The 15th of March, 2024 is Friday in the Fourth Week of Lent. The Bible scriptures for the holy mass readings for this day came from the 2024 Liturgical Calendar.
Reading 1: WIS 2:1A, 12-22
The first reading from the Wisdom of Solomon.
For they said within themselves, with unsound reasoning, “But let’s lie in wait for the righteous man, because he annoys us, is contrary to our works, reproaches us with sins against the law, and charges us with sins against our training.
He professes to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a child of the Lord.
He became to us a reproof of our thoughts.
He is grievous to us even to look at, because his life is unlike other men’s, and his paths are strange.
We were regarded by him as something worthless, and he abstains from our ways as from uncleanness. He calls the latter end of the righteous happy. He boasts that God is his father.
Let’s see if his words are true. Let’s test what will happen at the end of his life.
For if the righteous man is God’s son, he will uphold him, and he will deliver him out of the hand of his adversaries.
Let’s test him with insult and torture, that we may find out how gentle he is, and test his patience.
Let’s condemn him to a shameful death, for he will be protected, according to his words.”
Thus they reasoned, and they were led astray; for their wickedness blinded them, and they didn’t know the mysteries of God, neither did they hope for wages of holiness, nor did they discern that there is a prize for blameless souls.
Responsorial Psalm: PS 34:16-17, 18-19, 20 and 22
Response: Yahweh is near to those who have a broken heart.
Yahweh’s face is against those who do evil, to cut off their memory from the earth.
The righteous cry, and Yahweh hears, and delivers them out of all their troubles.
R: Yahweh is near to those who have a broken heart.
Yahweh is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves those who have a crushed spirit.
Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but Yahweh delivers him out of them all.
R: Yahweh is near to those who have a broken heart.
He protects all of his bones. Not one of them is broken.
Yahweh redeems the soul of his servants. None of those who take refuge in him shall be condemned.
R: Yahweh is near to those who have a broken heart.
Verse Before Gospel: MT 4:4B
From the good news according to Matthew.
“‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of God’s mouth.’_”
Gospel of the Day: JN 7:1-2, 10, 25-30
From the gospel verse according to John.
After these things, Jesus was walking in Galilee, for he wouldn’t walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill him.
Now the feast of the Jews, the Feast of Booths, was at hand.
But when his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly, but as it were in secret.
Therefore some of them of Jerusalem said, “Isn’t this he whom they seek to kill?
Behold, he speaks openly, and they say nothing to him. Can it be that the rulers indeed know that this is truly the Christ?
However, we know where this man comes from, but when the Christ comes, no one will know where he comes from.”
Jesus therefore cried out in the temple, teaching and saying, “You both know me, and know where I am from. I have not come of myself, but he who sent me is true, whom you don’t know.
I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.”
They sought therefore to take him; but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come.