Liturgical Readings for : Sunday, 10th March, 2024
Fourth Sunday of Lent
Laetare Sunday
The seed is sown in the ground when its hour comes. In time it bears fruit.
Christ through his obedience dies, but through his dying he brings eternal life to all who call on his name.
In the new relationship with him that comes about, God remembers our sins no more.
FIRST READING
A reading from the second book of Chronicles 36:14-16.19-23
The wrath and mercy of God are revealed in the exile and release of his people.
All the heads of the priesthood, and the people too, added infidelity to infidelity, copying all the shameful practices of the nations and defiling the Temple that the Lord had consecrated for himself in Jerusalem. The Lord, the God of their ancestors, tirelessly sent them messenger after messenger, since he wished to spare his people and his house. But they ridiculed the messengers of God, they despised his words, they laughed at his prophets, until at last the wrath of the Lord rose so high against his people that there was no further remedy.
Their enemies burned down the Temple of God, demolished the walls of Jerusalem, set fire to all its palaces, and destroyed everything of value in it. The survivors were deported by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon; they were to serve him and his sons until the kingdom of Persia came to power. This is how the word of the Lord was fulfilled that he spoke through Jeremiah, ‘Until this land has enjoyed its sabbath rest, until seventy years have gone by, it will keep sabbath throughout the days of its desolation.’
And in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, to fulfil the word of the Lord that was spoken through Jeremiah, the Lord roused the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia to issue a proclamation and to have it publicly displayed throughout his kingdom: ‘Thus speaks Cyrus king of Persia, “The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth; he has ordered me to build him a Temple in Jerusalem, in Judah. Whoever there is among you of all his people, may his God be with him! Let him go up.”
The Word of the Lord Thanks be to God
Responsorial Psalm Ps 136
Response O let my tongue cleave to my mouth if I remember you not!
1. By the rivers of Babylon there we sat and wept, remembering Zion;
on the poplars that grew there we hung up our harps. Response
2. For it was there that they asked us, our captors, for songs,
our oppressors, for joy. ‘Sing to us,’ they said, ‘one of Zion’s songs.’ Response
3. O how could we sing the song of the Lord on alien soil?
If I forget you Jerusalem, let my right hand wither! Response
4. O let my tongue cleave to my mouth if I remember you not,
if I prize not Jerusalem above all my joys! Response
SECOND READING
A reading from the letter of St Paul to the Ephesians 2:4-10
You who were dead through our sins, have been saved through grace.
God loved us with so much love that he was generous with his mercy: when we were dead through our sins, he brought us to life with Christ – it is through grace that you have been saved – and raised us up with him and gave us a place with him in heaven, in Christ Jesus.
This was to show for all ages to come, through his goodness towards us in Christ Jesus, how infinitely rich he is in grace. Because it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith; not by anything of your own, but by a gift from God; not by anything that you have done, so that nobody can claim the credit. We are God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus to live the good life as from the beginning he had meant us to live it.
The Word of the Lord Thanks be to God
Gospel Acclamation Jn 3:16
Glory and praise to you, O Christ !
God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son;
everyone who believes in him has eternal life.
Glory and praise to you, O Christ !
GOSPEL
The Lord be with you And with your spirit.
A reading from the holy Gospel according to John 3:14-21 Glory to you, O Lord
God sent his Son into the world so that through him the world might be saved.
Jesus said to Nicodemus:
‘The Son of Man must be lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,
so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.
Yes, God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life.
For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world,
but so that through him the world might be saved.
No one who believes in him will be condemned; but whoever refuses to believe is condemned already, because he has refused to believe in the name of God’s only Son.
On these grounds is sentence pronounced: that though the light has come into the world
men have shown they prefer darkness to the light because their deeds were evil.
And indeed, everybody who does wrong hates the light and avoids it,
for fear his actions should be exposed; but the man who lives by the truth
comes out into the light, .so that it may be plainly seen that what he does is done in God.
The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
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Gospel notes: John 3:14-21
In the synoptic gospels there are three predictions of the passion of Jesus in which he outlines what is going to happen to him when he reaches Jerusalem. This, however, is not the case in John where the passion is prepared for in a completely different way. On three occasions Jesus speaks about himself being ‘lifted up‘. The Greek word behind this can mean a literal or physical lifting and also an exaltation, a being raised up or glorified. By means of this deliberate play on words the evangelist explains to us that the passion, for all its injustice and brutality, is a glorious revelation of God’s love.
In this text we have the first prediction of Jesus’ death and here the cross is explained as a saving, healing event. Jesus likens his being lifted up (on the cross) to the lifting up of the bronze serpent by Moses in the desert. This is a reference to the occasion when the Israelites had cried out to God to save them from poisonous snakes (Numbers 28). When they looked at the serpent Moses had fashioned from bronze they were healed. So too Jesus, raised up on the cross, is the sign of God’s infinite love and the source of our healing.
Reflection
In our day-to-day struggle just to get on with the business of living it is unlikely that we go around with the image of ourselves as ‘God’s work of art’. There are many forces at work both within us and outside us which tend to pull us down and to leave us with negative feelings about ourselves and those around us. By contrast, at the heart of the gospel message is the wonderful assertion that we are the handiwork of a God who does not make mistakes. This is the God who so loved the world that he gave his only Son not to bully us into obedience or to threaten us with hellfire but to bring us to life in its fullness. This is terrific news indeed, so let us take steps to ensure that other messages do not drown it out.
Taken from THE JERUSALEM BIBLE, published and copyright 1966 by Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd
