Liturgical Readings for : Wednesday, 13th March, 2024
Wednesday, Fourth Week in Lent
Pride and joy in belonging to the Church should be part of our inheritance as the chosen people
built up by the Spirit into a house where God lives, as a holy nation and a royal priesthood.
FIRST READING
A reading from the prophet Isaiah 49:8-15
I have appointed you as covenant of the people to restore the land.
Thus says the Lord:
At the favourable time I will answer you, on the day of salvation I will help you.
(I have formed you and have appointed you as covenant of the people.)
I will restore the land and assign you the estates that lie waste.
I will say to the prisoners, ‘Come out’, to those who are in darkness, ‘Show yourselves‘.
On every roadway they will graze, and each bare height shall be their pasture.
They will never hunger or thirst, scorching wind and sun shall never plague them;
for he who pities them will lead them and guide them to springs of water.
I will make a highway of all the mountains, and the high roads shall be banked up. Some are on their way from afar, others from the north and the west, others from the land of Sinim.
Shout for joy, you heavens; exult, you earth! You mountains, break into happy cries!
For the Lord consoles his people and takes pity on those who are afflicted.’
For Zion was saying, ‘the Lord has abandoned me, the Lord has forgotten me.’
Does a woman forget her baby at the breast, or fail to cherish the son of her womb?
Yet even if these forget, I will never forget you.’
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Responsorial Psalm Ps 144
Response The Lord is kind and full of compassion.
1. The Lord is kind and full of compassion, slow to anger, abounding in love.
How good is the Lord to all, compassionate to all his creatures. Response
2. The Lord is faithful in all his words and loving in all his deeds.
The Lord supports all who fall and raises all who are bowed down. Response
3. The Lord is just in all his ways and loving in all his deeds.
He is close to all who call him, who call on him from their hearts. Response
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 !
Or Jn 11: 25, 26
Glory and praise to you, O Christ !
I am the resurrection and the life, says the Lord,
whoever believes in me will never die.
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 5.17-30 Glory to you, O Lord
As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son gives life to anyone he chooses.
Jesus said to the Jews,
‘My Father goes on working, and so do I.’
But that only made the Jews even more intent on killing him, because, not content with breaking the sabbath,
he spoke of God as his own Father, and so made himself God’s equal.
To this accusation Jesus replied:
‘I tell you most solemnly, the Son can do nothing by himself;
he can do only what he sees the Father doing: and whatever the Father does the Son does too.
For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he does himself,
and he will show him even greater things than these, works that will astonish you.
Thus, as the Father raises the dead and gives them life,
so the Son gives life to anyone he chooses;
for the Father judges no one; he has entrusted all judgement to the Son,
so that all may honour the Son as they honour the Father.
Whoever refuses honour to the Son refuses honour to the Father who sent him.
I tell you most solemnly, whoever listens to my words, and believes in the one who sent me, has eternal life; without being brought to judgement, he has passed from death to life.
I tell you most solemnly, the hour will come – in fact it is here already – when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and all who hear it will live.
For the Father, who is the source of life, has made the Son the source of life;
and, because he is the Son of Man, has appointed him supreme judge.
Do not be surprised at this, for the hour is coming when the dead will leave their graves at the sound of his voice:
those who did good will rise again to life; and those who did evil, to condemnation.
I can do nothing by myself; I can only judge as I am told to judge, and my judging is just,
because my aim is to do not my own will, but the will of him who sent me.’
The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
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Gospel Reflection Wednesday Fourth Week of Lent John 5:17-30
In answer to the religious authorities’ question as to why Jesus works on the Sabbath by healing people, Jesus replies, ‘My Father goes on working, and so do I’. God never ceases to do God’s saving, reconciling, healing, life-giving work, not even on the Sabbath. Because of Jesus’ unique relationship with God, his Father, he too must go on working, day after day. A line in one of the psalms says of God that he neither slumbers nor sleeps. God is always awake and alert to us, always working for our present and ultimate well-being. The same is true of Jesus, our risen Lord. Even when he seems to be asleep, as he was in the storm at sea, he is alert to us. God never forgets us, just as a woman never forgets her baby at the breast, in the language of today’s first reading. We forget God from time to time. We are not always alert to God. We don’t always work on God’s behalf. We can be faithless.
Yet, God and his Son are always faithful. They go on working among us and within us. Likewise, the Holy Spirit works away within us. According to Saint Paul, even when do not know how to pray, the Spirit ‘intercedes with sighs too deep for words’ (Rom 8:26). God began a good work in our lives the moment we were created and enhanced that good work at our baptism. God is always working to bring that good work to completion, through the agency of his Son, our risen Lord, and the Holy Spirit. It can be reassuring to remember this good news, when we are tempted to cry out like the people of Israel in the first reading, ‘The Lord has abandoned me, the Lord has forgotten me’.
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The Scripture Readings are taken from The Jerusalem Bible, published 1966 by Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd
