Daily Mass Readings — Saturday of the Fourth Week of Lent
"I was as a meek lamb, that is carried to be a victim: and I knew not that they had devised counsels against me." — Jeremias 11:19
Liturgical Context
Today is the Saturday of the Fourth Week of Lent, and the liturgy draws us deeper into the shadow of the approaching Passion. Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, speaks from within a conspiracy of death — his enemies plotting to silence him, to erase his name from the living. The Psalm answers with a cry for divine justice from one beset by accusers. The Gospel then takes us back to Jerusalem, where the officers sent to arrest Jesus return empty-handed, undone by the power of His word, and where Nicodemus — a solitary just man among the unjust — dares to speak reason into a court already blinded by hatred. As the Fifth Week begins tomorrow, the readings tighten around the Cross: the lamb is known by name, and He is walking toward the altar freely.
✠ First Reading — Jeremias 11:18–20
¹⁸ But thou, O Lord, hast shewn me, and I have known: then thou shewedst me their doings. ¹⁹ And I was as a meek lamb, that is carried to be a victim: and I knew not that they had devised counsels against me, saying: Let us put wood on his bread, and cut him off from the land of the living, and let his name be remembered no more. ²⁰ But thou, O Lord of Sabaoth, who judgest justly, and triest the reins and hearts, let me see thy revenge on them: for to thee I have revealed my cause.
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Commentary
Sabaoth — Lord of hosts — is the divine name Jeremiah invokes when human justice has utterly failed him. He does not call for personal revenge; the Challoner note on this verse is precise: this is the approbation of divine justice, not a private imprecation. What the prophet models is the surrender of one's cause entirely to God. Saint John Fisher, martyr and Doctor of the Church, wrote that the just man who suffers unjustly must become, like Jeremiah, a victim whose trust is placed not in his own defence but in the judgement of the living God (Commentary on the Penitential Psalms). The image of the meek lamb is the image Isaiah will develop in his fifty-third chapter, and which John the Baptist will apply directly to Christ at the Jordan. The lamb does not resist the cord because it knows — or rather, because the Father knows — what this death will accomplish. Lent asks us: can we surrender our cause to God as Jeremiah did?
✠ Responsorial Psalm — Psalm 7:2–3, 9–12
R. Lord God, I take refuge in Thee.
² O Lord my God, in thee have I put my trust: save me from all them that persecute me, and deliver me. ³ Lest at any time he seize upon my soul like a lion, while there is no one to redeem me, nor to save.
R. Lord God, I take refuge in Thee.
⁹ The Lord judgeth the people. Judge me, O Lord, according to my justice, and according to my innocence in me. ¹⁰ The wickedness of sinners shall be brought to nought: and thou shalt direct the just: the searcher of hearts and reins is God.
R. Lord God, I take refuge in Thee.
¹¹ Just is my help from the Lord: who saveth the upright of heart. ¹² God is a just judge, strong and patient: is he angry every day?
R. Lord God, I take refuge in Thee.
Commentary
The Psalm is the prayer of one who has no advocate left but God — and who discovers that this is, in the end, the only advocate needed. The searcher of hearts and reins is God: He sees what no human court can see, the hidden innocence and the hidden malice alike. Saint Augustine, commenting on this Psalm, identifies in it the voice of Christ Himself praying through His members: "It is Christ who cries out in the afflicted, because the Head and the body are one" (Enarrationes in Psalmos, Ps. 7). The refrain — Lord God, I take refuge in Thee — is not passive resignation but an act of supreme confidence. To take refuge in God is to stand on unshakeable ground precisely when every human ground has crumbled. In Lent, the Church places this Psalm on our lips as an invitation: fly to God, make Him your only stronghold, and let Him be your judge.
✠ Verse Before the Gospel — Psalm 94 (95):8
Today, if you shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
✠ The Holy Gospel — John 7:40–52
The Lord be with you. — And with your spirit.
A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Saint John. Glory be to Thee, O Lord.
⁴⁰ Of that multitude therefore, when they had heard these words of his, some said: This is the prophet indeed. ⁴¹ Others said: This is the Christ. But some said: Doth the Christ come out of Galilee? ⁴² Doth not the scripture say: That Christ cometh of the seed of David, and from Bethlehem the town where David was? ⁴³ So there arose a dissension among the people because of him. ⁴⁴ And some of them would have apprehended him: but no man laid hands on him. ⁴⁵ The ministers therefore came to the chief priests and Pharisees. And they said to them: Why have you not brought him? ⁴⁶ The ministers answered: Never did man speak like this man. ⁴⁷ The Pharisees therefore answered them: Are you also seduced? ⁴⁸ Hath any one of the rulers believed in him, or of the Pharisees? ⁴⁹ But this multitude, that knoweth not the law, are accursed. ⁵⁰ Nicodemus said to them, (he that came to him by night, who was one of them:) ⁵¹ Doth our law judge any man, unless it first hear him, and know what he doth? ⁵² They answered, and said to him: Art thou also a Galilean? Search the scriptures, and see, that out of Galilee a prophet riseth not.
The Gospel of the Lord. Praise be to Thee, O Lord Jesus Christ.
Commentary
Never did man speak like this man. The officers sent to arrest Christ return not with a prisoner but with a confession — wrested from them, unbidden, by the sheer authority of His word. They could not lay hands on Him because His words had already laid hold of them. Saint John Chrysostom observes that this is the perpetual miracle of divine speech: it disarms those who come armed against it (Homilies on John, Homily LII). Then comes Nicodemus — the one candle in a darkened room. He does not yet confess the faith openly; he appeals only to justice and to law. But his small, careful word of reason is itself a form of courage in that hostile assembly, and it will grow. He who came to Jesus by night will stand beneath the Cross in the full light of day (John 19:39). The CCC reminds us that faith often begins as a question, a hesitation, a single word spoken into silence (CCC §160). Nicodemus teaches us that even a tentative step toward truth, taken in the midst of those who mock it, is never lost.
✠ Closing Prayer
O Lord God, searcher of hearts and reins, who knowest the innocence of the just and the blindness of those who plot against them: grant us the grace to take refuge in Thee alone when human justice fails and human voices grow hostile. Make us, like Thy prophet, willing to lay down our cause into Thy hands. Make us, like Thy servant Nicodemus, willing to speak one true word even in the courts of those who would silence it. And let the word of Thy Son so take hold of our hearts that we too confess: never did man speak like this man. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Our Father... Hail Mary... Glory be...
✠ Laus Deo semper — Praise be to God always ✠
%20Virgin%20and%20Martyr.jpeg)
No comments:
Post a Comment