March 14, 2026
Saturday of the Third Week of
Lent
Lectionary: 242
Reading
1
"Come, let us
return to the LORD,
it is he who has rent, but he will heal us;
he has struck us, but he will bind our wounds.
He will revive us after two days;
on the third day he will raise us up,
to live in his presence.
Let us know, let us strive to know the LORD;
as certain as the dawn is his coming,
and his judgment shines forth like the light of day!
He will come to us like the rain,
like spring rain that waters the earth."
What can I do with you, Ephraim?
What can I do with you, Judah?
Your piety is like a morning cloud,
like the dew that early passes away.
For this reason I smote them through the prophets,
I slew them by the words of my mouth;
For it is love that I desire, not sacrifice,
and knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
Responsorial
Psalm
R. (see Hosea
6:6) It is mercy I desire, and not sacrifice.
Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness;
in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense.
Thoroughly wash me from my guilt
and of my sin cleanse me.
R. It is mercy I desire, and not sacrifice.
For you are not pleased with sacrifices;
should I offer a burnt offering, you would not accept it.
My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit;
a heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.
R. It is mercy I desire, and not sacrifice.
Be bountiful, O LORD, to Zion in your kindness
by rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem;
Then shall you be pleased with due sacrifices,
burnt offerings and holocausts.
R. It is mercy I desire, and not sacrifice.
Verse
Before the Gospel
If today you hear
his voice,
harden not your hearts.
Gospel
Jesus addressed
this parable
to those who were convinced of their own righteousness
and despised everyone else.
“Two people went up to the temple area to pray;
one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector.
The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself,
‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity —
greedy, dishonest, adulterous — or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week,
and I pay tithes on my whole income.’
But the tax collector stood off at a distance
and would not even raise his eyes to heaven
but beat his breast and prayed,
‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’
I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former;
for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled,
and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/031426.cfm
Commentary on Hosea
5:15—6:1-6
Both readings today are about our attitudes in relating to
God in prayer. The passage from Hosea in the First Reading used to be read
every Good Friday. As is described in the Vatican II Missal:
“…the northern kingdom (Ephraim) and the southern kingdom
(Judah) are criticised for their shallow religion and trust in animal
sacrifices. God wants a life of sincere service.”
The prophet here composes a penitential prayer and puts it
into the mouths of God’s people, who are terrified by threats of punishment and
of being abandoned by God. They exhort each other to return to Yahweh, but the
return is only superficial—there is no real repentance.
The people say:
Come, let us return to the Lord…
Though this is their call, it lacks sincerity. The people
complain that God has treated them roughly, but they are confident that he will
heal them again.
…he has struck down, and he will bind us up.
After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live before him.
Some have seen in these words a reference to the
resurrection of Christ, by which God’s healing will be brought back to his
people.
…he will come to us like the showers,
like the spring rains that water the earth.
Israel believed that, as surely as the seasonal rains fell
and revived the earth, God’s favour would return and restore her, and that his
anger would come to an end.
The reason for God’s toughness is the superficiality of
their commitment to him. Their:
…love is like a morning cloud,
like the dew that goes away early.
God sees through the emptiness of their pious expressions:
What shall I do with you, O Ephraim [the
northern kingdom]?
What shall I do with you, O Judah [the southern kingdom]? Your love
is like a morning cloud,
like the dew that goes away early.
They have used high-sounding words of repentance, but their
actions have not been in harmony with utterances.
Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets;
I have killed them by the words of my mouth,
and my judgment goes forth as the light.
Not literally killed them, of course, but condemned their
sinful behaviour.
God now spells it out clearly (and this sentence is quoted
twice in Matthew’s Gospel):
For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
What God has wanted from them is genuine loving actions, not
empty rituals, however piously performed. Knowledge of God is not simply
knowledge about God, but a knowledge implying a deep
interpersonal relationship instead of ostentatious holocausts.
This is what we see criticised in today’s Gospel too. And,
for us, it is not the Masses we attend, or the prayers we say that count most,
but the genuine love of God shown by the way we live our lives and the way we
relate to the people around us. Our prayer must flow out of such a lifestyle
and, at the same time, bring about such a way of living.
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Commentary on Luke
18:9-14
In today’s Gospel we see two ways of praying. One is arrogant,
proud and contemptuous of others. As the Pharisee ‘prays’, God is somehow meant
to feel grateful that there are at least a few people as observant of the rules
as he is, in comparison with the sinful and despicable outsider, symbolised by
the tax collector behind him:
God, I thank you that I am not like other people:
thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
On the contrary, the Pharisee fasts twice a week and pays
tithes on all he earns—he goes well beyond what the law demands.
Yet his ‘prayer’ is not accepted. It is not really a prayer
at all, but a hymn to himself. As Catholics, or as regular churchgoers, we can
sometimes feel superior to those who have dropped out, to those who have no
religion, those who lead what we regard as ‘immoral’ lives.
The tax collector is certainly a sinner; that is not denied.
But he knows and acknowledges his sinfulness. He is deeply repentant, and he
puts himself totally at the mercy of God:
God, be merciful to me, a sinner.
His prayer is accepted because he acknowledges God as his
Lord and Saviour. As well, he does not compare himself with anyone else; he
does not judge anyone else—only himself.
Our prayer must always be an expression of our total
dependence on God. There is nothing that we can give him which he has not given
us first. All we can do is to make an effort to return a fraction of the love
that he showers constantly on us. We are and always will be in his debt.
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https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/l1037g/
Saturday,
March 14, 2026
Season of Lent
Opening Prayer
Lord our God,
You yourself remind us through
Your holy people that all our religious practices, even the eucharistic
sacrifice, are not worth anything if we use them to bend You our way.
God, may we come to You in
humility and repentance, ready to encounter You in love and to turn toward You.
Accept us as Your sons and daughters, together with Jesus
Christ, your Son, and our Lord forever.
Gospel Reading - Luke 18: 9-14
Jesus addressed this parable to those who were convinced of
their own righteousness and despised everyone else. “Two people went up to the
temple area to pray; one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector. The
Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself, ‘O God, I thank
you that I am not like the rest of humanity — greedy, dishonest, adulterous —
or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my
whole income.’ But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even
raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, ‘O God, be merciful to
me a sinner.’ I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former; for
everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself
will be exalted.”
Reflection
In today’s Gospel, Jesus, in
order to teach us to pray, tells the parable of the Pharisee and the tax
collector. Jesus has a different way of seeing things. He saw something
positive in the tax collector, of whom everybody said, “He does not know how to
pray!” Jesus, through prayer, lived so united to the Father that everything
became an expression of prayer for Him.
The way of presenting the parable is very
didactic. Luke gives a brief introduction which serves as the key for reading.
Then Jesus tells the parable and at the end Jesus Himself applies the parable
to life.
•
Luke 18: 9: The introduction. The parable is introduced
in this way: “He spoke the following parable to some people who prided
themselves on being upright and despised everyone else!” This statement is
Luke’s. It refers to the time of Jesus, but it also refers to our own time.
There are always people and groups of people who consider themselves upright
and faithful and who despise others, considering them ignorant and unfaithful.
•
Luke 18: 10-13: The Parable. Two men went up to
the Temple to pray: one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. According to popular
opinion at that time, the tax collectors were not esteemed at all, and they
could not address themselves to God because they were impure. In the parable,
the Pharisee thanks God because he is better than others. His prayer is nothing
other than a praise of himself, an exaltation of his good qualities and
contempt for others and for the tax collector. The tax collector does not even
raise his eyes, but he beats his breast and says, “God, be merciful to me, a
sinner!” He puts himself in his own place, where he stands before God.
•
Luke 18: 14: The application. If Jesus had
allowed people to express their opinion and say which of the two went home
justified, all would have answered, “the Pharisee!” At that time, this was the
common opinion. Jesus thinks in a different way. For Him, the one who returns
home justified, in a good relationship with God, is not the Pharisee, but
rather the tax collector. Jesus turns all things upside down. It is certain
that the religious authorities of that time were not pleased with Jesus’
application of the parable.
•
Jesus prays. Luke informs us, especially, about
Jesus’ prayer life. He presents Jesus in constant prayer. The following is a
list of texts of Luke’s Gospel, in which Jesus appears in prayer: Lk 2: 46-50;
3: 21; 4: 1-12; 4: 16; 5: 16; 6: 12; 9: 16, 18, 28; 10: 21; 11: 1; 22: 32; 22:
7-14; 22: 40-46; 23: 34; 23: 46; 24: 30). In reading Luke’s Gospel you can find
other texts which speak about the prayer of Jesus. Jesus lived in contact with
the Father. To do the will of the Father was the breathing of His life (Jn 5:
19). Jesus prayed very much and insisted that people and His disciples do the
same, because from union with God springs truth, and the person is able to
discover and find self, in all reality and humility. In Jesus prayer was
intimately bound to concrete facts of life and to the decisions which He had to
make. In order to be faithful to the Father’s plan, He sought to remain alone
with Him in order to listen to Him. Jesus prayed the psalms. He did it like any
other pious Jew and He knew them by heart. Jesus even succeeded in composing
His own psalm. It is the Our Father. His whole life was constant prayer: “By
himself the Son can do nothing; He can do only what He sees the Father doing!”
(Jn 5: 19, 30). To Him can be applied what the psalm says: “All I can do is
pray!” (Ps 109: 4).
Personal Questions
•
Looking into the mirror of this parable, am I
like the Pharisee or like the tax collector?
•
Do we “pray always” or do we turn everything we
do into prayer? Which is more sincere?
•
There are people who say that they do not know
how to pray, but they speak with God all the time. Do you know any people like
this?
•
The Eastern Church has the “Jesus Prayer,” which
would be based on this passage, and is used to “pray always.” Do I pray with
the same intent: “Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me, a sinner.”
Concluding Prayer
Have mercy on me, O God, in Your faithful
love, in Your great tenderness wipe away my offenses; wash me clean from my
guilt, purify me from my sin. (Ps 51: 12)
