20 April 2026 (Monday) | Monday of the 3rd week of Eastertide | Easter Weekday | Monday of the Third Week of Easter

20 April 2026 (Monday)

Monday of the 3rd week of Eastertide.

Easter Weekday.
Monday of the Third Week of Easter.

Readings from the Bible of the Roman Catholic Church:

First Reading: Acts 6: 8-15
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 119:23-24, 26-27, 29-30 ℟. 1ab or: ℟. Alleluia
Gospel acclamation: Alleluia: Matthew 4: 4b
Gospel: John 6: 22-29
Liturgical year 2026 (Cycle A/II)
Liturgical color: White or Gold.

First Reading : Acts 6:8‐15

(Reader) A reading from the Acts of the Apostles.

Stephen was filled with grace and power and began to work miracles and great signs among the people. But then certain people came forward to debate with Stephen, some from Cyrene and Alexandria who were members of the synagogue called the Synagogue of Freedmen, and others from Cilicia and Asia. They found they could not get the better of him because of his wisdom, and because it was the Spirit that prompted what he said. So they procured some men to say, ‘We heard him using blasphemous language against Moses and against God.’ Having in this way turned the people against him as well as the elders and scribes, they took Stephen by surprise, and arrested him and brought him before the Sanhedrin. There they put up false witnesses to say, ‘This man is always making speeches against this Holy Place and the Law. We have heard him say that Jesus the Nazarene is going to destroy this Place and alter the traditions that Moses handed down to us.’ The members of the Sanhedrin all looked intently at Stephen, and his face appeared to them like the face of an angel.

(Reader) The Word of the Lord.
(All) Thanks be to God.

Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 119:23-24, 26-27, 29-30 ℟. 1ab or: ℟. Alleluia
℟. (1ab) They are happy whose life is blameless.  or: ℟. Alleluia.

They are happy whose life is blameless.
or
Alleluia!
Though princes sit plotting against me
  I ponder on your statutes.
Your will is my delight;
  your statutes are my counsellors.
They are happy whose life is blameless.
or
Alleluia!
I declared my ways and you answered;
  teach me your statutes.
Make me grasp the way of your precepts
  and I will muse on your wonders.
They are happy whose life is blameless.
or
Alleluia!
Keep me from the way of error
  and teach me your law.
I have chosen the way of truth
  with your decrees before me.
They are happy whose life is blameless.
or
Alleluia!

Gospel acclamation: Alleluia: Matthew 4: 4b
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
4b One does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
(1. Then Jesus was led by the Spirit out into the desert to be put to the test by the devil. 2. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, after which he was hungry, 3. and the tester came and said to him, 'If you are Son of God, tell these stones to turn into loaves.' 4. But he replied, 'Scripture says: Human beings live not on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.' 5. The devil then took him to the holy city and set him on the parapet of the Temple. 6. 'If you are Son of God,' he said, 'throw yourself down; for scripture says: He has given his angels orders about you, and they will carry you in their arms in case you trip over a stone.' 7. Jesus said to him, 'Scripture also says: Do not put the Lord your God to the test.' 8. Next, taking him to a very high mountain, the devil showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour. 9. And he said to him, 'I will give you all these, if you fall at my feet and do me homage.' 10. Then Jesus replied, 'Away with you, Satan! For scripture says: The Lord your God is the one to whom you must do homage, him alone you must serve.' 11. Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels appeared and looked after him.)

Gospel : John 6:22‐29

(Reader) A reading from the holy Gospel according to John.
(All) Glory to you, O Lord.

After Jesus had fed the five thousand, his disciples saw him walking on the water. Next day, the crowd that had stayed on the other side saw that only one boat had been there, and that Jesus had not got into the boat with his disciples, but that the disciples had set off by themselves. Other boats, however, had put in from Tiberias, near the place where the bread had been eaten. When the people saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into those boats and crossed to Capernaum to look for Jesus. When they found him on the other side, they said to him, ‘Rabbi, when did you come here?’
  Jesus answered:
‘I tell you most solemnly,
you are not looking for me because you have seen the signs
but because you had all the bread you wanted to eat.
Do not work for food that cannot last,
but work for food that endures to eternal life,
the kind of food the Son of Man is offering you,
for on him the Father, God himself, has set his seal.’
Then they said to him, ‘What must we do if we are to do the works that God wants?’ Jesus gave them this answer, ‘This is working for God: you must believe in the one he has sent.’

(Reader) The Gospel of the Lord.
(All) Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

For our reflection today:

Stephen, "full of grace and power" (Acts 6: 8), presented in Jesus' Name a new interpretation of Moses and of God's Law itself. He reread the Old Testament in the light of the proclamation of Christ's death and Resurrection. He gave the Old Testament a Christological reinterpretation and provoked reactions from the Jews, who took his words to be blasphemous (cf. Acts 6: 11-14).

For this reason he was condemned to stoning. And St Luke passes on to us the saint's last discourse, a synthesis of his preaching. Just as Jesus had shown the disciples of Emmaus that the whole of the Old Testament speaks of him, of his Cross and his Resurrection, so St Stephen, following Jesus' teaching, interpreted the whole of the Old Testament in a Christological key. He shows that the mystery of the Cross stands at the centre of the history of salvation as recounted in the Old Testament; it shows that Jesus, Crucified and Risen, is truly the goal of all this history.

St Stephen also shows that the cult of the temple was over and that Jesus, the Risen One, was the new, true "temple". (Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience, 10 January 2007)

Pope Francis          
27.04.20 Holy Mass Casa Santa Marta (Domus Sanctae Marthae)   
Monday of the Third Week of Easter      
John 6: 22-29 

Let us pray today for artists, who have this great capacity for creativity and through beauty show us the way forward. May the Lord give us all the grace of creativity at this time.

The people who had listened to Jesus throughout the day, and then had this grace of the multiplication of loaves and saw the power of Jesus, wanted to make him king. First they went to Jesus to hear the word and also to ask for the sick to be healed. They stayed all day listening to Jesus without getting bored, without getting tired or being tired, but they were there, happy. But then when they saw that Jesus fed them, which they did not expect, they thought: "But he would be a good leader for us and surely he will be able to free us from the power of the Romans and take the country forward". And they were enthusiastic to make him king. Their intention changed, because they saw and thought: "Well ... a person who does this miracle, who feeds the people, can be a good leader." But they had forgotten at that moment the enthusiasm that the word of Jesus gave rise to in their hearts.

Jesus left and went to pray. These people stayed there, and next day they were looking for Jesus, "because he must be here" they said, because they had seen that he had not boarded the boat with the others. And there was a boat there, it stayed there . But they did not know that Jesus had joined the others by walking on the water. So they decided to go to the other side of the Sea of Tiberias to look for Jesus, and when they saw him, the first word they say to him was ( "Rabbi, when did you get here?", as if saying: "We do not understand, this seems a strange thing".

And Jesus makes them return to their first feelings, to what they had before the multiplication of the loaves, when they listened to the word of God: "I say to you: you are looking for me not because you saw signs - as at the beginning, the sign of the word, that excited them, the signs of healing - not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled." Jesus reveals their intention and says: "But this is how you have changed your attitude." And they, instead of justifying themselves: "No, Lord, no...", were humble. Jesus continues: "Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life and that the Son of Man will give you. For on him the Father, God, has set his seal." And being good they said, "What can we do to accomplish the works of God?" and Jesus says "Believe in the Son of God." This is a case in which Jesus corrects the attitude of the people, of the crowd, because they had gradually distanced themselves from the first spiritual consolation and had taken a path that was not right, a path more worldly than evangelical.

This makes us think that so many times in life we begin to follow Jesus, behind Jesus, with the values of the Gospel, and halfway there comes another idea, we see some signs and we turn away and conform with something more temporal, more material, more worldly, perhaps, and we lose the memory of that first enthusiasm that we had when we heard Jesus speak. The Lord always brings us back to the first encounter, to the first moment when he looked at us, spoke to us and aroused within us the desire to follow him. This is a grace to ask the Lord, because we in life will always have this temptation to move away because we see something else: "But that will be fine, but that idea is good...". We're moving away. The grace to always return to the first call, to the first moment: do not forget, do not forget my story, when Jesus looked at me with love and said to me: "This is your path"; when Jesus through so many people made me understand the path of the Gospel and not other somewhat worldly paths, with other values. Go back to the first encounter.

It has always struck me that among the things Jesus says on the morning of the Resurrection: "Go to my disciples and tell them to go to Galilee, there they will find me", Galilee was the place of the first meeting. There they had met Jesus. Each of us has our own "Galilee" within us, our own moment when Jesus approached us and said, "Follow me." In life similar things happen to us like what happened with these good people, and then they say to him: "But what should we do?", and they obeyed right away - it happens that we move away and look for other values, other ways of interpretation, other things, and we lose the freshness of the first call. The author of the letter to the Hebrews also reminds us of this: "Remember the first days." The memory, the memory of the first encounter, the memory of "my Galilee", when the Lord looked at me with love and said, "Follow me."

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)