Daily Mass Readings — Easter Weekday
May 4, 2026 | Lectionary: 285 | Liturgical Colour: White
"The Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you." — John 14:26
Liturgical Context
Monday of the Fifth Week of Eastertide. Paul and Barnabas at Lystra are mistaken for gods — and respond with a speech that is the model of natural theology: the living God who made heaven and earth, who gave rain and fruitful seasons, is the one they proclaim. Luke, the cultured Greek author, even echoes the tale from Ovid's Metamorphoses of Zeus and Hermes travelling incognito through the same Lycaonian district — this time the apostles are no gods, only messengers of the One who is. The Gospel gives us the first great saying on the Paraclete: the Holy Spirit sent in the Name of Christ to teach everything and remind the Church of all He has said.
✠ First Reading — Acts of the Apostles 14:5–18
⁸ And there sat a certain man at Lystra, impotent in his feet, a cripple from his mother's womb, who never had walked.
⁹ This same heard Paul speaking. Who looking upon him, and seeing that he had faith to be healed,
¹⁰ Said with a loud voice: Stand upright on thy feet. And he leaped up, and walked.
¹¹ And when the multitudes had seen what Paul had done, they lifted up their voice in the Lycaonian tongue, saying: The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men;
¹² And they called Barnabas, Jupiter: but Paul, Mercury; because he was chief speaker.
¹³ The priest also of Jupiter that was before the city, bringing oxen and garlands before the gate, would have offered sacrifice with the people.
¹⁴ Which, when the apostles Barnabas and Paul had heard, rending their clothes, they leaped out among the people, crying,
¹⁵ And saying: Ye men, why do ye these things? We also are mortals, men like unto you, preaching to you to be converted from these vain things, to the living God, who made the heaven, and the earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them:
¹⁶ Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways.
¹⁷ Nevertheless he left not himself without testimony, doing good from heaven, giving rains and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Commentary
Luke is a master literary craftsman, and this episode consciously echoes the famous story in Ovid's Metamorphoses where Zeus and Hermes wandered through this same Lycaonian district in human form, unrecognised until a poor old couple, Philemon and Baucis, received them in hospitality. In Ovid's tale the gods rewarded the faithful couple and punished the ungrateful neighbours. In Luke's account, by contrast, Barnabas and Paul are neither gods nor strangers from Olympus; they are mortals, men like unto you — and they are horrified at the confusion. The tearing of garments is the ancient gesture of grief at blasphemy. Paul's speech here is remarkable as the first explicitly natural theology argument in Acts: before preaching Christ, he preaches the Creator — the God who cannot be fashioned from silver and gold, who witnesses to Himself through rain and harvest and human gladness. St. Thomas Aquinas called this the via praecognitionis — the path of prior knowledge through which the mind is prepared to receive the Gospel (Summa Contra Gentiles, I.4). The healing of the cripple at Lystra deliberately echoes Peter's healing of the cripple at the Beautiful Gate (Acts 3:1–8): both apostles work the same signs as their Lord, bearing out the promise of yesterday's Gospel — "greater works than these shall he do."
✠ Responsorial Psalm — Psalm 113B (115):1–2, 3–4, 15–16
R. Not to us, O Lord, but to Thy Name give the glory.
or R. Alleluia.
¹ Not to us, O Lord, not to us; but to thy name give glory. ² For thy mercy, and for thy truth's sake: lest the Gentiles should say: Where is their God?
R. Not to us, O Lord, but to Thy Name give the glory.
³ But our God is in heaven: he hath done all things whatsoever he would. ⁴ The idols of the Gentiles are silver and gold, the works of the hands of men.
R. Not to us, O Lord, but to Thy Name give the glory.
¹⁵ Blessed be you of the Lord, who made heaven and earth. ¹⁶ The heaven of heaven is the Lord's: but the earth he has given to the children of men.
R. Not to us, O Lord, but to Thy Name give the glory.
Commentary
"Not to us, not to us" — the apostles' tearing of garments at Lystra is this Psalm made flesh. Every authentic Christian ministry begins with this self-emptying: the worker is nothing, the Lord is everything. St. Ignatius of Loyola built his Contemplation to Attain Love on precisely this disposition: "In all things love and serve the Divine Majesty" — and always refer the glory back to its Source (Spiritual Exercises, §230).
✠ Alleluia — John 14:26
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
The Holy Spirit will teach you all things and bring to your mind all that I have told you, saith the Lord.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
✠ The Holy Gospel — John 14:21–26
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 He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth me. And he that loveth me, shall be loved of my Father: and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
²² Judas saith to him, not the Iscariot: Lord, how is it, that thou wilt manifest thyself to us, and not to the world?
²³ Jesus answered, and said to him: If any one love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and will make our abode with him.
²⁴ He that loveth me not, keepeth not my words. And the word which you have heard, is not mine; but the Father's who sent me.
²⁵ These things have I spoken to you, abiding with you.
²⁶ But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you.
The Gospel of the Lord. Praise be to Thee, O Lord Jesus Christ.
Commentary
The word Paraclete (Parakletos in Greek) is found in the New Testament only in John's Gospel and First Letter, and it carries rich layered meaning. Literally it means one called to the side of another — an advocate, a helper, a defender in a court of law. The word also suggests comfort and strengthening (paraklesis). What is distinctive in today's saying is the function assigned: the Paraclete will teach you all things and bring all things to your mind. This is the theological foundation of the Church's magisterium — not a human institution claiming authority for itself, but the fruit of the Spirit's continuous mission to unfold what Christ revealed. St. John Henry Newman spent his life tracing this development of doctrine, and identified it as the Paraclete's own work: "The movement of doctrine is a living process, fed by the divine life itself, not a mere re-arrangement of human ideas" (Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, ch. 1). To keep Christ's commandments is not obedience to an external code; it is the condition of receiving this continuous interior teaching. Love is the prerequisite for understanding.
✠ Closing Prayer
O Holy Spirit, Paraclete and Advocate, whom the Father sends in the Name of Christ to teach us all things, come and abide in us. What we cannot understand, illuminate; what we have forgotten, recall; what we have never received, grant. Make our love of Christ the school of Thy teaching, so that His word may grow in us as a living seed until it bears the fruit of a life that glorifies the Father. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Our Father… Hail Mary… Glory be…
✠ Laus Deo semper — Praise be to God always ✠
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