Daily Reading for Saturday, April 12th, 2014

Responsorial Psalm, Jeremiah 31:10, 11-12, 13

¹⁰ Listen, nations, to the word of Yahweh. On the farthest coasts and islands proclaim it, say, 'He who scattered Israel is gathering him, will guard him as a shepherd guarding his flock.'

¹¹ For Yahweh has ransomed Jacob, rescued him from a hand stronger than his own.

¹² They will come, shouting for joy on the heights of Zion, thronging towards Yahweh's lavish gifts, for wheat, new wine and oil, sheep and cattle; they will be like a well-watered garden, they will sorrow no more.

¹³ The young girl will then take pleasure in the dance, and young men and old alike; I shall change their mourning into gladness, comfort them, give them joy after their troubles;

Gospel, John 11:45-57

⁴⁵ Many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what he did, believed in him,

⁴⁶ but some of them went to the Pharisees to tell them what Jesus had done.

⁴⁷ Then the chief priests and Pharisees called a meeting. 'Here is this man working all these signs,' they said, 'and what action are we taking?

⁴⁸ If we let him go on in this way everybody will believe in him, and the Romans will come and suppress the Holy Place and our nation.'

⁴⁹ One of them, Caiaphas, the high priest that year, said, 'You do not seem to have grasped the situation at all;

⁵⁰ you fail to see that it is to your advantage that one man should die for the people, rather than that the whole nation should perish.'

⁵¹ He did not speak in his own person, but as high priest of that year he was prophesying that Jesus was to die for the nation-

⁵² and not for the nation only, but also to gather together into one the scattered children of God.

⁵³ From that day onwards they were determined to kill him.

⁵⁴ So Jesus no longer went about openly among the Jews, but left the district for a town called Ephraim, in the country bordering on the desert, and stayed there with his disciples.

⁵⁵ The Jewish Passover was drawing near, and many of the country people who had gone up to Jerusalem before the Passover to purify themselves

⁵⁶ were looking out for Jesus, saying to one another as they stood about in the Temple, 'What do you think? Will he come to the festival or not?'

⁵⁷ The chief priests and Pharisees had by now given their orders: anyone who knew where he was must inform them so that they could arrest him.