Saint Paul reminded the Corinthians that with Silvanus and Timothy he proclaimed "the Son of God, Jesus Christ" to them. It was a message he himself received as an apostle.

The Gospel of Mark's terse account of Jesus' temptation in the desert--a story Matthew and Luke tell at greater length and with more detail--ends with the essence of the message Jesus preached and literally embodied in the flesh: "This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel."

The Bible is one of those books that just gets better the farther you read into it. First chapter: God creates this amazing world and blesses it so that it keeps unfolding and increasing. What could be more wonderful?

WHETHER from Mark, Matthew, or Luke, the first readers of the story of Jesus' temptation would have realized immediately they were hearing another story as well--for Jews the most important one of all: the Exodus. Just as clear would have been a new and striking meaning.

When we admit we've done wrong, we take a big first step into freedom. Owning our sinfulness gives us access to the forgiveness, healing, and the joy known only to the children of God.

This Lent as you take up new practices of prayer, don't be discouraged if the first thing you find in the silence is a noisy self. Continue patiently, trusting that you will, in due time, encounter the angels of peace, serenity, surrender, and love to comfort you and guide you past the wild beasts and into the presence of God.

God renews the earth. We pray to take our part in that renewal.

A covenant, says one online legal source, can be "an agreement between two or more persons . . . whereby either party . . . promises to perform or give something to the other, or to abstain from the performance of certain things." Sounds straightforward and amicable, no? The story of God's covenant with Noah, however, makes for not-so-nice reading.

When . . . the earth was flooded, Wisdom again saved it, piloting the righteous man on frailest wood.--Wisdom 10:4