3 March 2026 (Tuesday) / Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent / Lenten Weekday/ Saint Katharine Drexel, Virgin, Religious Founder

3 March 2026 (Tuesday)

Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent.
Lenten Weekday/ Saint Katharine Drexel, Virgin, Religious Founder.

Readings from the Bible of the Roman Catholic Church:

First Reading: Isaiah 1: 10, 16-20
Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 50: 8-9, 16bc-17, 21 and 23
Verse Before the Gospel: Ezekiel 18: 31
Gospel: Matthew 23: 1-12

First Reading: Isaiah 1: 10, 16-20

10 Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom, give ear to the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrha.
16 Wash yourselves, be clean, take away the evil of your devices from my eyes: cease to do perversely,
17 Learn to do well: seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge for the fatherless, defend the widow.
18 And then come, and accuse me, saith the Lord: if your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow: and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool.
19 If you be willing, and will hearken to me, you shall eat the good things of the land.
20 But if you will not, and will provoke me to wrath: the sword shall devour you because the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 50: 8-9, 16bc-17, 21 and 23

R. (23b) To the upright I will show the saving power of God.
8 I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices: and thy burnt offerings are always in my sight.
9 I will not take calves out of thy house: nor he goats out of thy flocks.
R. To the upright I will show the saving power of God.
16bc Why dost thou declare my justices, and take my covenant in thy mouth?
17 Seeing thou hast hated discipline: and hast cast my words behind thee.
R. To the upright I will show the saving power of God.
21 These things hast thou done, and I was silent. Thou thoughtest unjustly that I should be like to thee: but I will reprove thee, and set before thy face.
23 The sacrifice of praise shall glorify me: and there is the way by which I will shew him the salvation of God.
R. To the upright I will show the saving power of God.

Verse Before the Gospel: Ezekiel 18: 31
31 Cast away from you all the crimes you have committed, says the LORD, and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.

Gospel: Matthew 23: 1-12

1 Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to his disciples,
2 Saying: The scribes and the Pharisees have sitten on the chair of Moses.
3 All things therefore whatsoever they shall say to you, observe and do: but according to their works do ye not; for they say, and do not.
4 For they bind heavy and insupportable burdens, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but with a finger of their own they will not move them.
5 And all their works they do for to be seen of men. For they make their phylacteries broad, and enlarge their fringes.
6 And they love the first places at feasts, and the first chairs in the synagogues,
7 And salutations in the market place, and to be called by men, Rabbi.
8 But be not you called Rabbi. For one is your master; and all you are brethren.
9 And call none your father upon earth; for one is your father, who is in heaven.
10 Neither be ye called masters; for one is your master, Christ.
11 He that is the greatest among you shall be your servant.
12 And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled: and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.

For our reflection today:

In his homily at Holy Mass, Pope Francis reflected on the meaning of Lent in light of the day’s readings from Isaiah (1:10, 16-20) and the Gospel of Matthew (23:1-12).

“Lent is a time for us to draw closer to the Lord,” the Pope said. It is a time for “conversion”. In the day’s first Reading, he said, “the Lord invites us to conversion; and interestingly he calls two cities harlots”: Sodom and Gomorrah. And he issues them this invitation: “Be converted, change your lives, draw near to the Lord”. This, he explained, “is the Lenten invitation: they are 40 days to draw near to the Lord, to be closer to him. For we all need to change our lives”.

The Pontiff noted how meaningless it is to excuse ourselves by saying: “But Father, I am not such a great sinner....”, for “we all have something inside of us and if we look into our soul we will find something that is not good, all of us”. Lent therefore “invites us to amend our lives, to put them in order”, he said, adding that this is precisely what allows us to draw near to the Lord, who is always ready to forgive.

Pope Francis then quoted the word of the Lord, spoken through the prophet Isaiah: “though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow”. With these words the Lord says to us: “I will change your soul”, the Pope said. What does he ask of us? To draw near. To draw near to him. He is a Father; he awaits us in order to forgive us.

The Lord also gives us this counsel: “Do not be like the hypocrites”. Citing the day’s Gospel from St Matthew, the Pope continued: “The Lord does not want this [hypocritical] type of drawing near. He wants us to draw near in sincerity and truth. What do hypocrites do? They mask themselves. They mask themselves as good. They mask their faces like a holy picture: they pray looking up to heaven to make themselves seen, they feel that they are more righteous than others, they look down on others”. And they boast of being good Catholics because they have acquaintances among benefactors, bishops and cardinals.

“This is hypocrisy,” he said. “And the Lord says no to it”. No one should feel self righteous. “We all need to be justified and the only one who justifies us is Jesus Christ. That is why we need to draw near: to avoid being masked Christians”. When appearances vanish “reality comes to light and we see that they are not Christians. What is the touchstone? The Lord himself tells us in the first Reading: ‘Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good’”. This, he repeated, is the Lenten invitation.

“What is the sign that we are on the right path?”, the Pope asked. “Scripture tells us: defend the oppressed; take care of your neighbour, the sick, the poor, the needy, the ignorant. This is the touchstone. Hypocrites cannot do this, for they are so full of themselves that they are blind to seeing others”. But “when one journeys a little and draws near to the Lord, the light of the Father enables one to see these things and to go out to help one’s brothers and sisters. And this is the sign of conversion”.

Certainly, he added, this “is not the whole of conversion; because conversion is an encounter with Jesus Christ. But this is the sign that we are with Jesus: taking care of the brethren, the poorest and the sick, as the Lord teaches us in the Gospel”.

Lent therefore helps us “to change our lives, to amend our lives, to draw near to the Lord”, the Pope reiterated. Hypocrisy, by contrast, is “the sign that we are far from the Lord”. The hypocrite “saves himself on his own, at least this is what he thinks”, whereas “the sign that we have drawn near to the Lord in a spirit of repentance and forgiveness “is that we take care of our needy brothers and sisters”.

Pope Francis concluded his homily, praying: “May the Lord give us all light and courage: light to be aware of what is happening within us; and courage to be converted, to draw near to the Lord. It is beautiful to be close to the Lord”.
(Pope Francis, Christians without masks)

Jonathan Fabian Ginunggil,
Pelayan Atasan Tertinggi / Most High Servant,
Yesus, Maria, Yusuf Pelayanan Kasih / Jesus, Mary, Joseph Ministry of Love 
(Blessed and Saints and the Nine Choirs of Angels)

My vocation is Blessed and Saints.

"I am the most humble of all the Saints in Heaven" Mary, Mother of God.

"I am the handmaid of the Lord, said Mary ‘let what you have said be done to me."

Mother Mary is the most humble Saint in Heaven and she is also the Mother of God for us all
(Luke 1:38)