Thursday of the 4th Week of Lent
Mass Readings
First Reading – Exodus 32:7-14
The LORD said to Moses, “Go down at once to your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, for they have become depraved. They have soon turned aside from the way I pointed out to them, making for themselves a molten calf and worshiping it, sacrificing to it and crying out, ‘This is your God, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt!’ The LORD said to Moses, “I see how stiff-necked this people is. Let me alone, then, that my wrath may blaze up against them to consume them. Then I will make of you a great nation.” But Moses implored the LORD, his God, saying, “Why, O LORD, should your wrath blaze up against your own people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with such great power and with so strong a hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent he brought them out, that he might kill them in the mountains and exterminate them from the face of the earth’? Let your blazing wrath die down; relent in punishing your people. Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, and how you swore to them by your own self, saying, ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky; and all this land that I promised, I will give your descendants as their perpetual
Responsorial Psalm – Ps 106:19-20, 21-22, 23 (R.4a)
R. Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
Our fathers made a calf in Horeb
and adored a molten image;
They exchanged their glory
for the image of a grass-eating bullock. R.
They forgot the God who had saved them,
who had done great deeds in Egypt,
Wondrous deeds in the land of Ham,
terrible things at the Red Sea. R.
Then he spoke of exterminating them,
but Moses, his chosen one,
Withstood him in the breach
to turn back his destructive wrath. R.
Gospel – Jn 5:31-47
Jesus said to the Jews: “If I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is not true. But there is another who testifies on my behalf, and I know that the testimony he gives on my behalf is true. You sent emissaries to John, and he testified to the truth. I do not accept human testimony, but I say this so that you may be saved. He was a burning and shining lamp, and for a while you were content to rejoice in his light. But I have testimony greater than John’s. The works that the Father gave me to accomplish, these works that I perform testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me. Moreover, the Father who sent me has testified on my behalf. But you have never heard his voice nor seen his form, and you do not have his word remaining in you, because you do not believe in the one whom he has sent. You search the Scriptures, because you think you have eternal life through them; even they testify on my behalf. But you do not want to come to me to have life. “I do not accept human praise; moreover, I know that you do not have the love of God in you. I came in the name of my Father, but you do not accept me; yet if another comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe, when you accept praise from one another and do not seek the praise that comes from the only God? Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father: the one who will accuse you is Moses, in whom you have placed your hope. For if you had believed Moses, you would have believed me, because he wrote about me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”
Featured Saints
St. Sixtus I, Pope (†128). Roman by birth, he was the sixth successor of St. Peter. He ruled the Church at the time of Emperor Hadrian.
St. Nicetas, Confessor (†824). Abbot of Medikion monastery at Bithynia, in present-day Turkey. He suffered persecution and imprisonment for defending the veneration of icons under Emperor Leo, an iconoclast.
St. John, Bishop (†432). Bishop of Naples, Italy; he died on the Easter Vigil, as he celebrated the sacred mysteries, and was buried on the Solemnity of the Resurrection of the Lord.
St. Richard of Chichester, bishop (†1235). Exiled by King Henry III and only reinstated after a long struggle, he devoted himself generously to the service of the poor.
St. Luigi Scrosoppi, priest (†1884). Priest from the Congregation of the Oratory, he founded the Congregation of the Sisters of Divine Providence in Udine, Italy, for the Christian education of poor girls.
St. Joseph the Hymnographer, monk (+886). Born in Sicily, he took refuge in Greece during the Muslim invasions. He opposed the iconoclasts and founded a monastery in Constantinople. For his gift for the composition of sacred hymns, he became known was the Hymnographer.
Blessed John of Penna, priest (†1275). Sent by St. Francis of Assisi to Gaul of Narbonne, France, he promulgated the new form of evangelical life there.
Blessed Gandolfo of Binasco, priest (†1260). Entered the Order of the Friars Minor during the lifetime of its founder, St. Francis. He led an austere life of solitude in Polizzi, Sicily, and preached the Word of God in the environs.
Blessed Peter Edward Dánkowski, priest and martyr (†1942). Polish priest imprisoned and killed in Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland for the Faith.
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