As Lent begins, Fr Paul Gooley reads today’s Gospel from Matthew (6: 1-6, 16-18) in which Jesus says to the disciples ‘be careful not to parade your good deeds before men… your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you’. Fr Paul says this Gospel reading from Matthew is one of those wonderful passages where Matthew makes his message memorable through repetition. This happens several times in the Sermon on the Mount. The Gospel enshrines the practice of the three good works of Judaism, prayer, fasting and almsgiving. The warning is against parading good works: they should be known only to our Father in heaven. Most of us will have digested this triple lesson, but more relevant is the insistence that what matters is the relationship between ourselves and our Father in heaven, expressed in these three good works. Fr Paul invites us to reflect on today’s Gospel Lesson – What truly matters is the relationship between God and ourselves.