Gospel: April 4, 2025

April 4, 2025 (Friday)

4th Week of Lent

Psalter: Week 4 / (Violet)

Day of abstinence from meat (age 14 and up)

St. Isidore, bishop and doctor

Ps 34:17-18, 19-20, 21 & 23

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.

See Also

Dolphin dies after being rescued from Zambales beach

1st Reading: Wisdom of Solomon 2:1a, 12-22

Gospel: John 7:1-2, 10, 25-30

After this, Jesus went around Galilee; he would not go about in Judea, because the Jews wanted to kill him. Now the Jewish feast of the Tents was at hand. But after his brothers had gone to the festival, he also went up, not publicly but in secret. Some of the people of Jerusalem said, “Is this not the man they want to kill? And here he is speaking freely, and they don’t say a word to him? Can it be, that the rulers know that this is really the Christ? Yet we know where this man comes from; but when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from.” So Jesus announced in a loud voice in the temple court where he was teaching, “You say that you know me and know where I come from! I have not come of myself; I was sent by the One who is true, and you don’t know him. I know him, for I come from him, and he sent me.” They would have arrested him, but no one laid hands on him because his time had not yet come.

Reflection:

“The righteous’ person”

The people in the passage from Wisdom are following a hedonistic lifestyle, which could be summed up by the old adage, “eat, drink, be merry, for tomorrow we die,” a saying which draws upon lines in Isaiah and Ecclesiastes. With no belief in resurrection or an afterlife, attention turns to the now, ignoring consequences, and focusing on pleasure. The people mentioned in Wisdom feel irritated and threatened by the “righteous” person, who lives a different way, who acts as a mirror to them, and shows that they are living a superficial life. And so, they ridicule the person of faith, and even attack him. This becomes a prophecy of how they will treat Christ, the Righteous One at the Passion. However, members of his Body, the Church receive such aggressive or violent rejection even to this day. Christians are attacked or imprisoned around the world and churches are set on fire. Pray today for persecuted Christians, men, women and children. And if you receive some ridicule for your devotion today, unite that small suffering to Christ’s for the healing of the world.