Daily Mass Readings — Wednesday of Holy Week
April 1, 2026 | Lectionary: 259
"The Lord God is my helper, therefore am I not confounded: therefore have I set my face as a most hard rock." — Isaias 50:7
Liturgical Context
Wednesday of Holy Week — Spy Wednesday in ancient usage — is the day the Church remembers Judas going to the chief priests to betray his Master for thirty pieces of silver. The Third Servant Song of Isaias, sung today, is Christ's own interior voice: He does not resist the blows, the mockery, the spittle — yet He is not broken, for God is His helper. These four Servant Songs form a body somewhat apart from the rest of the prophecy of Isaias, and though in their first meaning they may reflect the prophet himself suffering as God's messenger to Israel, Christianity has always seen their deepest fulfilment in the mission and Passion of Jesus — particularly here in Holy Week, when the Church places them on the lips of the One who bore in His own flesh every detail they describe. The Responsorial Psalm deepens this with the voice of the abandoned Just Man who is given vinegar to drink. The Gospel places Judas's betrayal alongside the Paschal preparations, so that treachery and the Pasch are inextricably interwoven from the beginning: even the one who sells the Lord cannot stop the Passover from being prepared.
✠ First Reading — Isaias 50:4–9a
⁴ The Lord hath given me a learned tongue, that I should know how to uphold by word him that is weary: he wakeneth in the morning, in the morning he wakeneth my ear, that I may hear him as a master.
⁵ The Lord God hath opened my ear, and I do not resist: I have not gone back.
⁶ I have given my body to the strikers, and my cheeks to them that plucked them: I have not turned away my face from them that rebuked me, and spit upon me.
⁷ The Lord God is my helper, therefore am I not confounded: therefore have I set my face as a most hard rock, and I know that I shall not be confounded.
⁸ He is near that justifieth me, who will contend with me? let us stand together, who is my adversary? let him come near to me.
⁹α΅ Behold the Lord God is my helper: who is he that shall condemn me?
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Commentary
This is the Third Servant Song of Deutero-Isaias — one of four such Songs that appear in the second part of the Book, proclaimed by the prophet during the Babylonian Exile at a moment vital for the reconstitution of Israel. They form a body somewhat separate from the rest of the prophecy. In its first meaning, the Servant has been understood as the prophet himself, reflecting on his own suffering as God's messenger — though he is also identified with Israel, suffering in its long witness to the values of the covenant. But Christianity, with the unanimous voice of the Fathers, sees these prophecies fulfilled in the mission and Passion of Jesus: specifically here, the Church places them at the threshold of the Triduum because this is nothing less than Christ's own interior programme for what He is about to undergo. St. Jerome wrote that every phrase was fulfilled in the letter of the Passion: the blows received before the High Priest, the cheeks struck, the spittle, the mockery — "as though the prophet had been an eyewitness standing at Calvary" (Commentary on Isaias, 50). Pope St. Leo the Great dwelt on "I have set my face as a most hard rock": this is not stoicism but the divine resolve of love that will not swerve from its purpose of redemption (Sermon 59 on the Passion). The opening verse — "he wakeneth in the morning, in the morning he wakeneth my ear, that I may hear him as a master" — is the Servant's disposition before His suffering: He is first a listener, a disciple of the Father, before He is a victim. Every Passion begins with this obedience of the ear.
✠ Responsorial Psalm — Psalm 68 (69):8–10, 21–22, 31, 33–34
R. Lord, in Thy great love, answer me.
⁸ Because for thy sake I have borne reproach; shame hath covered my face. ⁹ I am become a stranger to my brethren, and an alien to the sons of my mother. ¹⁰ For the zeal of thy house hath eaten me up: and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me.
R. Lord, in Thy great love, answer me.
²¹ And I looked for one that would grieve together with me, but there was none: and for one that would comfort me, and I found none. ²² And they gave me gall for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
R. Lord, in Thy great love, answer me.
³¹ I will praise the name of God with a canticle. ³³ Let the poor see and rejoice: seek ye God, and your soul shall live. ³⁴ For the Lord hath heard the poor: and hath not despised his prisoners.
R. Lord, in Thy great love, answer me.
Commentary
St. John explicitly cites verse 22 of this Psalm — "they gave me vinegar to drink" — as fulfilled at Calvary (Jn 19:28–29). The gall and vinegar are not incidental details; they are the Scripture being accomplished. Yet the Psalm turns from lamentation to praise: the very voice that cries in abandonment rises to sing. This is the Paschal arc in miniature.
✠ Verse Before the Gospel
(No Alleluia during Holy Week)
"Hail to you, our King, obedient to the Father; Thou wast led to Thy crucifixion like a gentle lamb to the slaughter."
✠ The Holy Gospel — Matthew 26:14–25
The Lord be with you. — And with your spirit.
A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew. Glory be to Thee, O Lord.
¹⁴ Then went one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, to the chief priests,
¹⁵ And said to them: What will you give me, and I will deliver him unto you? But they appointed him thirty pieces of silver.
¹⁶ And from thenceforth he sought opportunity to betray him.
¹⁷ And on the first day of the Azymes, the disciples came to Jesus, saying: Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat the pasch?
¹⁸ But Jesus said: Go ye into the city to a certain man, and say to him: the master saith, My time is near at hand, with thee I make the pasch with my disciples.
¹⁹ And the disciples did as Jesus appointed to them, and they prepared the pasch.
²⁰ But when it was evening, he sat down with his twelve disciples.
²¹ And whilst they were eating, he said: Amen I say to you, that one of you is about to betray me.
²² And they being very much troubled, began every one to say: Is it I, Lord?
²³ But he answering, said: He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, he shall betray me.
²⁴ The Son of man indeed goeth, as it is written of him: but woe to that man by whom the Son of man shall be betrayed: it were better for him, if that man had not been born.
²⁵ And Judas that betrayed him, answering, said: Is it I, Rabbi? He saith to him: Thou hast said it.
The Gospel of the Lord. Praise be to Thee, O Lord Jesus Christ.
Commentary
Notice the strange pre-planned sequence: Jesus sends His disciples to a seemingly random stranger in the city, who has a room prepared. This same mysterious pre-arrangement occurred for the donkey-ride into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. These are not coincidences; they are evidence both of Christ's foreknowledge and of the divine pre-ordination of the Passion: it was destined that these events should unfold exactly as they did. The earliest tradition of the Church, quoted by St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:3–5, proclaims that Christ died and rose "according to the scriptures" — meaning that even the smallest details of the Passion were shown to correspond to Scripture by the first generation of believers, who laboured to find in the sacred text the exact equivalences to what had happened. The thirty pieces of silver, for example, is the sum specified in Exodus 21:32 as compensation for a slave gored by an ox — the price of a servant, the price of the Servant of the Lord.
As for Judas: the Gospels offer us the thinnest thread of evidence, and countless conflicting character-studies have been built upon it. Was it simply greed? The synoptic Gospels do not mention it; John adds it as a later reflection. Was Judas a convinced nationalist, a man whose name itself (Judah) carries the resonance of the patriot, who abandoned Jesus in frustration when it became clear that Jesus was not the political liberator who would expel the Romans? We do not know. What we do know is what St. John Chrysostom observed: every apostle at the table asked "Is it I, Lord?" — none pointed at another; each looked first to himself (Homilies on Matthew, 81). This is the posture Holy Wednesday demands of every Christian: not pointing at Judas across the table, but asking, in trembling honesty, the same question.
✠ Closing Prayer
O Lord Jesus Christ, who didst prepare Thy Passover even as the hand of betrayal was already at work, grant us the grace of honest self-examination this Holy Wednesday. Let us not be quick to point the finger at Judas, but ask with trembling: Is it I, Lord? And having asked, let us remain at Thy table, trusting that Thou who knowest all things hast still said to each of us: come. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Our Father… Hail Mary… Glory be…
✠ Laus Deo semper — Praise be to God always ✠
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