Daily Mass Readings — Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Lent
"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting." — John 3:14–15
Liturgical Context
Today is Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Lent, and the liturgy draws a breathtaking typological line from the wilderness of Sinai to the hill of Calvary. The bronze serpent lifted up by Moses in the desert — that ancient, paradoxical remedy of looking upon the very image of the wound — is fulfilled in Christ lifted up on the Cross. The Psalm stretches across the centuries with the cry of one imprisoned and condemned, heard at last by the God who bends down from heaven. The Gospel then places us in the Temple at Jerusalem, where Christ announces I am He — the divine Name claimed not in triumph but on the eve of the Passion, as the prelude to being lifted up. We are now very close to Holy Week.
✠ First Reading — Numbers 21:4–9
⁴ And they marched from mount Hor, by the way that leadeth to the Red Sea, to compass the land of Edom. And the people began to be weary of their journey and labour: ⁵ And speaking against God and Moses, they said: Why didst thou bring us out of Egypt, to die in the wilderness? There is no bread, nor have we any waters: our soul now loatheth this very light food. ⁶ Wherefore the Lord sent among the people fiery serpents, which bit them and killed many of them. ⁷ Upon which they came to Moses, and said: We have sinned, because we have spoken against the Lord and thee: pray that he may take away these serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. ⁸ And the Lord said to him: Make a brazen serpent, and set it up for a sign: whosoever being struck shall look on it, shall live. ⁹ Moses therefore made a brazen serpent, and set it up for a sign: which when they that were bitten looked upon, they were healed.
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Commentary
The Challoner note on verse 9 states it plainly: "This was a figure of Christ crucified, and of the efficacy of a lively faith in him, against the bites of the hellish serpent" (Douay-Rheims, note on Num. 21:9). The pattern is precise: the people sin, they suffer the consequence, they confess, they are given a remedy — and the remedy is not the removal of the serpents but a sign to look upon. Saint Augustine meditates that God commanded a serpent to be made so that the serpent might be conquered by the serpent — the form of sin hung upon the wood, so that those bitten by the poison of sin might be healed by gazing upon it in faith (Tractates on John, XII). The typological fulfilment Christ Himself announces in John 3:14: the Son of Man must be lifted up, and whosoever looks upon Him with faith shall live. In the last days of Lent, the Church places this reading before us as a final invitation: turn your eyes to the Cross, and live.
✠ Responsorial Psalm — Psalm 101 (102):2–3, 16–18, 19–21
R. O Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come unto Thee.
² O Lord, hear my prayer: and let my cry come to thee. ³ Turn not away thy face from me: in the day when I am in trouble, incline thy ear to me. In what day soever I shall call upon thee, hear me speedily.
R. O Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come unto Thee.
¹⁶ And the Gentiles shall fear thy name, O Lord, and all the kings of the earth thy glory. ¹⁷ For the Lord hath built up Sion: and he shall be seen in his glory. ¹⁸ He hath had regard to the prayer of the humble: and he hath not despised their petition.
R. O Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come unto Thee.
¹⁹ Let these things be written unto another generation: and the people that shall be created shall praise the Lord. ²⁰ Because he hath looked forth from his high sanctuary: from heaven the Lord hath looked upon the earth. ²¹ That he might hear the groans of them that are in fetters: that he might release the children of the slain.
R. O Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come unto Thee.
Commentary
This Psalm is the prayer of the afflicted soul that looks upward from the pit of its suffering toward the God who bends down to hear. Verse 21 is extraordinary in its precision: God looks from heaven that he might hear the groans of them that are in fetters and release the children of the slain. Saint Thomas Aquinas notes that this Psalm prophesies not merely the restoration of earthly Jerusalem but the redemption of souls held captive by death and sin — a captivity only the Cross can break (Expositio in Psalmos, Ps. 101). The refrain — O Lord, hear my prayer — is the prayer of every soul in Lent who has looked honestly at its own woundedness. God's answer, given through the brazen serpent and fulfilled on Calvary, is not to take away the suffering but to place in its midst the sign that heals.
✠ Verse Before the Gospel — John 8:12
I am the light of the world, saith the Lord: he that followeth me, walketh not in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
✠ The Holy Gospel — John 8:21–30
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.
²¹ Again therefore Jesus said to them: I go, and you shall seek me, and you shall die in your sin. Whither I go, you cannot come. ²² The Jews therefore said: Will he kill himself, because he said: Whither I go, you cannot come? ²³ And he said to them: You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world. ²⁴ Therefore I said to you, that you shall die in your sins. For if you believe not that I am he, you shall die in your sin. ²⁵ They said therefore to him: Who art thou? Jesus said to them: The beginning, who also speak unto you. ²⁶ Many things I have to speak and to judge of you. But he that sent me, is true: and the things I have heard of him, these same I speak in the world. ²⁷ And they understood not, that he called God his Father. ²⁸ Jesus therefore said to them: When you shall have lifted up the Son of man, then shall you know, that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself, but as the Father hath taught me, these things I speak: ²⁹ And he that sent me, is with me, and he hath not left me alone: for I do always the things that please him. ³⁰ When he spoke these things, many believed in him.
The Gospel of the Lord. Praise be to Thee, O Lord Jesus Christ.
Commentary
When you shall have lifted up the Son of man, then shall you know that I am He. The Cross, which His enemies intend as a defeat, will be the very moment of supreme revelation. The divine Name — I am He, Ego sum — will be written not in thunder over Sinai but in the outstretched arms of a crucified man. Saint Cyril of Alexandria observes that this saying is the key to the whole Johannine Gospel of glory: the Passion is not the interruption of Christ's mission but its fulfilment, the moment when the Father glorifies the Son and the Son glorifies the Father (Commentary on John, Book V). The people in the Temple ask Who art thou? — and the answer they receive is not yet complete. It will be complete only when He hangs upon the wood that the bronze serpent foreshadowed. In the last week before Holy Week, this Gospel is an invitation to wait in faith: we know what the lifting up will mean, and we approach it not with dread but with the eyes of those who looked upon the serpent in the wilderness and lived.
✠ Closing Prayer
O Lord Jesus Christ, who art the fulfilling of every sign and shadow of the Law: as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so wast Thou lifted up upon the Cross for our healing. Turn our eyes to Thee in these last days of Lent. When we are weary of the journey and speak against Thee in our hearts, do not take away Thy grace, but set before us the sign that heals. Let us hear Thy voice saying I am He — and let us believe, that we may not die in our sins but live in Thee. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Our Father... Hail Mary... Glory be...
✠ Laus Deo semper — Praise be to God always ✠
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