Liturgical Readings for : Tuesday, 12th March, 2024
Tuesday, Fourth Week in Lent
By Baptism all our sins, original and personal are forgiven leaving no impediments for entry into the kingdom of God .
FIRST READING
A reading from the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel 47 :1-9.12
I saw a a stream came out from the Temple, bringing life to all wherever it flowed.
The angel brought me back to the entrance of the Temple, where a stream came out from under the Temple threshold and flowed eastwards, since the Temple faced east. The water flowed from under the right side of the Temple, south of the altar. He took me out by the north gate and led me right round outside as far as the outer east gate where the water flowed out on the right-hand side.
The man went to the east holding his measuring line and measured off a thousand cubits; he then made me wade across the stream; the water reached my ankles. He measured off another thousand and made me wade across the stream again; the water reached my knees. He measured off another thousand and made me wade across again; the water reached my waist. He measured off another thousand; it was now a river which I could not cross; the stream had swollen and was now deep water, a river impossible to cross. He then said,
‘Do you see, son of man?’
He took me further, then brought me back to the bank of the river. When I got back, there were many trees on each bank of the river. He said, ‘This water flows east down to the Arabah and to the sea; and flowing into the sea it makes its waters wholesome. Wherever the river flows, all living creatures teeming in it will live. Fish will be very plentiful, for wherever the water goes it brings health, and life teems wherever the river flows. Along the river, on either bank, will grow every kind of fruit tree with leaves that never wither and fruit that never fails; they will bear new fruit every month, because this water comes from the sanctuary. And their fruit will be good to eat and the leaves medicinal.’
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God
Responsorial Psalm Ps 45
Response The Lord of hosts is with us: the God of Jacob is our stronghold.
1. God is for us a refuge and strength, a helper close at hand, in time of distress:
so we shall not fear though the earth should rock, though the mountains fall into the depths of the sea. Response
2. The waters of a river give joy to God’s city, the holy place where the Most High dwells.
God is within, it cannot be shaken; God will help it at the dawning of the day. Response
3. The Lord of hosts is with us: the God of Jacob is our stronghold.
Come, consider the works of the Lord the redoubtable deeds he has done on the earth. Response
Gospel Acclamation Ps 50:12.14
Praise and honour to you, Lord Jesus!
A pure heart create for me, O God, and give me again the joy of your help.
Praise and honour to you, Lord Jesus!
GOSPEL
The Lord be with you. And with your spirit
A reading from the Gospel according to John 5:1-3.5-16 Glory to you, O Lord
The man was cured at once.
There was a Jewish festival, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now at the Sheep Pool in Jerusalem there is a building, called Bethzatha in Hebrew, consisting of five porticos; and under these were crowds of sick people – blind, lame, paralysed. One man there had an illness which had lasted thirty-eight years, and when Jesus saw him lying there and knew he had been in this condition for a long time, he said,
‘Do you want to be well again?‘
‘Sir,’ replied the sick man ‘I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is disturbed;
and while I am still on the way, someone else gets there before me.’
Jesus said,
‘Get up, pick up your sleeping-mat and walk.’
The man was cured at once, and he picked up his mat and walked away.
Now that day happened to be the sabbath, so the Jews said to the man who had been cured,
‘It is the sabbath; you are not allowed to carry your sleeping-mat’.
He replied, ‘But the man who cured me told me, “Pick up your mat and walk. “
They asked, ‘Who is the man who said to you, “Pick up your mat and walk”?‘
The man had no idea who it was, since Jesus had disappeared into the crowd that filled the place.
After a while Jesus met him in the Temple and said,
‘Now you are well again, be sure not to sin any more, or something worse may happen to you.’
The man went back and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had cured him.
It was because he did things like this on the sabbath that the Jews began to persecute Jesus.
The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
Gospel Reflection Tuesday Fourth Week of Lent John 5:1–3, 5–16
The question Jesus puts to the man who had been paralysed for thirty eight years sounds strange to our ears, ‘Do you want to be well again?’ Why would he be near to a pool known for its healing properties if he didn’t want to be well again? However, perhaps he had begun to lose all hope of every being well again. He may have lost the will to be better, the will to live. By his question, Jesus wanted to arouse in him the hope for healing that he once cherished. He had obviously been disappointed many times. As he said to Jesus, ‘I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is disturbed; and while I am still on my way, someone else gets there before me’. If people are disappointed often enough, they can easily lose hope. By asking, ‘Do you want to be well again?’ Jesus was inviting him to recover his desire to be well. We can all be tempted to lose hope. We can easily get despondent, lose our zest for life, our hope of something better, for a whole variety of reasons.
The Lord is always at work among us to renew our hope, to help us recover our desire for that fullness of life the Lord desires for us all. By asking his question, Jesus sought to heal the man’s despondency before he could really heal him physically. Even when we are physically well, we can all need that deeper healing, that renewing of our hopes. The risen Lord is always at work among us renewing our hope, our desire for all of humanity to be well again. Hope is more than optimism; it is the work of the Spirit of the risen Lord among us and within us. As Paul says in his letter to the Romans, ‘Hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts, through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us’ (Rom 5:5).
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The Scripture Readings are taken from The Jerusalem Bible, published 1966 by Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd
