The first reading for Mass on the first Sunday of Lent this year, taken from Genesis 3, deals with the creation of human beings and their subsequent fall from friendship with God.
Like a baseball coach who compels even his veterans to re-learn the basics of the game every spring, the Church invites us, during the spring training of Lent, to re-visit the spiritual fundamentals. And they are on no clearer display than in this great archetypal story.