The First Sunday of Lent
Simon Bening’s Temptation of Christ.
Today's Devotional
O Lord, Who for our sake didst fast forty days and forty nights, Give us grace to use such abstinence, that, our flesh being subdued to the Spirit, we may ever obey Thy godly motions in righteousness, and true holiness, to Thy honour and glory, Who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.
The Epistle. “We then, as workers,” 2 Cor.6:1-11. The Gospel. “Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit,” St. Matthew 4: 1-12.
This is also Valentine’s Day and we quote George Eliot on love: “There are natures in which, if they love us, we are conscious of having a sort of baptism and consecration; they bind us over to rectitude and purity by their pure belief about us; and our sins become the worst kind of sacrilege, which tears down the invisible altar of trust.”
About the author and the source
The Church of England has a calendar of readings and prayers connected to the celebration of the Christian year. Today’s devotional is a collect [prayer] drawn from that sequence.
The Daily Services of the United Church of England and Ireland. Oxford and London: John Henry Parker, 1849.