Lent: March 31st

MASS READINGS

March 31, 2023 (Readings on USCCB website)

PROPERS [Show]

Mass Propers for Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Entrance Antiphon, Ps 31 (30): 10, 16, 18: Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am in distress. Deliver me from the hands of my enemies and those who pursue me. O Lord, let me never be put to shame, for I call on you.

Gospel Verse, Cf. Jn 6:63c, 68c: Your words, Lord, are Spirit and life; you have the words of everlasting life.

Preface I of the Passion of the Lord: It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks, Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God.

For through the saving Passion of your Son the whole world has received a heart to confess the infinite power of your majesty, since by the wondrous power of the Cross your judgment on the world is now revealed and the authority of Christ crucified.

And so, Lord, with all the Angels and Saints, we, too, give you thanks, as in exultation we acclaim:

Communion Antiphon, 1 Pt 2:24: Jesus bore our sins in his own body on the cross, so that dead to sin, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds we have been healed.

COLLECT PRAYER

Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent: Pardon the offenses of your peoples, we pray, O Lord, and in your goodness set us free from the bonds of the sins we have committed in our weakness. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.

OR: O God, who in this season give your Church the grace to imitate devoutly the Blessed Virgin Mary in contemplating the Passion of Christ, grant, we pray, through her intercession, that we may cling more firmly each day to your Only Begotten Son and come at last to the fullness of his grace. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.

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Recipes (1)

• Minestrone

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Activities (5)

• Importance of Liturgy during Lent
• Lent Hymn: Open, O Hard and Sinful Heart!
• Religion in the Home for Elementary School: March
• Religion in the Home for Preschool: March
• Spirit of Lent, The

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Prayers (9)

• Prayer for the Fourth Week of Lent
• Lent Table Blessing 3
• Book of Blessings: Blessing of Saint Joseph's Table
• Book of Blessings: Blessing Before and After Meals: Lent (2nd Plan)
• March Devotion: Saint Joseph
• Ad te Beate Ioseph - To thee, O Blessed Joseph
• Litany of Saint Joseph
• Blessing of the Saint Joseph Altar
• Litany of Saint Joseph (Newer Translation)

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It is one week before Good Friday. Today's Mass is a further reminder of how hatred against Christ escalated in those final days before Holy Week. Fridays of Lent have a special penitential quality. —The Vatican II Weekday Missal

The Roman Martyrology commemorates today St. Benjamin (d. 424), a martyr of Persia (modern Iran) and a deacon in the persecution conducted by the Sassanid rulers Yazdigerd I and his son Varahran. He was tortured and impaled.

Today's Station Church >>>

Meditation
What do we do for the salvation of souls? It is true that we pray for one another, offer a few words of comfort, and do each other slight favors; but we do little more. Christ was more generous. He endured the crowning of thorns and dragged the heavy cross to Calvary. We pamper our bodies as if they were our last end. We prefer to have our heads crowned with laurels and roses. We are impatient and consider ourselves unfortunate whenever we are called on to carry a mere splinter of the cross of Christ. Are we one in spirit with Him?

Now, during Passiontide, we must begin to love and treasure pain and suffering. In the cross, in suffering, in our crucifixion with Christ, we shall find salvation. For Him and with Him we should bear all the slight injustices committed against us. For Him we should suffer freely and willingly the unpleasant and disagreeable things that occur to us. But our faith is weak. We flee from the cross instead of holding it dear, instead of loving it and welcoming it as our Savior did.

What St. Paul says of many Christians of his day is equally true of many in our time: "For many walk, of whom I have told you often (and now tell you weeping) that they are enemies of the cross of Christ. Whose end is destruction; whose God is their belly; whose glory is in their shame; who mind earthly things" (Phil. 3:18 f.).
—Excerpted from The Light of the World by Benedict Baur, O.S.B.

St. Benjamin
The Christians in Persia had enjoyed twelve years of peace during the reign of Isdegerd, son of Sapor III, when in 420 it was disturbed by the indiscreet zeal of Abdas, a Christian Bishop who burned the Temple of Fire, the great sanctuary of the Persians. King Isdegerd threatened to destroy all the churches of the Christians unless the Bishop would rebuild it.

As Abdas refused to comply, the threat was executed: the churches were demolished, Abdas himself was put to death, and a general persecution began which lasted forty years. Isdegerd died in 421, but his son and successor, Varanes, carried on the persecution with great fury. The Christians were submitted to the most cruel tortures.

Among those who suffered was St. Benjamin, a Deacon, who had been imprisoned a year for his Faith. At the end of this period, an ambassador of the Emperor of Constantinople obtained his release on condition that he would never speak to any of the courtiers about religion.

St. Benjamin, however, declared it was his duty to preach Christ and that he could not be silent. Although he had been liberated on the agreement made with the ambassador and the Persian authorities, he would not acquiesce in it, and neglected no opportunity of preaching. He was again apprehended and brought before the king. The tyrant ordered that reeds should be thrust in between his nails and his flesh and into all the tenderest parts of his body and then withdrawn. After this torture had been repeated several times, a knotted stake was inserted into his bowels to rend and tear him. The martyr expired in the most terrible agony about the year 424.
—Excerpted from Saints and Angels

Highlights and Things to Do:

• Read more about St. Benjamin:
  • EWTN
  • The American Catholic
  • uCatholic
  • Catholic Exchange
  • CatholicSaints.info
• If you are named after St. Benjamin you can find a medal of him at the Catholic Company.
• St. Benjamin is also honored in the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Byzantine Rite Eastern Catholic Churches on October 13.