gospel could be vindicated by conquest – the root of Irish Catholicism’s evangelical inertia – when the Cross was instead God’s victory over violence, as proven by the Resurrection.