Reading for Friday, Fifth Week of Lent, Year A. Memorial: St John Baptist de la Salle, priest, religious founder. Liturgical Colour: violet. Day of abstinence from meat (age 14 and above)

First Reading: (Jeremiah 20: 10-13)

Responsorial Psalm:  (Psalms 18: 2-3a, 3bc-4, 5-6, 7)

Gospel: (John 10: 31-42)

First Reading: (Jeremiah 20: 10-13)

For I heard the reproaches of many, and terror on every side: Persecute him, and let us persecute him: from all the men that were my familiars, and continued at my side: if by any means he may be deceived, and we may prevail against him, and be revenged on him.

But the Lord is with me as a strong warrior: therefore they that persecute me shall fall, and shall be weak: they shall be greatly confounded, because they have not understood the everlasting reproach, which never shall be effaced. And thou, O Lord of hosts, prover of the just, who seest the reins and the heart: let me see, I beseech thee, thy vengeance on them: for to thee I have laid open my cause.

Sing ye to the Lord, praise the Lord: because he hath delivered the soul of the poor out of the hand of the wicked.

Responsorial Psalm:  (Psalms 18: 2-3a, 3bc-4, 5-6, 7)

I will love thee, O Lord, my strength: The Lord is my firmament, my refuge, and my deliverer.

My God is my helper, and in him will I put my trust.

My protector and the horn of my salvation, and my support. Praising I will call upon the Lord: and I shall be saved from my enemies.

The sorrows of death surrounded me: and the torrents of iniquity troubled me.

The sorrows of hell encompassed me: and the snares of death prevented me.

In my affliction I called upon the Lord, and I cried to my God: And he heard my voice from his holy temple: and my cry before him came into his ears.

Gospel: (John 10: 31-42)

The Jews then took up stones to stone him. Jesus answered them: Many good works I have shewed you from my Father; for which of these works do you stone me?

The Jews answered him: For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, maketh thyself 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 was spoken, and the scripture cannot be broken;

Do you say of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world: Thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God? If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though you will not believe me, believe the works: that you may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in the Father. They sought therefore to take him; and he escaped out of their hands. And he went again beyond the Jordan, into that place where John was baptizing first; and there he abode.

And many resorted to him, and they said: John indeed did no sign. But all things whatsoever John said of this man, were true. And many believed in him.