Friday of the Fifth Week of Easter

Send us Fan MailFriday, 23 May 2025Friday of the Fifth Week of EasterAntiphons and Readings on p 531 of the Daily Missal  First Reading: Acts 15:22-31In those days: It seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose people from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brethren, with the following letter: “The brothers and sisters, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers and sisters, who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greeting. Since we have heard that some persons from us have troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, it has seemed good to us in assembly to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from unchastity. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.” So when they were sent off, they went down to Antioch; and having gathered the congregation together, they delivered the letter. And when they read it, they rejoiced at the exhortation.Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 57:8-9.10-12 (R. 10a)R/. I will praise you, Lord, among the peoples.My heart is ready, O God;  my heart is ready.I will sing, I will sing your praise.  Awake, my soul!Awake, lyre and harp!  I will awake the dawn.I will praise you, Lord, among the peoples,  among the nations sing psalms to you,for your mercy reaches to the heavens,  and your truth to the skies.Be exalted, O God, above the heavens;  may your glory shine on all the earth!R/. I will praise you, Lord, among the peoples.Gospel: John 15:12-17At that time: Jesus said to his disciples, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that a person lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. This I command you, to love one another.