27 March 2026 (Friday) / Lenten Weekday / Day of Abstinence from Meat (age 14 and up) / Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent

27 March 2026 (Friday)

Lenten Weekday.
Day of Abstinence from Meat (age 14 and up)
Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent.

Readings from the Bible of the Roman Catholic Church:

First Reading: Jeremiah 20: 10-13
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 17(18):2‐7
Gospel Acclamation: Verse Before the Gospel: John 6: 63c, 68c
Gospel: John 10: 31-42
Liturgical year 2026 (Cycle A/II)
Liturgical color: violet (or purple)

First Reading : Jeremiah 20:10‐13

Jeremiah said:
I hear so many disparaging me,
‘“Terror from every side!”
Denounce him! Let us denounce him!’
All those who used to be my friends
watched for my downfall,
‘Perhaps he will be seduced into error.
Then we will master him
and take our revenge!’
But the Lord is at my side, a mighty hero;
my opponents will stumble, mastered,
confounded by their failure;
everlasting, unforgettable disgrace will be theirs.
But you, O Lord of Hosts, you who probe with justice,
who scrutinise the loins and heart,
let me see the vengeance you will take on them,
for I have committed my cause to you.
Sing to the Lord,
praise the Lord,
for he has delivered the soul of the needy
from the hands of evil men.

Responsive Psalm : Psalm 17(18):2‐7

In my anguish I called to the Lord, and he heard my voice.
I love you, Lord, my strength,
  my rock, my fortress, my saviour.
My God is the rock where I take refuge;
  my shield, my mighty help, my stronghold.
The Lord is worthy of all praise,
  when I call I am saved from my foes.
In my anguish I called to the Lord, and he heard my voice.
The waves of death rose about me;
  the torrents of destruction assailed me;
the snares of the grave entangled me;
  the traps of death confronted me.
In my anguish I called to the Lord, and he heard my voice.
In my anguish I called to the Lord;
  I cried to God for help.
From his temple he heard my voice;
  my cry came to his ears.
In my anguish I called to the Lord, and he heard my voice.

Gospel Acclamation: Verse Before the Gospel: John 6: 63c, 68c
63c, 68c Your words, Lord, are Spirit and life; you have the words of everlasting life.
(63. 'It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh has nothing to offer. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.
64. 'But there are some of you who do not believe.' For Jesus knew from the outset who did not believe and who was to betray him.
65. He went on, 'This is why I told you that no one could come to me except by the gift of the Father.'
66. After this, many of his disciples went away and accompanied him no more.
67. Then Jesus said to the Twelve, 'What about you, do you want to go away too?'
68. Simon Peter answered, 'Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the message of eternal life
69. and we believe; we have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.')

Gospel : John 10:31‐42

The Jews fetched stones to stone him, so Jesus said to them, ‘I have done many good works for you to see, works from my Father; for which of these are you stoning me?’ The Jews answered him, ‘We are not stoning you for doing a good work but for blasphemy: you are only a man and you claim to be God.’ Jesus answered:
‘Is it not written in your Law:
I said, you are gods?
So the Law uses the word gods
of those to whom the word of God was addressed,
and scripture cannot be rejected.
Yet you say to someone the Father has consecrated and sent into the world,
“You are blaspheming,”
because he says, “I am the son of God.”
If I am not doing my Father’s work,
there is no need to believe me;
but if I am doing it,
then even if you refuse to believe in me,
at least believe in the work I do;
then you will know for sure
that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.’
They wanted to arrest him then, but he eluded them.
  He went back again to the far side of the Jordan to stay in the district where John had once been baptising. Many people who came to him there said, ‘John gave no signs, but all he said about this man was true’; and many of them believed in him.

For our reflection today:

In his homily at Holy Mass, Pope Francis focused his reflection on the Christian's battle against Satan and the reality of the devil in the world today. “The devil also exists in the 21st century, and we need to learn from the Gospel how to battle against him”; and we must not be “naive” about his ways. In fact, he said, we need to be very aware of the strategies he employs to entrap us. For the devil is not a thing of the past.

In his comments Pope Francis spoke explicitly about our “battle” with the father of lies. Even “Jesus’ life was a battle: he came to conquer evil, to conquer the prince of this world, to conquer the devil”. Jesus battled against the devil, who many times sought to tempt him. “During his earthly life, he experienced temptation and persecution”. Thus, Pope Francis observed, “we who want to follow Jesus, and who by our baptism have taken to the Lord’s path, must be well aware of this truth: we too are tempted, we too are objects of the demon’s attacks”, for “the spirit of evil does not want us to become holy, it does not us to bear witness to Christ, it does not want us to be disciples of Christ”.

The Pope then asked: “What does the spirit of evil do to snatch us away from Jesus’ path through temptation?”. He replied: “the devil’s temptations have three main characteristics, and we have to be aware of them in order to not to fall into his trap”. First “the temptation begins subtly but then it grows and increasingly grows stronger”. Then “it infects someone else … it spreads to another and seeks to take root in the community”. Finally, “to calm the soul, it seeks to justify itself”. In short: it “grows, spreads and justifies itself”.

Turning to the Scriptures, Pope Francis noted that we see this reality played out in “Jesus’ temptation” in the desert, which “appears almost as a seduction”. “The devil proceeds slowly” and says to Jesus: “But why not do this? Throw yourself from the temple and save thirty years; in just one day everyone will say of you: behold the Messiah!”. The Pope remarked that this is the same tactic “he used with Adam and Eve”. The devil said to them: “Taste the apple, it is good, it will make you wise!” The devil employs the tactics of seduction: he speaks “almost as though he were a spiritual master, as though he were an advisor”.

However, “if the temptation is rejected, it grows and returns stronger”. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus warns that “when the devil is rejected, he turns around and goes looking for several companions and returns with this band”. This is how “temptation grows and becomes stronger. It grows by involving others”. This is exactly what happened with Jesus, as we read in the day’s passage from the Gospel of John (10:31-42). The Pope said: “the devil involved Jesus’ enemies, who at this point were speaking to him stone in hand”, ready to kill him. Here we see clearly temptation’s power to grow by spreading to others.

The third characteristic of the devil’s temptation is that “in the end it seeks to justify itself”. Here Pope Francis recalled the people’s reaction when Jesus returned “for the first time to his home in Nazareth” and went to the Synagogue. First, they were struck by his words, and then immediately the temptation arose: “Is this not the son of Joseph the carpenter and Mary? By what authority does he speak if he never went to university and if he has never studied?”. They sought to justify their desire “to kill him there and then, to throw him off the mountain”.

In the day’s Gospel from John, Jesus’ interlocutors also want to kill him. So much so that “they have stone in hand as they speak to him”. “The temptation turned everyone against Jesus”; and everyone sought to justify himself. Pope Francis identified “the climax of this self-justification” in the high priest’s statement : “Enough, you all know nothing! Do you not know that it is better that one man die for the people? He must die to save the people!”. Everyone agreed: thus it was a “complete justification”.

“When we are tempted, we travel down this same road”, the Pope warned. “We are tempted and it grows and spreads to others”. Just think of gossip: if we are “a little envious of one person or another”, we don’t contain our envy but sometimes share it with others by speaking badly about the person. This is how gossip “seeks to grow and spread to another person and yet another …”. This “is the way gossip works, and we have all been tempted to gossip”. Pope Francis then confided: “I too have been tempted to gossip! It is a daily temptation”, that “begins slowly, like a trickle of water”.

This is why we have to “be careful when we feel something in our heart that would lead to destroying people, destroying reputations, destroying our lives, leading us into worldliness and sin”. We must be “careful because if we do not stop ourselves in time, that trickle of water, when it grows and spreads, will become a tidal wave that leads us to justify ourselves”, just as the people from the day’s Gospel justified themselves and eventually said of Jesus: “it is better than one man die for the people”.

“We are all tempted, because … our spiritual life, our Christian life, is a battle”, the Pope said. This comes from the fact that “the devil does not want us to become holy, he does not want us to follow Jesus”. “Of course one of you will say: but Father, you are so old fashioned, speaking about the devil in the 21st century!”. To this Pope Francis replied: “watch out, the devil exists! The devil exists even in the 21st century. And we must not be naive. We must learn from the Gospel how to battle against him”.

POPE FRANCIS
MORNING MEDITATION IN THE CHAPEL OF THEDOMUS SANCTAE MARTHAE
The devil exists
Friday, 11 April 2014

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)