Skema
2026-04-05
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
Easter Octave

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (II)
April 5 – 11, 2026

Sun
5
Mon
6
Tue
7
Wed
8
Thu
9
Fri
10
Sat
11

Office
Easter Sunday
Easter Monday
Easter Tuesday
Easter Wednesday
Easter Thursday
Easter Friday
Easter Saturday

Vigils
* Easter Vigil
Acts 1:1-26
Acts 2:1-21
Acts 2:22-41
Acts 2:42-3:11
Acts 3:12-26;4:1-4
Acts 4:5-31

Lauds
Acts 13:28-33
1 Cor 15:1-11
1 Cor 15:12-19
1 Cor 15:20-28
1 Cor 15:35-41
1 Cor 15:42-49
1 Cor 15:50-58

Mass
42
261
262
263
264
265
266

1st
Acts 10:34a, 37-43
Acts 2:14, 22-33
Acts 2:36-41
Acts 3:1-10
Acts 3:11-26
Acts 4:1-12
Acts 4:13-21

2nd
Col 3:1-4

Gospel
John 20:1-9
Matt 28:8-15
John 20:11-18
Luke 24:13-35
Luke 24:35-48
John 21:1-14
Mark 16:9-15

Vespers
Rev 1:12-18
Rev 1:1-8
Rev 1:9-11
Rev 2:1-7
Rev 2:8-11
Rev 2:12-17
Rev 2:18-29

Easter Vigil Readings* 1st) Gen 1:1-2:2 2nd) Gen 22:1-18 3rd) Exod 14:15-15:1 4th) Isa 54:5-14 5th) Isa 55:1-11 6th) Bar 3:9-15,32-4:4 7th) Ezek 36:16-17a,18-28 Epistle) Rom 6:3-11 Gospel) Matt 28:1-10

Vigils Reading - Easter Sunday
2026-04-05
From a commentary by
RUFINUS OF AQUILEIA
◊◊◊
“On the third day He rose again from the dead.” The glory of His
resurrection brought out in Christ the splendor of everything that previously
seemed feeble and weak. If a few moments ago you thought it impossible for
One who was immortal to reach death, you can now perceive the impossibility of
His being mortal who is declared to have vanquished death and to have risen
again.
In this you should discern the Creator’s goodness, in His readiness to
follow you down to the depths to which your sins have plunged you. You should
not, either, suggest that anything is impossible for God, the Creator of all things,
imagining that His work could have been brought to an end by falling into an
abyss to which He could not penetrate in order to accomplish salvation…
So He returned victoriously from the dead, bringing with Him spoils from
hell. For He conducted forth those whom death held prisoners, as He Himself
had prophesied in the words: “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw
all things to myself.” The Gospel bears witness to this when it states: “The
graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints that slept arose, and they
appeared to many, and entered into the holy city.” By this is meant…the city
intended by the Apostle when he wrote: “But that Jerusalem, which is above is
free: which is mother of us all.”
He made the same point again to the Hebrews: “For it became Him for
whom are all things, and by whom are all things, who had brought many
children to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation by His passion.” By
His passion, therefore, He made perfect that human flesh which had been
brought down to death by the first man’s sin, and restored it by the power of His
resurrection: sitting on God’s right hand, He placed it in the highest heavens. In
view of this the Apostle says: “Who has raised us up together, and has made us
sit together in the heavenly places.”
It was He, you see, who was the potter mentioned by the prophet
Jeremias: “The vessel which had fallen from His hand and was broken, He
again raised up with His hands and formed anew, as it seemed good in His
eyes.” So it seemed good to Him to raise the mortal and corruptible body He had
assumed from the rocky tomb, and rendering it immortal and incorruptible to
place it, no longer in an earthly environment, but in heaven at His Father’s right
hand…

Vigils Reading - Easter Monday
2026-04-06
From a homily by
POPE BENEDICT XVI
◊◊◊
“You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen. He is not
here.” With these words, God’s messenger, robed in light, spoke to the women
who were looking for the body of Jesus in the tomb.
But the evangelist says the same thing to us: Jesus is not a character of the
past. He lives and He walks before us as one who is alive; he calls us to follow
him, the Living One, and in this way to discover for ourselves the path of life.
At Easter we rejoice because Christ did not remain in the tomb, his body
did not see corruption; he belongs to the world of the living, not to the world of
the dead; we rejoice because he is the Alpha and also the Omega, as we proclaim
in the Rite of the Paschal candle; he lives not only yesterday, but today and for
eternity.
But somehow the Resurrection is situated so far beyond our horizon, so
far outside all our experience that, returning to ourselves, we find ourselves
continuing the argument of the disciples: Of what exactly does this “rising”
consist? What does it mean for us, for the whole world, and the whole of history?
A theologian once said that the miracle of a corpse returning to life would
be ultimately irrelevant precisely because it would not concern us. In fact if it
were simply that someone was once brought back to life, and no more than that,
in what way would that concern us? But the point is that Christ’s Resurrection is
something more, something different… It is the…most crucial leap into a totally
new dimension that there has ever been in the long history of life and its
development: a leap into a completely new order which does concern us, and
concerns the whole of history.
The crucial point is that this man Jesus was not alone, he was not an “I”
closed in upon itself. He was one single reality with the living God, so closely
united with him as to form one Person with him. He found himself, so to speak,
in an embrace with him who is life itself, an embrace not just on the emotional
level, but one which included and permeated his being. His own life was not just
his own, it was an existential and essential communion with God, a “being taken
up” into God, and hence, it could not in reality be taken away from him.
Out of love, he could allow himself to be killed, but precisely by doing so
he broke the definitiveness of death, because in him the definitiveness of life
was present. He was one single reality with indestructible life, in such a way that
it burst forth anew through death…
His death was an act of love, of self-giving. At the Last Supper he
anticipated death and transformed it into self-giving. His existential
communion with God was concretely an existential communion with God’s
love, and this love is the real power against death, it is stronger than death.
The Resurrection was like an explosion of light, an explosion of love which
dissolved the hitherto indissoluble compenetration of “dying and becoming”. It
ushered in a new dimension of being. A new dimension of life in which, in a
transformed way, matter too was integrated and through which a new world
emerges.

Vigils Reading - Easter Tuesday
2026-04-07
From a prayer by
WILLIAM OF ST THIERRY
◊◊◊
O Truth supreme, you are the heaven of heavens, you who are what you
are, who have your being from yourself, who belong to yourself and are
sufficient to yourself. You lack nothing, yet you have no excess; you have within
yourself supremest concord, utmost clarity, most perfect fullness and
completest life.
O Lord, the height, the depth, the wisdom and the might – are these the
heaven of which you are the door? It is so, truly; that is why the ark of the
covenant was seen in heaven when the door was opened… You are yourself that
ark. In you from all eternity was hidden, and in you in these latter days has been
fulfilled, all that from the beginning of the world has been revealed to all the
saints and prophets by the Law and by the prophecies, by wonders and by
signs…
These blessings, that were hidden in your secret heaven through the ages,
you at the ages’ end unveiled to the world’s longing eyes, when you opened in
heaven the door that is yourself. You opened that door when your grace
appeared to all [people], teaching us… The heavens being thus opened, all the
good and glory and delight of heaven poured itself out on earth. And then, O
God, who spared not your own Son, but delivered him up for us all, the
greatness of your kindness…to us was published openly to all. You made known
your salvation to the world, and in the sight of all the nations you revealed your
righteousness…
Those unsearchable riches of your glory, Lord, were hidden in your secret
place in heaven until the soldier’s spear opened the side of your Son our Lord
and Savior on the cross, and from it flowed the mysteries of our redemption.
Now we may not only thrust our finger or our hand into his side, like Thomas,
but through that open door may enter whole, O Jesus, even into your heart, the
sure seat of your mercy, even into your holy soul that is filled with the fullness of
God, full of grace and truth, full of our salvation and our consolation…
Open, O Lord, the ark-door of your side, that all your own who shall be
saved may enter in, before this flood that overwhelms the earth. Open to us your
body’s side, that those who long to see the secrets of your Son may enter in, and
may receive the sacraments that flow [from there], even the price of their
redemption. Open the door of your heaven, that your redeemed may see the
good things of God in the land of the living, though they still labor in the land of
the dying…
Open to me, O Lord, so that, although I am a stranger unworthy of
enrollment as a citizen, yet nonetheless, I may by your gift be suffered on
occasion for a little while to journey there, that I may truly see your glory, and
not come out again unless I am thrown out!.. O, if only I may see, if only I may
persevere, if only I may hear some day: “Enter into the joy of your Lord,” and
may thus enter in, never to come out again!

Vigils Reading - Easter Wednesday
2026-04-08
From the Catechesis of
ST JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
◊◊◊
If we wish to understand the power of Christ’s blood, we should go back to
the ancient account of its prefiguration in Egypt. “Sacrifice a Lamb without
blemish, commanded Moses, and sprinkle its blood on your doors.” If we were
to ask him what he meant, and how the blood of an irrational beast could
possibly save men endowed with reason, his answer would be that the saving
power lies not in the blood itself, but in the fact that it is a sign of the Lord’s
blood. In those days, when the destroying angel saw the blood on the doors he
did not dare to enter, so how much less will the devil approach now when he
sees, not that figurative blood on the doors, but the true blood on the lips of
believers, the doors of the temple of Christ.
If you desire further proof of the power of this blood, remember where it
came from, how it ran down from the cross, flowing from the Master’s side. The
gospel records that when Christ was dead, but still hung on the cross, a soldier
came and pierced his side with a lance and immediately there poured out water
and blood. Now the water was a symbol of Baptism and the blood, of the holy
Eucharist. The soldier pierced the Lord’s side, he breached the wall of the sacred
temple, and I have found the treasure and made it my own. So also with the
lamb: the Jews sacrificed the victim and I have been saved by it.
“There flowed from his side water and blood.” Beloved, do not pass over
this mystery without thought, it has yet another hidden meaning, which I will
explain to you. I said that water and blood symbolized Baptism and the holy
Eucharist. From these two sacraments the Church is born: from Baptism, “the
cleansing water that gives rebirth and renewal through the Holy Spirit,” and
from the holy Eucharist. Since the symbols of Baptism and the Eucharist flowed9
from his side, it was from his side that Christ fashioned the Church, as he had
fashioned Eve from the side of Adam. Moses gives a hint of this when he tells the
story of the first man and makes him exclaim: “Bone from my bones and flesh
from my flesh!” As God then took a rib from Adam’s side to fashion a woman, so
Christ has given us blood and water from his side to fashion the Church. God
took the rib when Adam was in a deep sleep, and in the same way Christ gave us
the blood and the water after his own death.
Do you understand, then, how Christ has united his bride to himself and
what food he gives us all to eat? By one and the same food we are both brought
into being and nourished. As a woman nourishes her child with her own blood
and milk, so does Christ unceasingly nourish with his own blood those to whom
he himself has given life.

Vigils Reading - Easter Thursday
2026-04-09
From a sermon by
ST JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
◊◊◊
Our Lord expressly promises all Christians a certain gracious
manifestation of himself, which it is natural, at first sight, to suppose a sensible
one: and many persons understand it to be such, as if it were not more blessed to
believe than to see. Our Lord says; “He that has my commandments and keeps
them, he it is that loves me; and he that loves me, shall be loved of my Father,
and I will love him and will manifest myself to him.” When Jude asked him,
“Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself unto us, and not unto the
world?” Our Lord answered, “If one loves me, he will keep my words; and my
Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with
him.” In accordance with this promise, St Paul says, “The Spirit itself bears
witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God”; and St John, “He that
believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself.”
Now, that this great gift, whatever it be, is of a nature to impart
illumination, sanctity, and peace, to the soul to which it comes, far from
disputing, I would earnestly maintain. And, in this indirect way, doubtless, it is
in a certain sense apprehended and perceived; perceived in its effects, with a
consciousness that those effects cannot come of themselves, but imply a gift
from which they come, and a presence of which they are, as it were, the shadow,
a voice of which they are the echo.
But there are persons who desire the inward manifestation of Christ to be
much more sensible than this. They will not be contented without some sensible
sign and direct evidence that God loves them; some assurance, in which faith
has no part, that God has chosen them; and which may answer to their
anticipations of what Scripture calls “the secret of the Lord,” and “the hidden
manna” which Christ invites us to partake. Some, for instance, hold that their
conscience would have no peace, unless they recollected the time when they
were converted from darkness to light, from a state of wrath to the kingdom of
God.
Others consider that, in order to possess the seal of election, they must be
able to discern in themselves certain feelings or frames of mind, a renunciation
of their own merit, and an apprehension of gospel salvation; as if it were not
enough to renounce ourselves and follow Christ, without the lively
consciousness that we are doing so; and that in this lies “the secret of the Lord.”
Others go further; and think that without a distinct inward assurance of his
salvation, one is not in a saving state.
This is what men and women often conceive; not considering that
whatever be the manifestation promised to Christians by our Lord, it is not
likely to be more sensible and more intelligible than the great sign of his own
Resurrection. Yet even that, like the miracle wrought upon Jonah, was in secret,
and they who believed without seeing it were more blessed than those who saw.

Vigils Reading - Easter Friday
2026-04-10
From a sermon by
ST JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
◊◊◊
Now let us contemplate the means which God’s Divine Wisdom actually
adopted with a view to making Christ’s resurrection subservient to the
propagation of His Gospel. He showed Himself openly, not to all the people, but
to witnesses chosen before of God. It is, indeed, a general characteristic of the
course of God’s providence to make the few the channels of His blessings to the
many; but in the instance we are considering, a few were selected because only a
few could be made instruments…
To be witnesses of His resurrection it was necessary to have known our
Lord intimately before His death. This was the case with the Apostles; but it was
not enough. It was necessary that they should be certain it was He himself, the
very same whom they had known before. You recollect how He urged them to
handle Him, and be sure that they could testify to His rising again… But people
are not easily prevailed upon to be faithful advocates of any cause. Not only is
the multitude fickle; but the best, unless urged, tutored, disciplined to their
work, give way; untrained nature has no principles.
It would seem, then, that our Lord gave His attention to a few because, if
the few are gained, the many will follow. To these few He showed Himself again
and again. These He restored, comforted, warned, inspired. He formed them to
Himself, that they might show forth His praise. That period of preparatory
prayer, meditation and instruction which the Apostles passed through under
our Lord’s visible presence for forty days, was to them something that could not
have been had they been following Him from place to place in public and mixing
in the busy crowds of the world.
So much then in answer to the question: Why did Christ not show Himself
to the whole Jewish people after His resurrection? – I ask in reply: what would
have been the purpose of it? – a mere passing triumph over sinners whose
judgment is reserved for the next world. On the other hand, such a procedure
would have interfered with, even defeated, the real object of His rising again,
namely, the propagation of His Gospel through the world by means of His own
intimate friends and followers.
We, too, though we are not witnesses of Christ’s actual resurrection, are so
spiritually. By a heart awake from the dead, and by affections set on heaven, we
can as truly and without figure witness that Christ lives, as they did. Whoever
believes in the Son of God has the witness in themselves. Truth bears witness by
itself to its Divine Author. Whoever obeys God conscientiously, and lives holily,
forces all about them to believe and tremble before the unseen power of Christ.
To the world at large the believer does not witness; for few can see them
near enough to be moved by their manner of living. But to one’s neighbors one
manifests the Truth in proportion to their knowledge of the person; and some of
them, through God’s blessing, catch the holy flame, cherish it, and in their turn
transmit it. And thus in a dark world Truth still makes way in spite of the
darkness, passing from hand to hand.

Vigils Reading - Easter Saturday
2026-04-11
From the writing of
FR BRUCE VAWTER
◊◊◊
In biblical faith the resurrection is something; something did occur to
account for the appearances of Jesus after his death. It is not to retreat into
obscurity or equivocation to confess that we have no better way of defining that
something than to call it resurrection. We cannot define what is indefinable in
terms of human experience; we can only describe it in some fashion by the use of
the pictures we call analogies. The picture we use following the New Testament
precedent to describe both what God effected in Christ and, with it as the
proleptic example, what its faith promises to all who share in God’s kingdom, is
mythical to the extent that, taken in all literalness, it might equally well serve to
describe the resuscitation of a corpse, which the New Testament does not intend
to do…
Paul…for all his insistence on the resurrection as a reality, did not think of
it as a resurrection of dead flesh: “Perhaps someone will say, ‘How are the dead
to be raised up? What kind of body will they have?’ A nonsensical question!
The seed you sow does not germinate unless it dies. When you sow, you do not
sow the full-blown plant but a kernel of wheat or some other grain. God gives
body to it as he pleases – to each seed its own fruition… So is it with the
resurrection of the dead.”
Paul admittedly tells us more about what, in his view, the resurrection is
not than what it is, but at the same time he tells us enough to dissuade us from
dismissing lightly the testimony of his senses, which he joined to the witness of
his tradition. Here was a man quite conscious of the validity of what are
sometimes thought to be modern and scientific objections to the idea of
resurrection; a man convinced that something had occurred that he could only
call resurrection while regretting the inadequacy of the concept. Paul was as
prepared as anyone today for demythologizing, but he was not prepared to
disallow any fact out of his inability to explain it. Rather than deny the fact, he
preferred to retain the myth with all its attendant ambiguities.

Skema
2026-04-12
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
2nd Week of Easter

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (II)
April 12 – 18, 2026

Sun
12
Mon
13
Tue
14
Wed
15
Thu
16
Fri
17
Sat
18

Office
2nd Sunday of Easter
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday

Vigils
Col 3:1-17
Acts 4:32-5:16
Acts 5:17-42
Acts 6:1-15
Acts 7:1-16
Acts 7:17-43
Acts 7:44-8:3

Lauds
Rev 3:1-6
Rev 3:14-22
Rev 4:6-11
Rev 5:6-10
Rev 6:1-4
Rev 6:9-11
Rev 7:1-4/8

Mass
43
267
268
269
270
271
272

1st
Acts 2:42-47
Acts 4:23-31
Acts 4:32-37
Acts 5:17-26
Acts 5:27-33
Acts 5:34-42
Acts 6:1-7

2nd
1 Pet 1:3-9

Gospel
John 20:19-31
John 3:1-8
John 3:7b-15
John 3:16-21
John 3:31-36
John 6:1-15
John 6:16-21

Vespers
Rev 3:7-13
Rev 4:1-5
Rev 5:1-5
Rev 5:11-14
Rev 6:5-8
Rev 6:12-17
Rev 7:9-12

Vigils Reading - 2nd Sunday of Easter
2026-04-12
From a commentary by
ST CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA
◊◊◊
By his miraculous entry through closed doors Christ proved to his
disciples that by nature he was God and also that he was none other than their
former companion. By showing them his side and the marks of the nails, he
convinced them beyond a doubt that he had raised the temple of his body, the
very body that had hung upon the cross. He had destroyed death’s power over
the flesh, for as God he was life itself.
Because of the importance he attached to making his disciples believe in
the resurrection of the body, and in order to prevent them from thinking that
the body he now possessed was different from that in which he had suffered
death upon the cross, he willed to appear to them as he had been before, even
though the time had now come for his body to be clothed in a supernatural glory
such as no words could possibly describe.
We have only to recall Christ’s transfiguration on the mountain in the
presence of his holy disciples, to realize that mortal eyes could not have endured
the glory of his sacred body had he chosen to reveal it before ascending to the
Father. Saint Matthew describes how Jesus went up the mountain with Peter,
James and John, and how he was transfigured before them. His face shone like
lightning and his clothes became white as snow. But they were unable to endure
the sight and fell prostrate on the ground.
And so, before allowing the glory which belonged to it by every right to
transfigure the temple of his body, our Lord Jesus Christ in his wisdom
appeared to his disciples in the form that they had known. He wished them to
believe that he had risen from the dead in the very body that he had received
from the blessed virgin, and in which he had suffered crucifixion and death, as
the Scriptures had foretold. Death’s power was over the body alone, and it was
from the body that it was banished.
If it was not Christ’s dead body that rose again, how was death conquered,
how was the power of corruption destroyed? It could not have been destroyed by
the death of a created spirit, of a soul, of an angel, or even of the Word of God
himself. Since death held sway only over what was corruptible by nature, it was
in this corruptible nature that the power of the resurrection had to show itself in
order to end death’s tyranny.
When Christ greeted his disciples with the words: Peace be with you, by
peace he meant himself for Christ’s presence always brings tranquility of soul.
This is the grace Saint Paul desired for believers when he wrote: The peace of
Christ, which passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds. The
peace of Christ, which passes all understanding, is in fact the Spirit of Christ,
who fills those who share in him with every blessing.

Vigils Reading
2026-04-13
From a reading by
GERTRUD THE GREAT
◊◊◊
How wondrous is your temple, God, king of virtues. How glorious your
dwelling-place, where you, God most high, preside in your majesty over all
things. The virtue of my soul grows faint in its yearning to enter into your glory.
God, my God, love and jubilation of my heart, refuge and virtue, God, my glory
and my praise, oh when will my soul praise you in the church of the saints?
O when will my eyes see you, my God, God of gods? God of my heart, oh
when will you gladden me with the sight of your face? Oh when will you bestow
upon me the desire of my soul by manifesting your glory? Oh when will I enter
into your might to see your virtue and glory? Oh when will you clothe me with
the mantle of your praise instead of a spirit of sorrow so that, together with the
angels, all the parts of my body may render you praise?
God of my life, oh when will I enter into the tabernacle of your glory in
order that I, too, may proclaim to you the most splendid alleluia and that my
soul and my heart may confess to you in the presence of all your saints that you
have magnified your mercies toward me. My God, my very bright inheritance,
oh when, after the snares of this death have been destroyed, will I personally see
you without mediation, and praise you? Oh when will I dwell in your tabernacle
forever in order that I may assiduously praise your name and sing to your
magnificence a new hymn about your limitless mercies?

Vigils Reading
2026-04-14
From a reading by
HANS URS VON BALTHASAR
◊◊◊
The Apostles are the founders of the Church, officially chosen and called
by the Lord, whose first function will be to be eyewitnesses. They are drawn into
living community with the Messiah, a relationship in which they will enjoy with
this man, who is `God among us’, a commerce that is fully human, that engages
both their senses and their spirit. They are ‘those with him’, ‘those who
accompany him’, and ‘those around him’.
This is what they are, and they will grow more and more into this way of
life in the course of Jesus’ life. They constitute the original cell of God’s
community with us, which had been promised and is now being realized. All
those coming after them who wish to have community with God must become a
part of this original cell.
There are many others who come to the Lord, only to go away again, many
others who stay with him a while only then to leave him, or simply others who
have a loose connection with him without any particular calling. By contrast,
the Apostles enjoy a community with Jesus which has precise contours, a
community which he has consciously established and maintained, which is
founded on the definitive life-long renunciation of all else: it is something
wholly formed, distinctive in shape. And yet it is not something magical
imposed from above, since the son of perdition will indeed fall away; rather, it is
the realization of the covenant-partnership between God and ourselves.
Eyewitness, in turn, is an association with the Lord in his public life, in his
Passion, and in his death which is the communal, human, and realistic
experience of God which continues and fulfills the Old Testament’s promise of
an earthly God-with-us.
But this phase comes to an end with Jesus’ death; the Apostles’ senses,
accustomed to his existence, now fall into the void; there is no longer anything
there to see, to hear, to touch; the Apostles’ whole human experience breaks off
with the three days in death, then to resume anew, without any traceable
continuity, with Christ’s Resurrection, at a place whose distance from the point
of disruption can be known and measured only by God; and now, during the
forty days, the association with the Lord will be experienced with wholly new
senses.
The eyewitness of the Apostles draws all its force from this last phase, to
be sure; otherwise they could hardly bear witness to anything more than an
extraordinary man who was prophetically gifted and who performed miracles.
But it draws its force not, indeed, solely from the witness of the Resurrection,
but from the fact that the man who appeared to them was the same whom they
had known previously from long association and whom they had seen suffer and
die. Seeing him, hearing him, touching him, observing how he eats, the proof of
the wounds” all of this receives its full significance only in that light.

Vigils Reading
2026-04-15
From a reading by
ST AMBROSE
◊◊◊
What is virginal chastity but purity free from stain. And whom can we
judge to be its author but the immaculate Son of God, whose flesh saw no
corruption, whose Godhead experienced no infection? Consider, then, how
great are the merits of virginity. Christ was before the Virgin, Christ was of the
Virgin. Begotten indeed of the Father before the ages, but born of the Virgin for
the ages. The former was of His won nature, the latter is for our benefit. The
former always was, the latter He willed.
Consider, too, another merit of virginity. Christ is the spouse of the
Virgin, and if one may so say “spouse” of virginal chastity, for virginity is of
Christ, not Christ of virginity. He is, then, the Virgin who was espoused, the
Virgin who bore us, who fed us with her milk, of whom we read: “What great
things has the virgin of Jerusalem done! The breasts shall not fail from the rock,
nor snow from Lebanon, nor the water which is borne by the strong wind.”
Who is this virgin that is watered with the streams of the Trinity, from
whose rock waters flow, whose breasts fail not, and whose honey is poured
forth? Now, according to the Apostle, the rock is Christ. Therefore, from Christ
the breasts fail not, nor brightness from God, nor the river from the Spirit. This
is the Trinity which waters their Church, the Father, Christ, and the Spirit.
But let us now come down from the mother to the daughters. “Concerning
virgins,” says the Apostle, “I have no commandment of the Lord.” If the teacher
of the Gentiles had none, who could have one? And in truth he had no
commandment, but he had an example. For virginity cannot be commanded,
but must be wished for, for things which are above us are matters for prayer
rather than under mastery. “But I would have you,” he says, “be without care.
For he who is without a wife is careful for the things which are the Lord’s, how he
may please God… And the virgin takes thought for the things of the Lord, that
she may be holy in body and in spirit. For she that is married takes thought for
the things of the world, how she may please her husband.”
I am not indeed discouraging marriage, but am enlarging upon the
benefits of virginity.

Vigils Reading
2026-04-16
From a reading by
FR HUGO RAHNER
◊◊◊
Precisely in weakness the Church of the crucified is the very essence of
God’s force of grace, the sacramentally humble symbol of the irresistibly
victorious love of the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The weak Church is the
joy of our faith. Not only despite her weakness, but rather because she is weak.
This is no theological dialectic that would release us from the responsibility of
constantly attempting anew to perfect the power of the Church’s witness, her
holiness, even her glory that can be dramatized here on earth.
However, our faith in the Church remains pure, resilient, filled with
unshatterable joy in the victory of Our Lord, only if we perceive that the power
and dominion of God, which is totally different in nature from anything else in
our experience, chooses to show itself most often in earthly impotence and
despicability – as long as we in the midst of the Church celebrate the death of
Our Lord, until Christ returns as the Messiah of glory. Christ, once and for all,
died beyond the barricades of human comprehensibility, and therefore the
Church must bear his disgrace.
Alas, this is so difficult for us here below to comprehend. Our eyes are
veiled, and our hearts are still as dull as those of the journeying disciples of
Emmaus. They recognized the Lord only after the breaking of bread. Then,
however, their hearts burned. It is the same with us…
This also holds true for the mystery of the Church. It is the same for her as
it was for Our Lord: In sacrifice has he conquered, in the breaking of bread he
inflamed joy, in the fact that he was killed has he driven out the prince of this
world. Therefore we recognize him and his Church only in the breaking of bread,
in the breaking of our believing hearts.
And from his broken Church we discover with the quiet delight of tested,
suffered, disappointed and wise faith: Here is the Lord. Here is his Church, the
holy, the catholic. Then our hearts also burn. Then we know: She is still on the
desert path, but this leads into the promised land. She is still on the way of the
cross to death’s place of skulls, but only so will the Pasch come, and this means
the transition to the eternal…
“Probably there is much in the Church that betrays the weaknesses of our
human nature. Her divine founder, however, endures these weaknesses. He
endures them even in the higher members of his mystical body… Therefore, the
fact that many members suffer from spiritual infirmity is no reason for us to
lessen our love for the Church, rather it is an occasion for us to feel deeper
sympathy with her members.”
Look about in this world – everywhere there is desert, aimless wandering,
thirst that cannot be quenched, strangers who no longer know home. But in this
desert you see a thornbush burst into flames, and you hear the divine words: “The
place where you stand is holy ground”. This is a type, a model of the holy Church.
She is a wretched, prickly shrub in the desert, but even now she bursts into flames
with heavenly fire. Here we stand: we believe in this Church of weak brambles
and tremendous fire. She is our trial of faith and our love’s joy.

Vigils Reading
2026-04-17
From a reading by
FR LOUIS BOUYER
◊◊◊
The discovery of grace, the discovery of love which loves us without
looking for any return, which loves us although we are sinners, which loves us in
our sin, but which alone will lead us, by obscure ways known to God alone, from
sin to sanctity, that is, in the last analysis, the great discovery. Then it is that God
reveals Himself to us as One who speaks to us, as One whose Word for the
second time draws us out of nothingness to being, as One whom we have not so
much to seek as to discover seeking us. It is He, the Shepherd who left the
ninety-nine sheep in safety to seek and save that which was lost. It is He, the
Father of the prodigal who goes along the road to welcome his son when he has
scarcely started out to meet his father, and takes him in his arms.
“To seek God”, to seek Him as a person, as the Person par excellence, and
not only as the “Thou” to whom all our love should be addressed, but as the “I”
who has first approached us, whose word of love, addressed to the primeval
chaos, drew us forth from it in the first place, and, spoken to us in our sin, draws
us forth from it again: to be a monk is nothing else than this.
To be a monk, then, is simply to be an integral Christian. And regarded in
this light, the Christian is simply the person restored by the Word of the Gospel
to the vocation which the creative Word destined for each: to respond to the
Word of Agape by the word of faith, in order eventually to meet God face to face.
Commenting on Canticle of Canticles, Origen tells us that the Church,
under the old dispensation, only heard the Bridegroom’s voice, whereas in the
new, she is offered the sight of his countenance. And he adds that the
development of the Christian life is made up solely of this transition. The monk
is the one who does not limit him or herself to accepting it in some measure
passively, by yielding to grace slothfully and reluctantly. The monk is one who
responds with the whole heart to the call which comes from the very heart of
God.
Monks are of the number of the violent who will not allow the divine
Kingdom to fall upon them as it were unawares, but who take it by storm in
advance. For that the monks have staked their all, they have burned their boats.
To the one who believes that life consists in what is possessed, the monk seems
to be consenting to, even to be deliberately seeking, a fatal renunciation. To the
one who knows that being is of greater value than having, and that being which
is of value is not that which passes but that which endures, the monk will seem
to be the only true humanist. For the human person is born only as subject to the
divine Word and will only be fully that person the day when, freed from the
nothingness which holds one prisoner, fully surrendered to the Word which
calls, the person will at last come to discover the Face which promised us being
in promising us His own image.

Vigils Reading
2026-04-18
From a commentary by
WILLIAM OF ST THIERRY
◊◊◊
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the
God of Jacob, and He will teach us his ways.”
Yearnings, strivings, thoughts and affections, and all that is within me,
come and let us go up to the mountain or place where the Lord both sees and is
seen! But worries and anxieties, concerns and toils, and all the sufferings
involved in my enslaved condition, all of you must stay here with the donkey – I
mean my body – while I and the lad – my intellectual faculties – hasten up the
mountain; so that when we have worshiped, we may come back to you.
For we shall come back, and that unfortunately, all too soon. Love of the
truth does indeed lead us far from you; but for the brethren’s sake, the truth of
the love forbids us to abandon or reject you. But, though you need thus call us
back, that sweet experience must not be wholly forgotten on your account.
But alas, O Lord, alas! To want to see God when one is unclean in heart is
surely quite outrageous, rash and presumptuous, and altogether out of order
and against the rule of the word of truth and of your wisdom! Yet you are he who
is supremely good, goodness itself, the life of our hearts and the light of our
inward eyes. For your goodness’ sake, then, have mercy on me, Lord; for the
beholding of your goodness is of itself my cleansing, my confidence, my
holiness…
Since it happens only by your gift, you know how from the inmost depths
of my being and after I have put away from me all striving after worldly honors
and delights and pleasures, and everything else that can – and often does –
arouse in me the lust of the flesh, or of the eyes, or that stirs me in a wrong
ambition – you know how my heart then says to you: “My face has sought you;
your face will I seek. Do not turn your face from me; do not turn away in anger
from your servant.”…
Let your voice testify deep down within my soul and spirit, shaking my
whole being like a raging storm, while my inward eyes are dazzled by the
brightness of your truth, which keeps on telling me: “No man shall see you and
live.” For I indeed am as yet wholly in my sins, I have not learned yet how to die
to myself in order to live to you.
And yet it is by your command and by your gift that I stand upon the rock
of faith in you, the rock of the Christian faith, and in the place where truly you
are present. On that rock I take my stand meanwhile, with such patience as I can
command, and I embrace and kiss your right hand that covers and protects me.
And sometimes, when I gaze with longing, I do see the “back” of him who sees
me; I see your Son Christ “passing by” in the abasement of his incarnation.

Skema
2026-04-19
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
3rd Week of Easter

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (II)
April 19 – 25, 2026

Sun
19
Mon
20
Tue
21
Wed
22
Thu
23
Fri
24
Sat
25

Office
3rd Sunday of Easter
Easter Weekday
St Anselm
Bl Maria Gabriella
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
St Mark

Vigils
Acts 8:4-25
Acts 8:26-40
Acts 9:1-22
Acts 9:23-43
Acts 10:1-33
Acts 10:34-11:4, 18
1 Thess 2:1-13

Lauds
Rev 7:13-17
Rev 10:8-11
Rev 12:1-6
Rev 12:13-18
Rev 14:6-13
Rev 15:2-4
Sir 51:13-22

Mass
46
273
274
275
276
277
555

1st
Acts 2:14, 22-33
Acts 6:8-15
Acts 7:51-8:1a
Acts 8:1b-8
Acts 8:26-40
Acts 9:1-20
1 Pet 5:5b-14

2nd
1 Pet 1:17-21

Gospel
Luke 24:13-35
John 6:22-29
John 6:30-35
John 6:35-40
John 6:44-51
John 6:52-59
Mark 16:15-20

Vespers
Rev 8:1-5
Rev 11:15-19
Rev 12:7-12
Rev 14:1-5
Rev 14:14-16
Rev 19:1-4
Rev 19:11-16

Vigils Reading - 3rd Sunday of Easter
2026-04-19
From a commentary by a
12th CENTURY AUTHOR
◊◊◊
Their eyes were opened and they knew him when he broke the bread.
When bread is broken, it is in a way diminished, or “emptied”. By
breaking understand the virtue of humility, by which Christ – even he who is the
bread of life – broke, diminished, and emptied himself. And by emptying
himself he gave us knowledge of himself.
The hidden Wisdom of the Father, and a treasure whole and concealed –
what are they? Break your bread for the hungry, Lord, the bread that is yourself,
so that human eyes may be opened, and it may not be regarded as a sin for us to
long to be like you, knowing good and evil. Let him who from the beginning
wished to strive after or grope for you in your undiminished state, know you
through the breaking of bread.
Break yourself that we may learn to break our own selves, for you are not
known through the breaking of bread. Balaam heard the words of God and saw
visions of the Almighty, but he fell with open eyes because he did not know the
Lord through the breaking of bread. It is the same today: you see many studying
the Scriptures, teaching in cathedrals, preaching in churches, but their works do
not agree with their words. With words they claim to have a knowledge of God,
but with their deeds they deny it, because God cannot be known except through
the breaking of the bread.
And in fact, the Lord became our bread and we are his bread. He
condescended to eat his bread with sweat on his brow, so that we might eat with
joy. If you want to know him, break yourself as he did, because anyone who
claims to abide in Christ ought to live as he lived. The kingdom of God lies not in
words, but in power.
Break yourself, then, by the labor of obedience, by the humiliation of
repentance. Bear in your body the marks of Jesus Christ by accepting the
condition of a servant, not of a superior. And when you have emptied yourself,
you will know the Lord through the breaking of bread. True humility opens our
eyes, “breaking” and diminishing the other virtues which might blind us with a
spirit of pride, and teaching us that of ourselves we are nothing. And when we
humble ourselves by self-contempt, so much the more do we grow in the
knowledge of God.

Vigils Reading
2026-04-20
From the writing of
DOM DAMASUS WINZEN
◊◊◊
The fact that the Church is rather a gift of the Spirit than the fruit of
human endeavor gives to the apostolic Church a unique position in the history
of the Church, and makes the Acts of the Apostles of vital importance to the
Christians of all ages. We people of the “century of progress” do not look into
the past to find there the pattern for the future. Accustomed as we are to think in
terms progress, any beginnings bear to us the mark of imperfection. The life of
the Church, however, is not ruled by the laws of human progress. Not being built
up from the ground, but descending from above, the growth of the Church is like
that of a seed, the gradual unfolding of a fundamental structure which is wholly
present already in the initial stage.
The risen Christ is the “seed” out of which the Church grows as an
overflow of his abundance. From Christ the Church receives the divine life in the
vessel of the sacraments, to be administered, not to be produced. From Christ
she receives the full light of revelation as an unalterable deposit, to be handed
down, not to be invented. The risen Christ sends to his Church the fullness of the
Holy Spirit so that St Peter can truly state, on the very day when the Church is
born, that this outpouring of the Spirit is the fulfillment of an event which, as
Joel had announced, would come about “in the last days”. The apostolic Church
is the Church of “the first love”. The apostles who govern her are endowed with a
fullness of grace never to be given to any of their successors.
The Church is built, once and forever, upon “the foundation of the
apostles”. For this reason the history of the Church is to a large extent the
history of “reformations”. Again and again the Church has returned to the
apostolic pattern.
To restore the spirit of the apostolic Church in its original purity and zeal
was the avowed purpose of all the great saints and reformers. The Rule of St
Benedict is nothing but an attempt to reestablish the ideal apostolic Church
within the confines of a monastery. St Francis, St Dominic, St Ignatius and the
great number of their followers received the inspiration for their Orders from
the Acts of the Apostles. The apostolic Church remains a model for our times
too; not that we want to turn back the wheel of history and copy the external
forms of a past age, which is impossible, but because we realize that the waters
of the Holy Spirit are nowhere as pure as at their source.

Vigils Reading - St Anselm
2026-04-21
he life of
ST ANSELM
◊◊◊
Anselm, son of a Lombard nobleman, was one of the outstanding figures
of the church in England. After a restless youth, in 1059 he entered the
monastery of Bec in Normandy, whose prior was Lanfranc, who was to precede
him in the see of Canterbury. During the next thirty years Anselm wrote several
of the philosophical and theological works that have been so influential, works
that are characterized by a use of rational argument that made him “the father of
Scholasticism”; but his intellectual figure was softened by the sensitiveness of
his mind and the generosity of his heart. He was elected abbot of Bec in 1078,
and in 1093 King William II consented to nominate him to the archbishopric of
Canterbury.
Henceforth. Anselm’s public life was almost wholly conditioned by
dissensions with William II and Henry I over relations between the church and
the state as represented by the king. Among the principles at stake was the
election of bishops without interference from the crown. William II soon made
determined efforts to get rid of the archbishop, and in 1097 Anselm went to
Rome, where he remained for three years. During that time he wrote “Cur Deus
Homo”, one of the best known works on the Atonement. He also attended the
Council of Bari, and was instrumental in resolving the doubts of the Greek
bishops in southern Italy about the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Son
(Filioque).
He returned to England when Henry I came to the throne, but Henry soon
claimed rights in respect of bishops and abbots that a council in Rome had been
unable to recognize; Anselm was again in exile abroad from 1003 to 1007.
As a pastor he encouraged the ordination of native Englishmen among his
clergy for whom he enforced celibacy; he emulated St Wulfstan in his opposition
to slavery, and he restored to the calendar the names of some of the English
saints that his predecessor Lanfranc had removed. As a statesmen he was
deficient: the monastery, not the court, was where he was at home. Many
incidents recorded of his life testify no less than his writings to the
attractiveness of his personal character. Anselm was canonized by being
included among the doctors of the church by Pope Clement XI in 1720.

Vigils Reading - Bl Maria Gabriella
2026-04-22
From an article by Mother Martha Driscoll on
BLESSED MARIA GABRIELLA
◊◊◊
Born in Sardinia on March 17, 1914, Maria Sagheddu grew up in a typical
shepherd’s family. Life was not easy, and the death of her father when she was
only four accustomed her to poverty and hard work from earliest childhood. A
stubborn and willful child, she had a passion to win, both at school and at play,
and a strong determination to overcome any challenge.
At the age of eighteen, Maria experienced some kind of conversion
experience. At the same time, she voiced her desire to consecrate herself to God
in religious life. She enrolled in Catholic Action and became active in teaching
catechism, serving the poor, the sick, the unwanted. The most profound change,
however, was in herself. “She became sweet and calm,” was her mother’s brief
comment about a daughter who no longer lost her temper or became annoyed
by the contradictions of life.
After two and a half years of determined conversion, her parish priest
chose for her the hard and simple life of the Trappists. At the age of twenty-one,
she entered the small, poor Trappist monastery of Grottaferrata, not far from
Rome. She received the habit on April 13, 1936, made her first vows on the Feast
of Christ the King in October, 1937, contracted tuberculosis in the spring of
1938, and died on April 22, 1939, at the age of twenty-five.
Sr Maria Gabriella, as she was called in the monastery, became aware of
prayer for Christian Unity through her Abbess, Mother Pia Gullini. She
encouraged the movement of prayer for the unity of Christians as promoted by
Abbe Paul Couturier in his Octave of Prayer. Mother Pia began to direct the
entire community to the special vocation of prayer…
Almost immediately an elderly Sister approached the Abbess and asked to
offer her life for this cause. Exactly a month after the Novena, the seventy-eight
year old Mother Immaculata died peacefully as a result of a stroke the week
before. The community was informed of her offering, and fervor for the cause of
unity grew… During the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity…the next year, it
was Sr Maria Gabriella who felt called to offer her life. The Abbess told her: “I
won’t say yes or no. Offer yourself to the will of God.”
Shortly afterward, Sr Gabriella developed a cough and loss of energy. By
Easter the abbess sent her for an x-ray. She spent forty days in a large public
hospital in painful but futile attempts to cure the tuberculosis that had been
diagnosed. When she returned to the monastery, she was taken to the infirmary,
where she spent the remaining ten months of her life in peace, abandonment
and growing joy as the definitive encounter with Christ grew near.
Sr Maria Gabriella went to the Lord on the evening of April 23, 1939. It
was the fourth Sunday after Easter, the Sunday of the Good Shepherd, and the
Gospel proclaimed: “I have other sheep as well that are not of this fold. I must
lead these also so that there will be but one Shepherd and one fold”. The
circumstance was seen as a confirmation that the offering of her life had been a
response to a divine inspiration. On January 25, 1983, Maria Gabriella
Sagheddu was proclaimed Blessed by Pope John Paul II during the annual
ecumenical celebration in the basilica of St Paul’s Outside the Walls at the end of
the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

Vigils Reading
2026-04-23
From the treatise “On Prayer” by
ORIGEN
◊◊◊
[Jesus] says, “My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the
bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world”.
The true bread is He who nourishes the true Man, made in the image of God;
and the one who has been nourished by it will come to be in the likeness of Him
who Created him. And what is more nourishing to the soul than the Word, or
what is more honorable than the Wisdom of God to the mind that holds it? What
more rightly corresponds to a rational nature than truth?
But if someone objects to this and says that He would not have taught us
to ask for “daily bread” if He meant something else, let him hear that even in the
Gospel according to John sometimes He speaks about it as though it were
something other than Himself, and sometimes as though He were Himself
“bread.” An example of the first is, “Moses gave you bread from heaven, not the
true bread, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven”. An example
of referring it to Himself is what he says to those who said to him, “Give us this
bread always”: “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger,
and he who believes in me shall never thirst”.
Now all food is called “bread” in Scripture, as is clear from what is written
about Moses, “For forty days I neither ate bread nor drank water”. How
manifold and varying, then, is the nourishing Word, since not everyone can be
nourished by the solid and vigorous food of divine teachings. That is why, when
He wishes to offer food for an athlete, suitable for the more perfect, He says,
“The bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh”, and a little
further on, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you
have no life in you..”. This is the “True food”, the “flesh” of Christ…
Just as the corporeal bread distributed to the body of the person to be
nourished goes into his being, so also “the living bread which came down from
heaven” and is distributed to the mind and the soul gives a share in its own
power to the person who provides himself food from it. And thus the bread we
ask will be “daily” in the sense that it will be “for our being.”
Moreover, just as the person nourished becomes empowered in differing
ways according to the quality of the food…so also it follows that the Word of God
is given either as milk suitable for children or as vegetables fit for the sick or as
meat special for those taking part in the contests. And the different ones, each
nourished in proportion to how he places himself in the power of the Word, are
able to do different things and become different kinds of people.
Therefore, “daily bread,” that is, “bread for being,” is what corresponds
most closely with a rational nature and is akin to Being itself. It procures at one
time health, vigor, and strength to the soul; and since the Word of God is
immortal, it shares its own immortality with the one who eats it.

Vigils Reading
2026-04-24
From the encyclical “Ut Unum Sint” by
POPE JOHN PAUL II
◊◊◊
At the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church committed herself
irrevocably to following the path of the ecumenical venture, thus heeding the
spirit of the Lord, who teaches people to interpret carefully the “signs of the
times”. The experiences of these years have made the Church even more
profoundly aware of her identity and mission in history. The Catholic Church
acknowledges and confesses the weaknesses of her members, conscious that
their sins are so many betrayals of and obstacles to the accomplishment of the
Savior’s plan. Because she feels herself constantly called to be renewed in the
spirit of the Gospel, she does not cease to do penance. At the same time, she
acknowledges and exalts still more the power of the Lord, who fills her with the
gift of holiness, leads her forward, and conforms her to his Passion and
Resurrection.
Taught by the events of her history, the Church is committed to freeing
herself from every purely human support, in order to live in depth the Gospel
law of the Beatitudes. Conscious that the truth does not impose itself except “by
virtue of its own truth, as it makes its entrance into the mind at once quietly and
with power”, she seeks nothing for herself but the freedom to proclaim the
Gospel. Indeed her authority is exercised in the service of truth and charity.
Together with all Christ’s disciples, the Catholic Church bases upon God’s
plan her ecumenical commitment to gather all Christians into unity. Indeed,
“the Church is not a reality closed in on herself. Rather, she is permanently open
to missionary and ecumenical endeavor, for she is sent to the world to announce
and witness, to make present and spread the mystery of communion which is
essential to her, and to gather all people and all things into Christ, so as to be for
all an “inseparable sacrament of unity”.
The unity of all divided humanity is the will of God. For this reason He
sent His son, so that by dying and rising for us he might bestow on us the Spirit
of love. On the eve of his sacrifice on the Cross, Jesus himself prayed to the
Father for his disciples and for all those who believe in him, that they might be
one, a living communion. This is the basis not only of the duty, but also of the
responsibility before God and his plan, which falls to those who through
Baptism become members of the Body of Christ, a Body in which the fullness of
reconciliation and communion must be made present. How is it possible to
remain divided, if we have been “buried” through Baptism in the Lord’s death,
in the very act by which God, through the death of His Son, has broken down the
walls of division? Division openly contradicts the will of Christ, provides a
stumbling block to the world, and inflicts damage on the most holy cause of
proclaiming the Good News to every creatures.

Vigils Reading - St Mark
2026-04-25
From a sermon by
ST JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
◊◊◊
The chief points of St Mark’s history are these: first, that he was nephew to
Barnabas, and taken with him and St Paul on their first apostolic journey; next,
that after a short time he deserted them and returned to Jerusalem; then, that
after an interval, he was St Peter’s assistant at Rome, and composed his Gospel
there principally from the accounts which he received from that Apostle; lastly,
that he was sent by him to Alexandria, in Egypt, where he founded one of the
strictest and most powerful churches of the primitive times.
The points of contrast in his history are as follows: that first he abandoned
the cause of the Gospel as soon as danger appeared; afterwards, he proved
himself, not merely an ordinary Christian, but a most resolute and exact servant
of God, founding and ruling the strictest Church of Alexandria. And the
instrument of this change was, as it appears the influence of St Peter, a fit
restorer of a timid and backsliding disciple.
The encouragement which we derive from these circumstances in St
Mark’s history, is that the feeblest among us may through God’s grace become
strong. And the warning to be drawn from it is, to distrust ourselves; and again,
not to despise weak brethren, or to despair of them, but to bear their burdens
and help them forward, if so be we may restore them…
Some are naturally impetuous and active; others love quiet and readily
yield. The over-earnest must be sobered, and the indolent must be roused. The
history of Moses supplies us with an instance of a proud and rash spirit, tamed
down to an extreme gentleness of deportment. In the greatness of the change
wrought in him, when from a fierce, though honest avenger of his brethren, he
became the meekest of human beings on earth, he evidences the power of faith,
the influence of the Spirit on the heart.
St Mark’s history affords a specimen of the other, and still rarer change,
from timidity to boldness. Difficult as it is to subdue the more violent passions,
yet I believe it to be still more difficult to overcome a tendency to sloth,
cowardice, and despondency. These evil dispositions cling about a person, and
weigh him down. They are minute chains, binding him on every side to the
earth, so that he cannot even turn himself or make an effort to rise. It would
seem as if right principles had yet to be planted in the indolent mind; whereas
violent and obstinate tempers had already something of the nature of firmness
and zeal in them, or rather what will become so with care, exercise, and God’s
blessing. Besides, the events of life have a powerful influence in sobering the
ardent or self-confident temper. Disappointments, pain anxiety, advancing
years, bring with them some natural wisdom as a matter of course; and, though
such tardy improvement bespeaks but a weak faith, yet we may believe that the
Holy Spirit often blesses these means, however slowly and imperceptibly…
St Mark’s change, therefore, may be considered even more astonishing in
its nature than that of the Jewish Lawgiver. “By faith,” he was “out of weakness
made strong,” and becomes a memorial of the more glorious and marvelous
gifts of the last and spiritual Dispensation.

Skema
2026-04-26
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
4th Week of Easter

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (II)
April 26 – May 2, 2026

Sun
26
Mon
27
Tue
28
Wed
29
Thu
30
Fri
1
Sat
2

Office
4th Sunday of Easter
St Rafael Arnaiz Baron
Easter Weekday
St Catherine of Siena
Easter Weekday
St Joseph the Worker
St Athanasius

Vigils
Acts 12:1-23
Acts 12:24-13:14a
Acts 13:14b-43
Acts13:44-14:7
Acts 14:8-15:4
Acts 15:5-35
Acts 15:36-16:15

Lauds
Rev 19:19-21
Rev 20:11-15
Rev 21:5-8
Rev 21:15-21
Rev 22:1-5
Rev 22:14-21
Eph 1:11-14

Mass
49
279
280
281
282
283, 559
284

1st
Acts 2:14a, 36-41
Acts 11:1-18
Acts 11:19-26
Acts 12:24-13:5a
Acts 13:13-25
Acts 13:26-33
Acts 13:44-52

2nd
1 Pet 2:20b-25

Gospel
John 10:1-10
Jn 10:11-18
John 10:22-30
John 12:44-50
John 13:16-20
Matt 13:54-58
John 14:7-14

Vespers
Rev 20:4-6
Rev 21:1-4
Rev 21:9-14
Rev 21:22-27
Rev 22:6-13
Eph 1:1-10
Eph 1:15-23

Vigils Reading - 4th Sunday of Easter
2026-04-26
From a commentary by
ST THOMAS AQUINAS
◊◊◊
Jesus says: I am the good shepherd. The title of shepherd is obviously
fitting for Christ because just as a flock is tended and fed by a shepherd, so the
faithful are nourished by Christ with spiritual food and even with his body and
blood. But to make a distinction between himself and a bad shepherd or thief, he
adds the word “good” — good, because he carries out the duty of a shepherd, just
as a good soldier is one who fulfills the duty of a soldier.
But immediately before this Christ said that the shepherd entered by the
gate and that he himself was the gate; now that he calls himself the shepherd, it
follows that he must enter through himself. And indeed he does enter through
himself, because he manifests himself and through himself has knowledge of
the Father. We, on the other hand, enter through him because it is through him
that we attain beatitude.
Note that no one else but himself is the gate because no one else is the true
light except by participation, as it says of John the Baptist: He was not the light
but was to bear witness to the light. Whereas of Christ it says: He was the true
light which enlightens every human being. In the same way no one calls himself
the gate: Christ reserves this for himself alone. To be a shepherd he granted to
others, bestowing this on his members; for Peter was a shepherd, and the other
apostles were too, as well as all good bishops. I will give you shepherds after my
own heart, says Jeremiah.
Although prelates of the Church who are sons are all shepherds, he
expressly says that no one can be a good pastor unless he is united to Christ by
charity and becomes a member of the true shepherd.
Charity is the duty of a good shepherd, and so it says the good shepherd
lays down his life for his sheep. For this is the distinguishing mark between a
good shepherd and a bad one: a good shepherd has the good of his flock at heart;
a bad one is out for his own advantage. Ezekiel refers to this distinction when he
says: Woe to those shepherds that feed themselves. Is it not flocks that are fed
by shepherds? So whoever uses a flock to feed himself alone is not a good
shepherd.
A good shepherd, even in a material sense, endures much for the flock he
is bent on tending; as Jacob said in Genesis, Night and day I was consumed by
frost and heat. But because the welfare of a spiritual flock is more important
than the physical life of a pastor, when danger threatens the salvation of his
flock, every spiritual pastor should be prepared to lay down his life for the good
of his flock. And so our Lord says, The good shepherd lays down his life — that
is his physical life — for his sheep. He does so because he is responsible for them
and loves them. Christ set us the example for teaching this: If Christ laid down
his life for us, we should lay down our lives for the brethren.

Vigils Reading -St Rafael Arnaiz Baron
2026-04-27
From the writing of
ST RAFAEL ARNAIZ BARON
◊◊◊
I see, Brother, that the path you follow is the simple life. God does not
require more of us than simplicity without and love within. The truth is that the
real pathways of God are very easy and very simple when we walk along them
full of the spirit of trust and with free hearts fixed on God. Happy, indeed, is the
Trappist who is not merely a Trappist externally, but whose interior life is
marked by the simplicity that makes the real Trappist. People of the world could
think us somewhat complicated. I do not know how to explain myself, but I
have come to realize what Jesus means when he says: “Unless you become as
little children…”
The ways of the Lord are simplicity; his yoke is easy and his burden is
light. We die to the world in order to be born to God. The self-denial of a life of
silence and solitude blossoms into the exuberant joy of a heart which counts its
blessings in terms of simplicity and integrity. Those who follow Christ, do so
along the way of the Cross. I think that when we love the Cross all is gained.
God always lets his light shine on anyone who loves and seeks him in
simplicity. We have to find our way along many winding paths before we arrive
at the simple straight one. What causes us more distress than complicating
things! How we human beings love to complicate everything for ourselves!
Unless we keep ourselves under control by the practice of virtue, repeatedly,
with our complicated way of existing we drive far from us everything that is
simple.
Time and again, we fail to grasp the greatness hidden deep down in an act
of simplicity. We want to seek greatness in complexity and think that only when
things are difficult have they anything worthwhile to offer… Virtue, God,
Interior Life – difficult values to live out! It is not that I have attained virtue, nor
that my knowledge of God and my life in the spirit are totally clear, but that I
have seen that to achieve something in these matters I need to be free from
complexity and contortion, from clever speculation and technicalities.
I have seen that we reach God by just the opposite. True knowledge of
Him comes through simplicity of heart and integrity. An act of love is not
difficult at all. What is really hard is the effort to attain knowledge of God by
penetrating his mysteries. The act of love brings us to God; the other way leads
us nowhere… Because we are not simple; because we complicate our objectives,
because the weakness of our will makes everything we desire seem difficult. We
pander to this weakness when we let our will satisfy itself with what is pleasant,
consoling, distracting and, oftentimes, plain passion…
With Jesus at my side nothing seems difficult to me, and the path to
holiness seems simpler every time I look at it. Better it seems to consist in going
forward and leaving things behind rather than in acquiring anything new,
stripping back to simplicity rather than adding things on. In so far as we go
forward turning our back on so much inordinate love of creatures and of
ourselves, it seems to me that we are drawing closer to that one real love, that
sole desire, that unique aspiration of this life: the true holiness which is God.

Vigils Reading
2026-04-28
From “Season of Celebration” by
THOMAS MERTON
◊◊◊
Let us remember especially that the Church is a community of pardon. All
who have entered the common life of the body of Christ have done so by the way
of pardon. And they remain in the Body of Christ only through pardon, through
the mystery of Christ: not only of Christ, as Head, but also of Christ in His
members.
The mercy and pardon of Christ must be continually at work in all the
members and through all the members of the Mystical Body. This is what makes
the Church truly a Mother: she gives life by gentleness, understanding, love and
pardon. She forgives sins, that is to say she heals separations. Sin is separation
from God, and from those who love God. Sin is a cutting off from life. It is a
spiritual death and pardon is the restoration of life.
The Spirit by which the Church lives is the Spirit of love, of unity. Unity
can be preserved or restored only by understanding, acceptance and pardon.
The Church is a body of people who know they are forgiven and who forgive
repeatedly because they are themselves forgiven repeatedly.
The Church is then not so much a body of people who are pure and never
offend, but of those who, in their weakness and frailty, frequently err and
offend, but who have received from God the power to forgive one another in His
name. They possess the Holy Spirit and they can give the Holy Spirit in some
sense, to one another. The Holy Spirit Himself moves them to do this, and acts
in them, to save others.
We, then, who form one body in Christ, share with one another the
message of Christ’s divine truth, we share His word, we share His worship, we
share His love, we share His Spirit.
In building a community of pardon which is the temple of God, we have to
recognize that no one of us is complete, self-sufficient, perfectly holy in himself.
No one can rest in one’s own virtues and interior life. We do not live for
ourselves alone. To live for oneself alone is to die. We grow and flourish in our
own lives in so far as we live for others and through others. What we ourselves
lack God has given them. They must complete us where we are deficient.
Often the good that is given us by God is given us only to be shared with
another. If God sees that we will not pardon and will not be open, that we will
not share, then the good is not given us. But to the one in whom there is the
greatest readiness to share with all, most is given. The greatest of gifts then is
this openness, this love, this readiness to accept and to pardon and to share with
others, in the Spirit of Christ. If we are open we will not only offer pardon, but
will not disdain to seek it and recognize our own desperate need of it.

Vigils Reading - St Catherine of Siena
2026-04-29
From “The Dialogues” by
ST CATHERINE OF SIENA
◊◊◊
A soul rises up, restless with tremendous desire for God’s honor and the
salvation of souls. she has for some time exercised herself in virtue and has
become accustomed to dwelling in the cell of self-knowledge in order to know
better God’s goodness toward her, since upon knowledge follows love. And
loving, she seeks to pursue truth and clothe herself in it.
But there is no way she can so savor and be enlightened by this truth as in
continual humble prayer, grounded in the knowledge of herself and of God. For
by such prayer the soul is united with God, following in the footsteps of Christ
crucified, and through desire and affection and the union of love he makes of her
another himself. So Christ seems to have meant when he said, “If you will love
me and keep my word, I will show myself to you, and you will be one thing
with me and I with you”. And we find similar words in other places from which
we can see it is the truth that by love’s affection the soul becomes another
himself.
To make this clearer still, I remember having heard from a certain servant
of God that, when she was at prayer, lifted high in spirit, God would not hide
from her mind’s eye his love for his servants. No, he would reveal it, saying
among other things, “Open your mind’s eye and look within me, and you will see
the dignity and beauty of my reasoning creature.
But beyond the beauty I have given the soul by creating her in my image
and likeness, look at those who are clothed in the wedding garment of charity,
adorned with many true virtues: they are united with me through love.
So I say, if you should ask me who they are, I would answer,” said the
gentle loving Word, “that they are another me, for they have lost and drowned
their own will and have clothed themselves and united themselves and
conformed themselves with mine.” It is true, then, that the soul is united to God
through love’s affection.

Vigils Reading
2026-04-30
From the writing of
FR ROMANO GUARDINI
◊◊◊
What are “Apostles” really? Frankly; the impression we get from the New
Testament hardly permits us to claim that these men were great or ingenious in
the worldly sense. It is difficult even to count them “great religious
personalities,” if by this we mean bearers of inherent spiritual talents. John and
Paul were probably exceptions, but we only risk misunderstanding them both
by overstating this. On the whole, we do “Apostles” no service by considering
them great religious personalities. This attitude is usually the beginning of
unbelief. Personal importance, spiritual creativeness, dynamic faith are not
decisive in their lives. What counts is that Jesus Christ has called them, pressed
his seal upon them, and sent them forth.
“You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and have appointed you
that you should go and bear fruit”. Apostles then are those who are sent. It is
not they who speak, but Christ in them. In his first Corinthian [letter] Paul
distinguishes nicely between the instructions of “the Lord” and what he, Paul,
has to say. The Lord’s words are commands; his own, suggestions. Each apostle
is filled with Christ, saturated with thought of Christ; the Lord, whom they
represent, is the substance of their life. What they teach is not what they have
learned from personal “experience” or “revelation,” it is God’s word, uttered
upon God’s command: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations
teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you”.
To this end alone have the apostles been called, and their very limitations
seem an added protection to the truth they bear. When Jesus says: “I praise
you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from
the wise and prudent, and have revealed them to little ones”, it is an outburst of
jubilation over the unutterable mystery of God’s love and creative glory.
Spiritually, the apostles are seldom more than “little ones;” [and it is] precisely
this [that] guarantees the purity of their role as messenger.
To be nothing in oneself, everything in Christ; to be obliged to contain
such tremendous contents in so small a vessel; to be a constant herald with no
life of one’s own; to forego once and forever the happy unity of blood and heart
and spirit in all one does and is—something of the trials of such an existence
dawns on us when we read the first letter of St Paul to the Corinthians, of that
Paul who experienced so deeply the simultaneous greatness and
questionableness of apostledom: “For I think God has set forth us the apostles
last of all, as men doomed to death, seeing that we have been made a spectacle
to the world, and to angels, and to men… We are reviled and we bless, we are
persecuted and we bear it, we are maligned and we entreat, we have become
as the refuse of this world, as the offscouring of all, even until now!”
