Wednesday of the 3rd Week of Lent
Optional Memorial of St. Turibius of Mogrovejo, Archbishop of Lima, Peru (†1606). He worked tirelessly for twenty-five years to glorify Christ’s name in his immense diocese which, at that time covered a good part of South America. He was an advocate of the indigenous and a reformer of clergy.
Mass Readings
First Reading – Dt 4:1, 5-9
Moses spoke to the people and said: “Now, Israel, hear the statutes and decrees which I am teaching you to observe, that you may live, and may enter in and take possession of the land which the LORD, the God of your fathers, is giving you. Therefore, I teach you the statutes and decrees as the LORD, my God, has commanded me, that you may observe them in the land you are entering to occupy. Observe them carefully, for thus will you give evidence of your wisdom and intelligence to the nations, who will hear of all these statutes and say, ‘This great nation is truly a wise and intelligent people.’ For what great nation is there that has gods so close to it as the LORD, our God, is to us whenever we call upon him? Or what great nation has statutes and decrees that are as just as this whole law which I am setting before you today? “However, take care and be earnestly on your guard not to forget the things which your own eyes have seen, nor let them slip from your memory as long as you live, but teach them to your children and to your children’s children.”
Responsorial Psalm – 147:12-13, 15-16, 19-20 (R.12a)
R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
Glorify the LORD, O Jerusalem;
praise your God, O Zion.
For he has strengthened the bars of your gates;
he has blessed your children within you. R.
He sends forth his command to the earth;
swiftly runs his word!
He spreads snow like wool;
frost he strews like ashes. R.
He has proclaimed his word to Jacob,
his statutes and his ordinances to Israel.
He has not done thus for any other nation;
his ordinances he has not made known to them. R.
Gospel – Mt 5:17-19
Jesus said to his disciples: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so will be called least in the Kingdom of heaven. But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.”
Featured Saints
St. Walter, abbot (†c. 1095). First abbot of the monastery of Pontoise, France. He taught the monks the monastic rule by his own example and fought the widespread simony among the clergy.
St. Rafqa (Rebecca) of Himlaya, virgin (†1914). Religious of the Lebanese Maronite Order of St. Anthony; she suffered from blindness and other infirmities, and persevered in continual prayer for thirty years.
Blessed Peter Higgins, priest and martyr (†1642). Dominican priest hanged without a trial in Naas, Ireland, during the reign of Charles I of England Ireland for refusing to deny the Catholic Faith.
Blessed Methodius Dominick Trčka, priest and martyr (†1959). Redemptorist priest imprisoned in a dank cell in the Leopoldov Prison in Slovakia, where he died of pneumonia.
Blessed Anunciata Cocchetti, virgin (†1882). She founded the Institute of the Sisters of St.orothy in Cemmo, Italy. She died at age 82 having dedicated her long life to the formation and education of poor girls.
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