First Reading: Acts 13:26-33
Psalm: Ps 2:6-7, 8-9, 10-11ab
You are my Son; this day I have begotten you!
Gospel: Jn 14:1-6
Fri: Easter Weekday/ Our Lady of Fatima
Acts 13: 26-33/ Ps 2: 6-7. 8-9. 10-11ab/ Jn 14: 1-6
1st Reading: Acts 13:26-33
Brothers, children and descendants of Abraham, and you, also, who fear God, it is to you that this message of salvation has been sent. It is a fact, that the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and their leaders, did not recognize Jesus. Yet, in condemning him, they fulfilled the words of the prophets that are read every Sabbath, but not understood. Even though they found no charge against him that deserved death, they asked Pilate to have him executed. And after they had carried out all that had been written concerning him, they took him down from the cross and laid him in a tomb.
But God raised him from the dead, and for many days thereafter, he showed himself, to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They have now become his witnesses before the people. We, ourselves, announce to you this Good News: All that God promised our ancestors, he has fulfilled, for us, their descendants, by raising Jesus, according to what is written in the second psalm: You are my Son, today I have begotten you.
Responsorial Psalm; Ps 2:6-7, 8-9, 10-11ab
You are my Son; this day I have begotten you!
Gospel: Jn 14:1-6
“Do not be troubled! Trust in God and trust in me! In my Father’s house there are many rooms; otherwise, I would not have told you that I go to prepare a place for you. After I have gone and prepared a place for you, I shall come again and take you to me, so that where I am, you also may be. Yet you know the way where I am going.”
Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going; how can we know the way?” Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me.
Reflection:
Desire of the Nations
The Church refers to Jesus as the “desire of the nations” and rightly so. The Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, one of the ten principal upanishads of India (written between 9th–6th centuries BCE), has this famous prayer, known as pavamāna abhyāroha (prayer of purification), that captures this human desire beautifully. I give it in transliterated Sanskrit with its meaning in parenthesis:
asato mā sadgamaya (lead us from untruth to truth)
tamaso mā jyotirgamaya (from darkness to light)
mṛtyor mā'mṛtaṃ gamaya (from death to eternal life)
No one has answered this prayer, by word and deed, as Jesus has: “I am the light of the world” (Jn 8: 12), and “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (Jn 14: 6)! Like Peter, we can only say, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life” (Jn 6:68).