16 May 2025 (Friday) / Friday of the 4th week of Eastertide / Easter Weekday

16 May 2025 (Friday)

Friday of the 4th week of Eastertide.

Easter Weekday.

Readings from the Bible of the Roman Catholic Church:

First Reading: Acts 13: 26-33

Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 2: 6-7, 8-9, 10-11ab

Alleluia: John 14: 6

Gospel: John 14: 1-6

First Reading : Acts 13:26‐33

Paul stood up in the synagogue at Antioch in Pisidia, held up a hand for silence and began to speak: ‘My brothers, sons of Abraham’s race, and all you who fear God, this message of salvation is meant for you. What the people of Jerusalem and their rulers did, though they did not realise it, was in fact to fulfil the prophecies read on every sabbath. Though they found nothing to justify his death, they condemned him and asked Pilate to have him executed. When they had carried out everything that scripture foretells about him they took him down from the tree and buried him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead, and for many days he appeared to those who had accompanied him from Galilee to Jerusalem: and it is these same companions of his who are now his witnesses before our people. ‘We have come here to tell you the Good News. It was to our ancestors that God made the promise but it is to us, their children, that he has fulfilled it, by raising Jesus from the dead. As scripture says in the second psalm: You are my son: today I have become your father.’

Responsive Psalm : Psalm 2:6‐11

You are my Son. It is I who have begotten you this day.

or

Alleluia!

‘It is I who have set up my king on Zion, my holy mountain.’ I will announce the decree of the Lord: The Lord said to me: ‘You are my Son. It is I who have begotten you this day.

You are my Son. It is I who have begotten you this day.

or

Alleluia!

‘Ask and I shall bequeath you the nations, put the ends of the earth in your possession. With a rod of iron you will break them, shatter them like a potter’s jar.’

You are my Son. It is I who have begotten you this day.

or

Alleluia!

Now, O kings, understand, take warning, rulers of the earth; serve the Lord with awe and trembling, pay him your homage.

You are my Son. It is I who have begotten you this day.

or

Alleluia!

Alleluia: John 14: 6

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

6 I am the way and the truth and the life, says the Lord; no one comes to the Father except through me.

(6. Jesus said: I am the Way; I am Truth and Life. No one can come to the Father except through me).

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel : John 14:1‐6

Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God still, and trust in me. There are many rooms in my Father’s house; if there were not, I should have told you. I am going now to prepare a place for you, and after I have gone and prepared you a place, I shall return to take you with me; so that where I am you may be too. You know the way to the place where I am going.’ Thomas said, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going, so how can we know the way?’ Jesus said: ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one can come to the Father except through me.’

For our reflection today:

“Believe in God, believe also in me” (Jn 14:1). They are not two separate acts but one single act of faith, full adherence to salvation wrought by God the Father through his Only-begotten Son.

The New Testament puts an end to the Father's invisibility. God has shown his face, as Jesus’ answer to the Apostle Philip confirms: “He who has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn 14:9). With his Incarnation, death and Resurrection, the Son of God has freed us from the slavery of sin to give us the freedom of the children of God and he has shown us the face of God, which is love: God can be seen, he is visible in Christ. Therefore, only by believing in Christ, by remaining united to him, may the disciples, among whom we too are, continue their permanent action in history: “Truly, truly, I say to you,” says the Lord, “he who believes in me will also do the works that I do” (Jn 14:12). Faith in Jesus entails following him daily, in the simple actions that make up our day. “It is part of the mystery of God that he acts so gently, that he only gradually builds up his history within the great history of mankind; that he becomes man and so can be overlooked by his contemporaries and by the decisive forces within history that he suffers and dies and that, having risen again, he chooses to come to mankind only through the faith of the disciples to whom he reveals himself; that he continues to knock gently at the doors of our hearts and slowly opens our eyes if we open our doors to him. (Benedict XVI, Regina Caeli, 22 May 2011)

Jonathan Fabian Ginunggil,

Most High Servant,

Jesus, Mary, Joseph Ministry of Love (Blessed and Saints and the Nine Choirs of Angels)