4 March 2026 (Wednesday) / Wednesday of the 2nd week of Lent (optional commemoration of Saint Casimir) / Wednesday of the Second Week of Lent / Lenten Weekday/ Saint Casimir

4 March 2026 (Wednesday)

Wednesday of the 2nd week of Lent (optional commemoration of Saint Casimir)

Wednesday of the Second Week of Lent.
Lenten Weekday/ Saint Casimir.

Readings from the Bible of the Roman Catholic Church:

First Reading: Jeremiah 18: 18-20
Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 31: 5-6, 14, 15-16
Verse Before the Gospel: John 8: 12
Gospel: Matthew 20: 17-28

First Reading : Jeremiah 18:18‐20

‘Come on,’ they said, ‘let us concoct a plot against Jeremiah; the priest will not run short of instruction without him, nor the sage of advice, nor the prophet of the word. Come on, let us hit at him with his own tongue; let us listen carefully to every word he says.’
Listen to me, O Lord,
hear what my adversaries are saying.
Should evil be returned for good?
For they are digging a pit for me.
Remember how I stood in your presence
to plead on their behalf,
to turn your wrath away from them.

Responsive Psalm : Psalm 30(31):5‐6,14‐16

Save me in your love, O Lord.
Release me from the snares they have hidden
  for you are my refuge, Lord.
Into your hands I commend my spirit.
  It is you who will redeem me, Lord.
Save me in your love, O Lord.
I have heard the slander of the crowd,
  fear is all around me,
as they plot together against me,
  as they plan to take my life.
Save me in your love, O Lord.
But as for me, I trust in you, Lord;
  I say: ‘You are my God.
My life is in your hands, deliver me
  from the hands of those who hate me.’
Save me in your love, O Lord.

Verse Before the Gospel: John 8: 12
12 I am the light of the world, says the Lord; whoever follows me will have the light of life.
(12. When Jesus spoke to the people again, he said: I am the light of the world; anyone who follows me will not be walking in the dark, but will have the light of life).

Gospel : Matthew 20:17‐28

Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, and on the way he took the Twelve to one side and said to them, ‘Now we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man is about to be handed over to the chief priests and scribes. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the pagans to be mocked and scourged and crucified; and on the third day he will rise again.’
  Then the mother of Zebedee’s sons came with her sons to make a request of him, and bowed low; and he said to her, ‘What is it you want?’ She said to him, ‘Promise that these two sons of mine may sit one at your right hand and the other at your left in your kingdom.’ ‘You do not know what you are asking’ Jesus answered. ‘Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?’ They replied, ‘We can.’ ‘Very well,’ he said ‘you shall drink my cup, but as for seats at my right hand and my left, these are not mine to grant; they belong to those to whom they have been allotted by my Father.’
  When the other ten heard this they were indignant with the two brothers. But Jesus called them to him and said, ‘You know that among the pagans the rulers lord it over them, and their great men make their authority felt. This is not to happen among you. No; anyone who wants to be great among you must be your servant, and anyone who wants to be first among you must be your slave, just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’

For our reflection today:

Let us continue to pray for the sick because of this epidemic. And today, in a special way, I would
like to pray for prisoners, for our brothers and our sisters who are detained in prisons. They suffer,
and we must be near to them with our prayer, so that the Lord might help them, might console
them in this difficult moment.

The First Reading, a passage from the prophet Jeremiah (18:18-20), is truly a prophecy of the
Passion of the Lord. What do the enemies say? “Come, let us destroy him by his own tongue; let
us carefully note his every word”, “Let’s contrive a plot against him”. It does not say, “Let’s conquer
him, let’s get rid of him”, no. To make his life difficult, to torment him. It is the suffering of the
prophet, but there is a prophecy of Jesus. In the Gospel (Mt 20:17-28), Jesus Himself talks to us
about this: “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man is about to be handed over to the
chief priests and scribes.

They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the pagans to be mocked and scourged and crucified” (vv. 18-19). It is not only a death sentence: there is more than that. There is humiliation, hounding. When there is the dogged persecution of a Christian, of a person, the devil is there. The devil has two styles: seduction, with worldly promises, as he wanted to do with Jesus in the desert, to seduce him, and with seduction to make him change the plan of redemption; and, if this does not work, doggedness. The devil has no half measures. His pride is so great that he tries to destroy. He destroys enjoying the destruction with dogged fury.

Let us think of the persecution of so many saints, of so many Christians: their persecutors do not kill them at once, but make them suffer and try to humiliate them in all sorts of ways, to the end. We must not confuse a simple social, political and religious persecution with the dogged fury of the devil. The devil hounds in order to destroy. Let us think of Revelation: he wanted to devour the woman’s child who is about to be born (cf. 12:4). The two thieves who were crucified with Jesus were condemned, crucified and left to die in peace. Nobody insulted them: no one was interested. The insult was only for Jesus, against Jesus. Jesus tells the apostles that He will be condemned to death, but He will be “mocked and scourged and crucified”... They mock him. And the way out of the devil’s fury, out of this destruction, is the worldly spirit, what the mother
asks for her children, the children of Zebedee (cf. Mt 20:20-21).

Jesus speaks of humiliation, which is His own destiny, and right then and there they ask Him for visibility, for power. Vanity, the worldly spirit, is precisely the way the devil offers to distance onself from Christ’s Cross. One’s own fulfilment, careerism, worldly success: they are all non-Christian roads, they are all roads for obscuring the Cross of Jesus. May the Lord give us the grace to know how to discern when the spirit that wants to destroy us with doggedness is present, and when the same spirit wants to console us with the appearances of the world, with vanity. But let us not forget: when there is dogged fury, there is hatred, the vengeance of the defeated devil. This is how it is until today, in the Church. Think of so many Christians, how cruelly persecuted they are. In recent days the newspapers have been talkingcabout Asia Bibi: nine years in prison, suffering. It is the devil’s dogged fury. May the Lord give us the grace to discern the Lord’s way, which is the Cross, from the way of the world, which is vanity, appearance, maquillage. (Pope Francis, Vanity distances us from Christ’s Cross").

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)