7 March 2026 (Saturday) / Saturday of the 2nd week of Lent (optional commemoration of Saints Perpetua and Felicity, Martyrs) / Saturday of the Second Week of Lent / Lenten Weekday/ Saint Perpetua and Saint Felicity, Martyrs

7 March 2026 (Saturday)

Saturday of the 2nd week of Lent (optional commemoration of Saints Perpetua and Felicity, Martyrs)

Saturday of the Second Week of Lent.
Lenten Weekday/ Saint Perpetua and Saint Felicity, Martyrs.

Readings from the Bible of the Roman Catholic Church:

First Reading: Micah 7: 14-15, 18-20
Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 103: 1-2, 3-4, 9-10, 11-12
Verse Before the Gospel: Luke 15: 18
Gospel: Luke 15: 1-3, 11-32

First Reading : Micah 7:14‐15,18‐20

With shepherd’s crook, O Lord, lead your people to pasture, the flock that is your heritage,
living confined in a forest
with meadow land all around.
Let them pasture in Bashan and Gilead
as in the days of old.
As in the days when you came out of Egypt
grant us to see wonders.
What god can compare with you: taking fault away,
pardoning crime,
not cherishing anger for ever
but delighting in showing mercy?
Once more have pity on us,
tread down our faults,
to the bottom of the sea
throw all our sins.
Grant Jacob your faithfulness,
and Abraham your mercy,
as you swore to our fathers
from the days of long ago.

Responsive Psalm : Psalm 102(103):1‐4,9‐12

The Lord is compassion and love.
My soul, give thanks to the Lord
  all my being, bless his holy name.
My soul, give thanks to the Lord
  and never forget all his blessings.
The Lord is compassion and love.
It is he who forgives all your guilt,
  who heals every one of your ills,
who redeems your life from the grave,
  who crowns you with love and compassion.
The Lord is compassion and love.
His wrath will come to an end;
  he will not be angry for ever.
He does not treat us according to our sins
  nor repay us according to our faults.
The Lord is compassion and love.
For as the heavens are high above the earth
  so strong is his love for those who fear him.
As far as the east is from the west
  so far does he remove our sins.
The Lord is compassion and love.

Verse Before the Gospel: Luke 15: 18
18 I will get up and go to my father and shall say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.
(18. I will leave this place and go to my father and say: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you;
19. I no longer deserve to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired men."
20. So he left the place and went back to his father. 'While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was moved with pity. He ran to the boy, clasped him in his arms and kissed him.
21. Then his son said, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your son.")

Gospel : Luke 15:1‐3,11‐32

The tax collectors and the sinners were all seeking the company of Jesus to hear what he had to say, and the Pharisees and the scribes complained. ‘This man’ they said ‘welcomes sinners and eats with them.’ So he spoke this parable to them:
  ‘A man had two sons. The younger said to his father, “Father, let me have the share of the estate that would come to me.” So the father divided the property between them. A few days later, the younger son got together everything he had and left for a distant country where he squandered his money on a life of debauchery.
  ‘When he had spent it all, that country experienced a severe famine, and now he began to feel the pinch, so he hired himself out to one of the local inhabitants who put him on his farm to feed the pigs. And he would willingly have filled his belly with the husks the pigs were eating but no one offered him anything. Then he came to his senses and said, “How many of my father’s paid servants have more food than they want, and here am I dying of hunger! I will leave this place and go to my father and say: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you; I no longer deserve to be called your son; treat me as one of your paid servants.” So he left the place and went back to his father.
  ‘While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was moved with pity. He ran to the boy, clasped him in his arms and kissed him tenderly. Then his son said, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your son.” But the father said to his servants, “Quick! Bring out the best robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the calf we have been fattening, and kill it; we are going to have a feast, a celebration, because this son of mine was dead and has come back to life; he was lost and is found.” And they began to celebrate.
  ‘Now the elder son was out in the fields, and on his way back, as he drew near the house, he could hear music and dancing. Calling one of the servants he asked what it was all about. “Your brother has come” replied the servant “and your father has killed the calf we had fattened because he has got him back safe and sound.” He was angry then and refused to go in, and his father came out to plead with him; but he answered his father, “Look, all these years I have slaved for you and never once disobeyed your orders, yet you never offered me so much as a kid for me to celebrate with my friends. But, for this son of yours, when he comes back after swallowing up your property – he and his women – you kill the calf we had been fattening.”
  ‘The father said, “My son, you are with me always and all I have is yours. But it was only right we should celebrate and rejoice, because your brother here was dead and has come to life; he was lost and is found.”

For our reflection today:

Let us continue to pray for those who are sick as a result of this pandemic. Today, I would like to ask for a special prayer for families, families who from one day to the next find themselves at home with their children because schools are closed for safety reasons, and have to manage a difficult situation and manage it well, with peace and also with joy. I think especially of families with members with disabilities. Welcome centres for people with disabilities are closed and the people remain in their families. Let us pray for families so that they don’t lose peace at this time and that they might succeed to carry the whole family forward with strength and joy.

We have often heard this passage from the Gospel (cfr Lk 15:1-3, 11-32). Jesus tells this parable in a special context: “The tax collectors and the sinners were all seeking the company of Jesus to hear what He had to say, and  the Pharisees and the scribes complained. ‘This man,’ they said, ‘welcomes sinners and eats with them’” (vv. 1-2). And Jesus answers them with this parable. What do they say? The people, the sinners, approach in silence. They do not know what to say, but their presence says many things. They wanted to listen. The doctors of the law, what do they say? They criticise. They “complained”, the Gospel says, trying to eradicate the authority Jesus had with the people. This is the great accusation: “He eats with sinners, He is impure”.

The parable is in part an explanation of this situation, of this problem. What do they feel? The people feel in need of salvation. The people do not know how to distinguish well, intellectually: “I need to find my Lord, who fills me”. They need a guide, a shepherd. And the people approach Jesus because they see in Him a shepherd. They need to be helped to walk in life. They feel this need. The others, the doctors, feel self-sufficient: “We went to university”, “I have a doctorate, no, two doctorates. I know very, very well what the law says. Actually, I know every single explanation of the law in detail”. And they feel self-sufficient and they despise the people, they despise sinners: disdain for sinners.

In the parable, the same one, what do they say? The son says to the Father: “Give me the money and I’ll be on my way” (see v. 12). The Father gives, but says nothing, because he is a father. Perhaps he remembered some boyish pranks he did when young, but he says nothing. A father knows how to suffer in silence. A father bides his time. He lets the bad moments pass. At times the attitude of a father is to “play the fool” in the face of his children's shortcomings. The other son rebukes the father: “You have been unjust”.

And what do those in the parable feel? The boy feels the desire to “eat the world”, to go beyond, to get out of the house, which perhaps he experiences as a jail. And he also has the front to say to his father, “Give me what is mine”. He feels he has courage, power. What does the father feel? The father feels pain, tenderness and great love. Then when the son says those other words: “I will leave this place and go  to my father” (v. 18) he finds the father who awaits him, who sees him from afar (cf. v. 20). A father who knows how to bide his time for his children. And what does the elder brother feel? The Gospel says: “He became angry” (v. 28), he feels this indignation. And at times being indignant is the only way these people can feel deserving.

These are the things that are said in this passage of the Gospel, and the things that are felt. But what is the problem? The problem - let’s begin with the elder brother - the problem is that he was at home, but he never understood what it meant to live at home. He did his duties, he did his work, but he did not understand what a relationship of love with his father was. That son “became angry and refused to go in” (v. 28). “But is this not my home?” he thought. The same as the doctors of the law. “There is no order, this sinner has come here and  they throw a party for him.

What about me?” The father tells him clearly: “My son,“ the father said, ”you are always with me, and everything I have is yours” (v. 31). And this son did not realise this. he lived at home as if it were a hotel, without feeling that fatherliness… Many “guests” in the house of the Church feel that they are the owners! It is interesting: the father does not say a word to the son who returns from sin. He simply kisses him, embraces him and celebrates his return (cf. v. 20). Instead, to this [the elder] one he has to explain to enter into his heart. His heart was “protecting itself” because of his concepts of fatherhood, sonship, of the way to live.

I remember once a wise elderly priest - a great confessor, a missionary, a man who greatly loved the Church. Who spoke of a young priest, very sure of himself, a great believer, who thought he was worth something and that he had rights in the Church. He said: “This is what I pray for: that the Lord might put a banana peel in front of him to make him slip. That would do him good”. It was as if he had said - it seems like blasphemy - “It would be good for him to sin because he will need to ask for forgiveness and find the Father”.

This parable tells us many things about the Lord. It is the answer to those who criticised Him because He kept the company of sinners. But even today too there are many, people of the Church, who criticise those who approach people in need, humble people, who work, even those who work for us. May the Lord give us the grace to understand what the problem is. The problem is living at home but not feeling at home, because there is no paternal or fraternal relationship; there is merely the relationship of companions at work.
(Pope Francis - "Living at home, but not feeling at home")

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)