Churches of the Day

Wednesday of the Second  Week of Lent

Salvation comes from God alone. What he wants of us is to trust him,
for us to abandon ourselves to his merciful love and as our ultimate protection.

Saint of the Day: March 4th : St Casimir, peacemaker, Patron of Poland
C/f A short life of be this saint can found below todays' Readings and Reflection

FIRST READING,

A reading from the prophet Jeremiah       18:18-20
Come on, let us hit at him.

'Come on,' they said 'let us concoct a plot against Jeremiah;
the priest will not run short of instruction without him,
nor the sage of advice, nor the prophet of the word.
Come on, let us hit at him with his own tongue;
let us listen carefully to every word he says.'

"Listen to me, Lord, hear what my adversaries are saying.
Should evil be returned for good? For they are digging a pit for me.
Remember how I stood in your presence to plead on their behalf, to turn your wrath away from them."

The Word of the Lord.                  Thanks be to God

Responsorial Psalm                Ps 30: 5-6, 14 ,15-16 R/v. 17
Response                                    Save me in your love, O Lord.

1. Release me from the snares they have hidden for you are my refuge, Lord.
Into your hands I commend my spirit. It is you who will redeem me, Lord.     Response

2. I have heard the slander of the crowd, fear is all around me,
as they plot together against me, as they plan to take my life.                              Response

3. But as for me, I trust in you, Lord, I say: 'You are my God.
My life is in your hands, deliver me from the hands of those who hate me.'    Response

Gospel  Acclamation                             Jn 6:63-68
Glory to you, O Christ, you are the Word of God!
Your words are spirit, Lord, and they are life;
you have the message of eternal life.
Glory to you, O Christ, you are the Word of God!

Or                                                                   Jn 8:12
Glory to you, O Christ, you are the Word of God!
I am the light of the world, says the Lord,
anyone who follows me will have the light of life.
Glory to you, O Christ, you are the Word of God!

GOSPEL 

The Lord be with you.                                 And with your spirit
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew     20:17-28       Glory to you, O Lord
They will condemn him to death.

Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, and on the way he took the Twelve to one side and said to them,
'Now we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man is about to be handed over to the chief priests and scribes. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the pagans to be mocked and scourged and crucified; and on the third day he will rise again.'

Then the mother of Zebedee's sons came with her sons to make a request of him, and bowed low; and he said to her, 'What is it you want?'
She said to him, 'Promise that these two sons of mine may sit one at your right hand and the other at your left in your kingdom.'
'You do not know what you are asking' Jesus answered.
'Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?'
They replied, 'We can.'
'Very well,' he said 'you shall drink my cup, but as for seats at my right hand and my left, these are not mine to grant; they belong to those to whom they have been allotted by my Father.'

When the other ten heard this they were indignant with the two brothers.
But Jesus called them to him and said, 'You know that among the pagans the rulers lord it over them, and their great men make their authority felt. This is not to happen among you.
No; anyone who wants to be great among you must be your servant, and anyone who wants to be first among you must be your slave, just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.'

The Gospel of the Lord.          Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ

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Gospel Reflection      Wednesday.      Second Week of Lent      Matthew 20:17-28

It is natural for mothers to want the best for their children. In today’s gospel reading, the mother of James and John ask Jesus if they could have the best seats in his kingdom, one at his right and the other at his left. Jesus had been proclaiming the nearness of the kingdom of God and she seems to have imagined that God’s kingdom would be like an earthly kingdom, such as the kingdom of Rome or the Roman Empire, as it is usually called. She wasn’t alone in thinking this. Her sons thought as much, along with the ten other members of the twelve. These ten were indignant with the two brothers for trying to get the best seats in God’s kingdom ahead of them. Jesus must have been rightly fed up with the lot of them!

He had just announced that his mission would lead to him being mocked, scourged and crucified. He would end up on a Roman cross with the mocking title over his head, ‘Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews’. Some king! It was his self-emptying love for all of God’s children, whether they were Jew, Samaritan or pagan, religious or sinner, that put him on a cross. The kingdom of God was present when he healed the sick, touched lepers, shared table with sinners, allowed women to wash his feet, fed the hungry in the wilderness, released the oppressed from their demons, even on the Sabbath. As he said at the end of the gospel reading, he had come not to be served, like the kings of this world, but to serve. If his disciples wanted to belong to God’s kingdom that is the mind-set they must have. If they want to be great they must become a servant. They can forget about honour and privilege. Whenever any one of us serve others without looking for anything in return, the kingdom of God is present in our world, and heaven draws nearer to everyone.

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The Scripture Readings are taken from The Jerusalem Bible, published 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd. and used with the permission of the publishers.  http://dltbooks.com/
The Scripture Reflection is made available with our thanks from his book Reflections on the Weekday Readings : The Word is near to you, on your lips and in your heart by Martin Hogan and published by Messenger Publications  c/f www.messenger.ie/bookshop/

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Saint of the Day: March 4th : St Casimir, peacemaker, Patron of Poland

Casimir, prince, peacemaker, born at Krakow (Poland) in 1458, died in Lithuania on this day in 1484. Though a young prince of Poland, he preferred peace to being a soldier. He chose celibacy over marriage and favoured prayer and penance rather than royal privilege. Noted for his generous life of austerity and devotion. Patron Saint of Poland.

Patrick Duffy tells his story

Although he lived in a world where he had to conform to the expectations of his father, Casimir was aware of other priorities - the love of God - and these were what he followed. In 1948 Pope Pius XII named him as patron saint of all youth, Poland and Lithuania

A pious youth


Casimir born in 1458, was the second son of King Casimir IV of Poland. Tutored from childhood by a holy and modest man, Fr John Dlugosz of Cracow, the historian of Poland, he grew up as a devout and pious youth. When he was thirteen his father, at the request of one Hungarian faction, sent his son at the head of a large army to be king of Hungary, but at the border Casimir turned back and, to avoid his father's anger, went to do three months penance to the castle of Dobski near Cracow.

His preference for a life of religious retirement
Influenced again by Fr John Dlugosz, he was reluctant to take up arms especially against Christians who were being pressed by the Turks. He also refused to marry a daughter of Emperor Frederick III and preferred a life of celibacy, religious retirement and penance.

Viceroy of Poland
His elder brother, Ladislaus, had by now become king of Bohemia, so his father initiated him into public life and when in 1479 the king went to Lithuania for five years arranging affairs there, Casimir was viceroy of Poland, and from 1481 to 1483 administered the state with great prudence and justice. He promoted peace and the unity of Western Europe.

Died en route to Lithuania
He became ill with a lung disease, which may have been due to his fastings and mortification. While on a journey to Lithuania, he died at the court of Grodno, age 26, on March 4th, 1484. and was buried in the chapel of the Blessed Virgin in the Cathedral of Vilna.
Veneration
St-Casimir Church-Didzioji, Poland After his death he was venerated as a saint, because of the miracles reported at his tomb. He was canonised in 1522 by Pope Adrian VI and was named patron saint of Poland and Lithuania in 1602. In 1948 Pope Pius XII named him as patron saint of all youth.

Third Sunday of Lent, Year A

Through the Spirit of God the gift of love is poured into our hearts, a gift bought by the blood of Christ.
This is true for all Christians, new and old. But it needs to be constantly prayed for.

First Scrutiny of Catechumens is celebrated today 

FIRST READING

A reading from the Book of Exodus          17:3-7
Give us water to drink.

  Tormented by thirst, the people complained against Moses. 'Why did you bring us out of Egypt?' they said. 'Was it so that I should die of thirst, my children too, and my cattle?' Moses appealed to the Lord. 'How am I to deal with this people? he said. 'A little more and they will stone me!'
The Lord said to Moses,
'Take with you some of the elders of Israel and move on to the forefront of the people; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the river, and go. I shall be standing before you there on the rock, at Horeb. You must strike the rock, and water will flow from it for the people to drink.'
This is what Moses did, in the sight of the elders of Israel. The place was named Massah and Meribah because of the grumbling of the sons of Israel and because they put the Lord to the test by saying, 'Is the Lord with us, or not?'

The Word of the Lord              Thanks be to God.

Responsorual Psalm         Ps 94:1-2, 6-9, R/v8
Response                              O that today you would listen to his voice,
harden not your hearts.


1. Come, ring out our joy to the Lord; hail the rock who saves us.
    Let us come before him, giving thanks, with songs let us hail the Lord.                       Response

2. Come in; let us bow and bend low; let us kneel before the God who made us
    for he is our God and we  the people who belong to his pasture,
    the flock that is led by his hand.                                                                                             Response

3. O that today you would listen to his voice! 'Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
    as on that day at Massah in the desert when your fathers put me to the test;
    when they tried me, though they saw my work.'                                                                Response

SECOND READING

 A reading from the first letter of St Paul to the  Romans          5:1-2. 5-8 
The love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given us.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, by faith we are judged righteous and at peace with God, since it is by faith and through Jesus that we have entered this state of grace in which we can boast about looking forward to God's glory and this hope is not deceptive, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given us. We were still helpless when at his appointed moment Christ died for sinful men. It is not easy to die even for a good man - though of course for someone really worthy, a man might be prepared to die - but what proves that God loves us is that Christ died for us while we were still sinners.

The Word of the Lord                        Thanks be to God.

Gospel  Acclamation                  Jn 4: 42.15
Glory and praise to you, O Christ !
Lord, you are really the saviour of the world;
give me the living water, so that I may never get thirsty.
Glory and praise to you, O Christ !

GOSPEL     

The Lord be with you.                    And with your spirit
A reading from the Gospel according to John         4:5-42            Glory to you, O Lord
A spring inside him, welling up to eternal life'

Jesus came to the Samaritan town called Sychar, near the land that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jacob's well is there and Jesus, tired by the journey, sat straight down by the well. It was about the sixth hour When a Samaritan woman came to draw water,
Jesus said to her, 'Give me a drink'.
His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him,
'What? You are a Jew and you ask me, a Samaritan, for a drink?' - Jews, in fact, do not associate with Samaritans.
Jesus replied: If you only knew what God is offering and who it is that is saying to you: Give me a drink, you would have been the one to ask, and he would have given you living water'.

'You have no bucket, sir,' she answered 'and the well is deep: how could you get this living water? Are you a greater man than our father Jacob who gave us this well and drank from it himself with his sons and his cattle?'
Jesus replied 'Whoever drinks this water will get thirsty again;
but anyone who drinks the water that I shall give will never be thirsty again: the water that I shall give will turn into a spring inside him, welling up to eternal life'.

'Sir,' said the woman 'give me some of that water, so that I may never get thirsty and never have to come here again to draw water.'
'Go and call your husband' said Jesus to her 'and come back here.'
The woman answered, 'I have no husband'.
He said to her, You are right to say, "I have no husband"; for although you have had five, the one you have now is not your husband. You spoke the truth there.'
'I see you are a prophet, sir' said the woman.
'Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, while you say that Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.'
Jesus said: 'Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know: for salvation comes from the Jews.
But the hour will come - in fact it is here already – when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth: that is the kind of worshipper the Father wants. God is spirit, and those who worship must worship in spirit and truth.'

The woman said to him, 'I know that Messiah - that is, Christ - is coming; and when he comes he will tell us everything'.
'I who am speaking to you,' said Jesus 'I am he.'

At this point his disciples returned, and were surprised to find him speaking to a woman, though none of them asked, 'What do you want from her?' or, 'Why are you talking to her?'
The woman put down her water jar and hurried back to the town to tell the people.
'Come and see a man who has told me everything I ever did; I wonder if he is the Christ?' This brought people out of the town and they started walking towards him.

Meanwhile, the disciples were urging him, 'Rabbi, do have something to eat; but he said,
'I have food to eat that you do not know about'.
So the disciples asked one another, 'Has someone been bringing him food?'
But Jesus said: 'My food is to do the will of the one who sent me, and to complete his work.
Have you not got a saying: 'Four months and then the harvest?'
Well, I tell you: Look around you, look at the fields; already they are white, ready for harvest!
Already the reaper is being paid his wages, already he is bringing in the grain for eternal life,
and thus sower and reaper rejoice together.
For here the proverb holds good: one sows, another reaps; I sent you to reap a harvest you had not worked for. Others worked for it; and you have come into the rewards of their trouble.'

Many Samaritans of that town had believed in him on the strength of the woman's testimony when she said, 'He told me all I have ever done', so, when the Samaritans came up to him, they begged him to stay with them. He stayed for two days, and when he spoke to them many more came to believe; and they said to the woman, 'Now we no longer believe because of what you told us; we have heard him ourselves and we know that he really is the saviour of the world'.

The Gospel of the Lord              Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

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For homily resources for this Sunday's Gospel click here:  https://www.catholicireland.net/sunday-homily/



The scripture readings are taken from THE JERUSALEM BIBLE, published in 1966 by Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd and used with permission of the publishers.