The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy - Daily Mass Readings April 3, 2022

Fifth Sunday of Lent
Year C Readings

Lectionary: 36
Reading I
Is 43:16-21

Thus says the LORD,
            who opens a way in the sea
            and a path in the mighty waters,
who leads out chariots and horsemen,
            a powerful army,
till they lie prostrate together, never to rise,
            snuffed out and quenched like a wick.
Remember not the events of the past,
            the things of long ago consider not;
see, I am doing something new!
            Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
In the desert I make a way,
            in the wasteland, rivers.
Wild beasts honor me,
            jackals and ostriches,
for I put water in the desert
            and rivers in the wasteland
            for my chosen people to drink,
the people whom I formed for myself,
            that they might announce my praise.

Responsorial Psalm
Ps 126:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 6.

R. (3)  The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.
When the LORD brought back the captives of Zion,
            we were like men dreaming.
Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
            and our tongue with rejoicing.
R. The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.
Then they said among the nations,
            “The LORD has done great things for them.”
The LORD has done great things for us;
            we are glad indeed.
R. The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.
Restore our fortunes, O LORD,
            like the torrents in the southern desert.
Those that sow in tears
            shall reap rejoicing.
R. The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.
Although they go forth weeping,
            carrying the seed to be sown,
They shall come back rejoicing,
            carrying their sheaves.
R. The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.

Reading II
Phil 3:8-14

Brothers and sisters:
I consider everything as a loss
because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things
and I consider them so much rubbish,
that I may gain Christ and be found in him,
not having any righteousness of my own based on the law
but that which comes through faith in Christ,
the righteousness from God,
depending on faith to know him and the power of his resurrection
and the sharing of his sufferings by being conformed to his death,
if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

It is not that I have already taken hold of it
or have already attained perfect maturity,
but I continue my pursuit in hope that I may possess it,
since I have indeed been taken possession of by Christ Jesus.
Brothers and sisters, I for my part
do not consider myself to have taken possession.
Just one thing: forgetting what lies behind
but straining forward to what lies ahead,
I continue my pursuit toward the goal,
the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus.

Verse before the Gospel
Jl 2:12-13

Even now, says the Lord,
return to me with your whole heart;
for I am gracious and merciful.

Gospel
Jn 8:1-11

Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
But early in the morning he arrived again in the temple area,
and all the people started coming to him,
and he sat down and taught them.
Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman
who had been caught in adultery
and made her stand in the middle.
They said to him,
“Teacher, this woman was caught
in the very act of committing adultery.
Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women.
So what do you say?”
They said this to test him,
so that they could have some charge to bring against him.
Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger.
But when they continued asking him,
he straightened up and said to them,
“Let the one among you who is without sin
be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Again he bent down and wrote on the ground.
And in response, they went away one by one,
beginning with the elders.
So he was left alone with the woman before him.
Then Jesus straightened up and said to her,
“Woman, where are they?
Has no one condemned you?”
She replied, “No one, sir.”
Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you.
Go, and from now on do not sin any more.”

O Lord, my God, in you I take refuge - Daily Mass Readings April 2, 2022

Saturday of the Fourth Week of Lent
Memorial Saint Francis of Paola, hermit


Lectionary: 249
Reading I
Jer 11:18-20

I knew their plot because the LORD informed me;
at that time you, O LORD, showed me their doings.

Yet I, like a trusting lamb led to slaughter,
had not realized that they were hatching plots against me:
“Let us destroy the tree in its vigor;
let us cut him off from the land of the living,
so that his name will be spoken no more.”

            But, you, O LORD of hosts, O just Judge,
                        searcher of mind and heart,
            Let me witness the vengeance you take on them,
                        for to you I have entrusted my cause!

Responsorial Psalm
7:2-3, 9bc-10, 11-12

R.        (2a) O Lord, my God, in you I take refuge.
O LORD, my God, in you I take refuge;
            save me from all my pursuers and rescue me,
Lest I become like the lion’s prey,
            to be torn to pieces, with no one to rescue me.
R.        O Lord, my God, in you I take refuge.
Do me justice, O LORD, because I am just,
            and because of the innocence that is mine.
Let the malice of the wicked come to an end,
            but sustain the just,
            O searcher of heart and soul, O just God.
R.        O Lord, my God, in you I take refuge.
A shield before me is God,
            who saves the upright of heart;
A just judge is God,
            a God who punishes day by day.
R.        O Lord, my God, in you I take refuge.

Verse Before the Gospel
See Lk 8:15

Blessed are they who have kept the word with a generous heart
and yield a harvest through perseverance.

Gospel
Jn 7:40-53

Some in the crowd who heard these words of Jesus said,
“This is truly the Prophet.”
Others said, “This is the Christ.”
But others said, “The Christ will not come from Galilee, will he?
Does not Scripture say that the Christ will be of David’s family
and come from Bethlehem, the village where David lived?”
So a division occurred in the crowd because of him.
Some of them even wanted to arrest him,
but no one laid hands on him.

So the guards went to the chief priests and Pharisees,
who asked them, “Why did you not bring him?”
The guards answered, “Never before has anyone spoken like this man.”
So the Pharisees answered them, “Have you also been deceived?
Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him?
But this crowd, which does not know the law, is accursed.”
Nicodemus, one of their members who had come to him earlier, said to them,
“Does our law condemn a man before it first hears him
and finds out what he is doing?”
They answered and said to him,
“You are not from Galilee also, are you?
Look and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.”

Then each went to his own house.

    

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted - Daily Mass Readings April 1, 2022

Friday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Lectionary: 248
Reading I
Wis 2:1a, 12-22

The wicked said among themselves,
            thinking not aright:
“Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us;
            he sets himself against our doings,
Reproaches us for transgressions of the law
            and charges us with violations of our training.
He professes to have knowledge of God
            and styles himself a child of the LORD.
To us he is the censure of our thoughts;
            merely to see him is a hardship for us,
Because his life is not like that of others,
            and different are his ways.
He judges us debased;
            he holds aloof from our paths as from things impure.
He calls blest the destiny of the just
            and boasts that God is his Father.
Let us see whether his words be true;
            let us find out what will happen to him.
For if the just one be the son of God, he will defend him
            and deliver him from the hand of his foes.
With revilement and torture let us put him to the test
            that we may have proof of his gentleness
            and try his patience.
Let us condemn him to a shameful death;
            for according to his own words, God will take care of him.”
These were their thoughts, but they erred;
            for their wickedness blinded them,
and they knew not the hidden counsels of God;
            neither did they count on a recompense of holiness
            nor discern the innocent souls’ reward.

Responsorial Psalm
34:17-18, 19-20, 21 and 23

R.        (19a)  The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.
The LORD confronts the evildoers,
            to destroy remembrance of them from the earth.
When the just cry out, the LORD hears them,
            and from all their distress he rescues them.
R.        The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.
The LORD is close to the brokenhearted;
            and those who are crushed in spirit he saves.
Many are the troubles of the just man,
            but out of them all the LORD delivers him.
R.        The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.
He watches over all his bones
            not one of them shall be broken.
The LORD redeems the lives of his servants;
            no one incurs guilt who takes refuge in him.
R.        The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.

Verse before the Gospel
Mt 4:4b

One does not live on bread alone,
but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.

Gospel
Jn 7:1-2, 10, 25-30

Jesus moved about within Galilee;
he did not wish to travel in Judea,
because the Jews were trying to kill him.
But the Jewish feast of Tabernacles was near.

But when his brothers had gone up to the feast,
he himself also went up, not openly but as it were in secret.

Some of the inhabitants of Jerusalem said,
“Is he not the one they are trying to kill?
And look, he is speaking openly and they say nothing to him.
Could the authorities have realized that he is the Christ?
But we know where he is from.
When the Christ comes, no one will know where he is from.”
So Jesus cried out in the temple area as he was teaching and said,
“You know me and also know where I am from.
Yet I did not come on my own,
but the one who sent me, whom you do not know, is true.
I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.”
So they tried to arrest him,
but no one laid a hand upon him,
because his hour had not yet come.
 

Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people - Daily Mass Readings March 31, 2022

Thursday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Lectionary: 247
Reading I
Ex 32:7-14

The LORD said to Moses,
“Go down at once to your people
whom you brought out of the land of Egypt,
for they have become depraved.
They have soon turned aside from the way I pointed out to them,
making for themselves a molten calf and worshiping it,
sacrificing to it and crying out,
‘This is your God, O Israel,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt!’
The LORD said to Moses,
“I see how stiff-necked this people is.
Let me alone, then,
that my wrath may blaze up against them to consume them.
Then I will make of you a great nation.”

But Moses implored the LORD, his God, saying,
“Why, O LORD, should your wrath blaze up against your own people,
whom you brought out of the land of Egypt
with such great power and with so strong a hand?
Why should the Egyptians say,
‘With evil intent he brought them out,
that he might kill them in the mountains
and exterminate them from the face of the earth’?
Let your blazing wrath die down;
relent in punishing your people.
Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel,
and how you swore to them by your own self, saying,
‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky;
and all this land that I promised,
I will give your descendants as their perpetual heritage.’“
So the LORD relented in the punishment
he had threatened to inflict on his people.

Responsorial Psalm
106:19-20, 21-22, 23

R.        (4a)  Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
Our fathers made a calf in Horeb
            and adored a molten image;
They exchanged their glory
            for the image of a grass-eating bullock.
R.        Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
They forgot the God who had saved them,
            who had done great deeds in Egypt,
Wondrous deeds in the land of Ham,
            terrible things at the Red Sea.
R.        Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
Then he spoke of exterminating them,
            but Moses, his chosen one,
Withstood him in the breach
            to turn back his destructive wrath.
R.        Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.

Verse Before the Gospel
Jn 3:16

God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son,
so that everyone who believes in him might have eternal life.

Gospel
Jn 5:31-47

Jesus said to the Jews:
“If I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is not true.
But there is another who testifies on my behalf,
and I know that the testimony he gives on my behalf is true.
You sent emissaries to John, and he testified to the truth.
I do not accept human testimony,
but I say this so that you may be saved.
He was a burning and shining lamp,
and for a while you were content to rejoice in his light.
But I have testimony greater than John’s.
The works that the Father gave me to accomplish,
these works that I perform testify on my behalf
that the Father has sent me.
Moreover, the Father who sent me has testified on my behalf.
But you have never heard his voice nor seen his form,
and you do not have his word remaining in you,
because you do not believe in the one whom he has sent.
You search the Scriptures,
because you think you have eternal life through them;
even they testify on my behalf.
But you do not want to come to me to have life.

“I do not accept human praise;
moreover, I know that you do not have the love of God in you.
I came in the name of my Father,
but you do not accept me;
yet if another comes in his own name,
you will accept him.
How can you believe, when you accept praise from one another
and do not seek the praise that comes from the only God?
Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father:
the one who will accuse you is Moses,
in whom you have placed your hope.
For if you had believed Moses,
you would have believed me,
because he wrote about me.
But if you do not believe his writings,
how will you believe my words?”