Fifth Sunday of Lent, Third Scrutiny of the Elect – Lenten Mass Readings
Also Read: Mass Readings for 06 April 2025
First Reading: Isaiah 43: 16-21
“I am doing something new!“
This passage focuses primarily on letting go of the old in order to embrace the something new that God wants to impart. There is renewal in one’s willingness to forgive. The relationship cannot go back to what it was before the infraction, but the two people can go through and, hopefully, grow closer.
Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 126: 1-2ab, 2cd-3, 4-5, 6
“carrying the seed to be sown“
Israel had long had the responsibility to carry the seed that God had promised in Genesis 3. When this Psalm was written, the seed would not come to fruition for hundreds more years. The Gospel is all about the seed that Israel carried, growing, flowering, and propagating itself for the whole world. This is what Jesus did in establishing the Church, and it is the mission of the Church to continue the sowing of seeds until the end of time.
Second Reading: Philippians 3: 8-14
“to know him and the power of his resurrection“
St. Paul is reflecting on what sets Christianity apart from every other religion that came before and even how it fulfills the promise of God given to the Jews. It is exclusively the power of the resurrection that set Christianity apart, and it will continue to be Jesus’s resurrection that will be that upon which Christianity falls or rises.
Gospel: John 8: 1-11
“Jesus straightened up and said“
There is a lot of symbolic, resurrection-like language used in connection with the forgiveness of sins. St. Augustine compared the raising of Lazarus to the sacrament of confession, and here we have the forgiveness and vindication of the woman caught in adultery, who is being raised up by Jesus physically and spiritually in this scene. This is the “something new” that God had promised through Isaiah in the first reading– forgiveness of sins and resurrection from spiritual and physical death.
