Friday in the Fifth Week of Lent

Send us Fan MailFriday, 11 April 2025Friday in the Fifth Week of Lent Antiphons and Readings on p 320 of the Daily MissalFirst Reading: Jeremiah 20:10-13I hear many whispering. Terror is on every side! “Denounce him! Let us denounce him!” say all my familiar friends, watching for my fall. “Perhaps he will be deceived, then we can overcome him, and take our revenge on him.” But the Lord is with me as a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble, they will not overcome me. They will be greatly shamed,  for they will not succeed. Their eternal dishonour will never be forgotten. O Lord of hosts, who test the righteous, who see the heart and the mind, let me see your vengeance upon them, for to you have I committed my cause. Sing to the Lord; praise the Lord! For he has delivered the life of the needy from the hand of evildoers.Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 18:1-2a, 2bc-3, 4-5, 6 (R. see 6)R/. In my anguish I called to the Lord, and he heard me.I love you, Lord my strength, O Lord, my rock, my fortress, my saviour.My God, my rock where I take refuge; my shield, my saving strength, my stronghold. I cry out “Praise be the Lord!” and see, I am saved from my foes.The waves of death rose about me; the torrents of destruction assailed me; the snares of the grave surrounded me; the traps of death confronted me.In my anguish I called to the Lord; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry to him reached his ears.R/. In my anguish I called to the Lord, and he heard me.Gospel: John 10:31-42At that time: The Jews took up stones to stone Jesus. Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of these do you stone me?”The Jews answered him, “We stone you for no good work but for blasphemy;  because you, being a man, make yourself God.”Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods’? If he called them gods to whom the word of God came (and scripture cannot be nullified), do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand  that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”  Again they tried to arrest him, but he escaped from their hands.He went away again across the Jordan to the place where John at first baptized, and there he remained. And many came to him; and they said, “John did no sign, but everything that John said about this man was true.” And many believed in him there.