April 13, 2026
Monday of the Second Week of Easter
Lectionary: 267
Reading
1
After their
release Peter and John went back to their own people
and reported what the chief priests and elders had told them.
And when they heard it,
they raised their voices to God with one accord
and said, "Sovereign Lord, maker of heaven and earth
and the sea and all that is in them,
you said by the Holy Spirit
through the mouth of our father David, your servant:
Why did the Gentiles rage
and the peoples entertain folly?
The kings of the earth took their stand
and the princes gathered together
against the Lord and against his anointed.
Indeed they gathered in this city
against your holy servant Jesus whom you anointed,
Herod and Pontius Pilate,
together with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel,
to do what your hand and your will
had long ago planned to take place.
And now, Lord, take note of their threats,
and enable your servants to speak your word
with all boldness, as you stretch forth your hand to heal,
and signs and wonders are done
through the name of your holy servant Jesus."
As they prayed, the place where they were gathered shook,
and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit
and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.
Responsorial
Psalm
R. (see 11d) Blessed
are all who take refuge in the Lord.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Why do the nations rage
and the peoples utter folly?
The kings of the earth rise up,
and the princes conspire together
against the LORD and against his anointed:
"Let us break their fetters
and cast their bonds from us!"
R. Blessed are all who take refuge in the Lord.
or:
R. Alleluia.
He who is throned in heaven laughs;
the LORD derides them.
Then in anger he speaks to them;
he terrifies them in his wrath:
"I myself have set up my king
on Zion, my holy mountain."
I will proclaim the decree of the LORD.
R. Blessed are all who take refuge in the Lord.
or:
R. Alleluia.
The LORD said to me, "You are my Son;
this day I have begotten you.
Ask of me and I will give you
the nations for an inheritance
and the ends of the earth for your possession.
You shall rule them with an iron rod;
you shall shatter them like an earthen dish."
R. Blessed are all who take refuge in the Lord.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia,
alleluia.
If then you were raised with Christ,
seek what is above,
where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
There was a
Pharisee named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.
He came to Jesus at night and said to him,
"Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God,
for no one can do these signs that you are doing
unless God is with him."
Jesus answered and said to him,
"Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless one is born from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God."
Nicodemus said to him,
"How can a man once grown old be born again?
Surely he cannot reenter his mother's womb and be born again, can he?"
Jesus answered,
"Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless one is born of water and Spirit
he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.
What is born of flesh is flesh
and what is born of spirit is spirit.
Do not be amazed that I told you,
'You must be born from above.'
The wind blows where it wills,
and you can hear the sound it makes,
but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes;
so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/041326.cfm
Commentary on Acts
4:23-31
After they had been released by the Jewish leaders following
their arrest and interrogation, and had been given strict warnings not to
continue what they were doing, Peter and John went back to their community and
related all about their experience. This was possibly the same ‘upper
room’ where the Apostles had met before and where the community may have
continued to assemble.
The whole community then prayed. They recalled the
words of the psalmist who asks why the Gentiles and the princes of the world
conspire against the Lord and his anointed. Here we see in the
unbelieving Romans the ‘Gentiles’, and Herod and Pilate represented by the
‘kings’ and ‘princes’. They have gathered against the Lord and his
anointed. The word ‘anointed’ in Greek translates as ‘Christ’ (christos).
The Herod in question is Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee and Perea from 4 BC
to AD 39. He was the one who executed John the Baptist and before whom
Jesus appeared during his trial. Acts will later describe his rather
gruesome death (Acts 12:20-23). Pontius Pilate, of course, was the same
Roman procurator who had Jesus crucified.
Yet they recognise that all of this had been foreseen by
God. About Jesus’ enemies, Scripture says:
Have you not heard
that I determined it long ago?
I planned from days of old
what now I bring to pass… (Is 37:26)
It was not that God forced them to act as they did, but that
their freely chosen decisions were foreseen by God and would become part of his
plan of salvation.
They beg the Lord, as persecution is also extended to them,
that God will be with them through:
…signs and wonders…performed through the name of your
holy servant Jesus.
It is good for us too to be aware that, when as individuals
or communities, we are true to the living out of our Christian faith, we can
expect to face criticism, opposition, abuse and ridicule. Then we must also
pray for the Lord’s assurance, protection and guidance. We do not necessarily
expect those against us to change their minds, but we ask for the strength to
continue being faithful to our convictions and the search for truth and
goodness.
Then, suddenly, the place where the community is praying
begins to shake and they are filled with the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the
Father and Jesus. Their prayer for strength and courage has been
heard. Jesus had said:
Very truly, I tell you, if you ask anything of the Father
in my name, he will give it to you. (John 16:23)
It is a mini-Pentecost and enables them to go out and
proclaim the Good News with renewed confidence, unafraid of the threats and
dangers that await them.
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Commentary on John
3:1-8
Today we go back to the early part of John’s Gospel and
begin reading chapter 3. In the coming Easter weeks we will be going
through John’s Gospel more or less in order.
Today we see the encounter between Jesus and the Pharisee,
Nicodemus, who was also a member of the Sanhedrin—the governing council of the
Jews. He was, then, a very highly placed official.
Nicodemus came to Jesus at night. This, on the one
hand, indicates his fear of being seen by others, but on the other, probably
also has a symbolic meaning. Religious man though he was, when he came to
Jesus he was in a kind of spiritual darkness. But his virtue is that he
comes to seek light. Jesus, of course, is the Light of the World. On the
other hand, in the next chapter, the Samaritan woman will meet Jesus in the
full blaze of the midday sun. It is interesting to contemplate the underlying
meaning of this as well.
Nicodemus begins by praising Jesus. No man, he says,
could do the things that Jesus did if he did not come from God. Given the
fact that at this stage of John’s Gospel Jesus has hardly begun his public
life, it is odd that Nicodemus can make this statement. But it shows that
the events described in this Gospel are not to be taken with a strict
chronology. This Gospel is rather a set of themes about the role of Jesus
for us and the world.
Nicodemus sees in Jesus a prophet, a man of God, but has yet
to recognise the full identity of Jesus. Jesus counters by saying that no
one can see the Kingdom of God “without being born from above” (or ‘born
again’—both readings are possible, and the meaning is basically the
same). Though very common in the other Gospels, the term ‘Kingdom of God’
is only used here in John (vv 3 and 5). Its equivalent in the rest of
John’s Gospel is ‘life’. To be truly in the Kingdom of God, i.e. to be
fully integrated in the Reign or Rule of God, is to be fully alive.
Nicodemus hears Jesus literally, and asks:
How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one
enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?
His misunderstanding gives Jesus the opportunity to lead
Nicodemus to a deeper understanding. To be born again is to be born of
“water and the Spirit”, a clear reference to Christian baptism. Flesh
only produces flesh (as in natural birth), but the Spirit gives birth to spirit
and that is the second birth we all need to undergo:
You must be born from above.
The Greek word for “you” in this statement is plural and
therefore directed to all, not just to Nicodemus.
And once we are reborn in the Spirit, we let ourselves be
led to where God wishes:
The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound
of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with
everyone who is born of the Spirit.
The “wind”, the ‘breath’ of the Holy Spirit, is the sole
Guide for our lives. He brings about our renewal in his own way.
The word for “wind” here is a word which also means ‘breath’ and ‘spirit’ (in
Greek, pneuma).
Once we are guided by the Spirit, we have put ourselves
totally in God’s hands, ready to be led wherever God wants us to go. This is
the message being given to Nicodemus. He must be ready to move in a
different direction from that which has guided his life up to this point.
This readiness will lead him to see in Jesus the Word of God. We, too, wherever
we happen to be right now, must ever be ready for God, through his Spirit, to
call us in a new direction and to follow his lead.
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https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/e1022g/
Monday, April 13, 2026
Easter Time
Opening Prayer
Lord God, our Father,
You are not far away from any of us, for in You we live and move
and exist and You
live in us through Your Holy Spirit.
Be indeed with us, Lord, send us Your
Holy Spirit of truth and through Him deepen our understanding of the life and
message of Your Son, that we may accept the full truth and live by it
consistently.
We ask You this through Christ
our Lord.
Gospel Reading - John 3: 1-8
There was one
of the Pharisees called
Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews, who came to Jesus by night and said, 'Rabbi,
we know that You have come from God
as a teacher; for no one could perform
the signs that You do unless God were
with Him.'
Jesus answered, ‘In all truth
I tell you, no one can see
the kingdom of God without
being born from above.’
Nicodemus said, 'How can anyone
who is already old
be born? Is it possible to go back into the womb again
and be born?'
Jesus replied, ‘In all truth
I tell you,
no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born through water and the Spirit; what is born of human nature is human; what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be surprised when I say, “You
must be born from above.”
The wind blows where it pleases; you can hear its
sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with
everyone who is born of the Spirit.’
Reflection
The Gospel today presents
part of Jesus’
conversation with Nicodemus.
Nicodemus appears several times in the Gospel of John:
(Jn 3: 1-13; 7: 50-52; 19: 39). He was a person who held a certain social position. He was
a leader among the Jews and formed
part of the supreme tribunal, called the Sanhedrin. In the Gospel of John, he represents the group of Jews who were
pious and sincere, but who did not understand everything which Jesus said and
did. Nicodemus had heard about the signs and the wonderful things that Jesus did, and he was struck, amazed.
He wanted to speak with Jesus in order to understand better. He was a cultured
person, who thought he
believed the things of God. He expected
the Messiah with the Book of the Law in his
hand to verify if the
novelty announced by Jesus
would arrive. Jesus makes Nicodemus
understand that the only way to understand the things of God is to be born
again! Today this same thing happens. Some,
like Nicodemus, accept
as new only what agrees with their ideas.
What does not agree with their ideas is
rejected and considered contrary to tradition. Others allow themselves to be
surprised from facts and are not afraid
to say, “I have been born anew!”
•
John 3: 1: A
man called Nicodemus. Shortly before Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus, the
Evangelist was speaking of the imperfect faith of certain persons who were
interested only in the miracles of Jesus (Jn 2:
23-25). Nicodemus was one of
these people. He had good will, but his faith was still imperfect. The conversation with Jesus helped him to perceive that he had to
advance in order to be
able to deepen his faith in
Jesus and in God.
•
John 3: 2: 1st question of Nicodemus: the tension
between what is old and what is new. Nicodemus was a Pharisee,
a prominent person
among the Jews and with good common sense. He went
to meet Jesus at night and said to Him, “Rabbì, we know that You have come from God as a teacher;
for no one could perform the signs that You do unless God were with
him.” Nicodemus gives an opinion of Jesus according to arguments which he,
Nicodemus himself, has within
himself. This is already important, but it is not enough
to know Jesus. The signs which Jesus works can arouse a person and awake
some interest in the person. They can generate curiosity, but they do not
generate greater faith. They do not make one see the Kingdom of God present in Jesus. For this reason it is necessary to advance, to take one more
step. What is this step?
•
John 3: 3: Jesus’ response: "You must be born again!” In order that Nicodemus can see the Kingdom
present in Jesus, he should
be born again,
from above. Anyone who tries
to understand Jesus only from his arguments alone does not succeed in understanding Him. Jesus is much greater. If Nicodemus remains only with the
catechism of the past in his hand, he will
not manage to understand Jesus. He should open his hand completely. He should set aside his own certainties and his security
and abandon himself
totally. He should make
a choice between, on the one hand, the security which comes from organized
religion with its laws and traditions and, on the other hand, launch himself
into the adventure
of the Spirit which Jesus
proposes to him.
•
John 3: 4: 2nd question of Nicodemus: How can anyone
who is already old be born
again? Nicodemus does not give in and returns with the same question
with a certain irony: “How can a man be born when he is old? Is it possible
to go back into the womb again and be born again?” Nicodemus takes
Jesus’ words literally and, because of this, he understands nothing.
He should have realized that the words of Jesus had
a symbolic sense.
•
John 3: 5-8: Jesus’ answer: To be born from above, to be born from the Spirit. Jesus explains
what it means to be born from above or to be born again.
It is “To be born from water and the Spirit”.
Here we have a very clear reference to Baptism.
Through the conversation of Jesus with Nicodemus, the Evangelist invites us to review
our Baptism. He gives the following words:
“What is born of
human nature is human, what is born of the Spirit is
Spirit”. Flesh means that which is born only from our ideas. What is born from
us is within our reach. To be born of the Spirit is another thing! The Spirit is like the wind. “The
wind blows where it pleases;
you can hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it
comes from or where it is going; so it is with anyone who is born of the
Spirit”. The wind has within itself a direction, a route. We perceive the
direction of the wind, for example, the North wind or the wind coming from the
South, but we do not know, nor can we control the cause why the wind moves in
this or that direction. This is the way the Spirit is. "No one is the master of the Spirit” (Eccl 8: 8). What characterizes the wind best, the Spirit, is liberty.
The wind, the Spirit, is free, He cannot be controlled. He acts on others and
nobody can act on him. His origin is
a mystery. The boat must first find
the route of the wind. Then it has to place the sails according to that route.
That is what Nicodemus should do and what we should all do.
•
A key to understanding better the words of Jesus on
the Holy Spirit. The Hebrew language uses the same word to say wind and spirit.
As we have said the wind has within
it a route, a direction: the North wind,
the wind from the
South. The Spirit of God has a route, a project, which already manifested itself in creation. The Spirit was present in creation under the form of a bird which flew over the waters of the chaos (Gen 1: 2). Year after year, He renews the face
of the earth and sets nature through the sequence of the seasons (Ps 104: 30; 147: 18). The same is also present
in history. He makes the Red Sea move back (Ex 14: 21) and He gives quails to the people to eat (Num 11: 31). He accompanies
Moses and, beginning
with him, He distributes the leaders of the people
(Num 11:24-25). He took the leaders and took them to carry out liberating
actions: Othniel (Judg 3: 10), Gideon (Judg 6: 34), Jephthah (Judg 11: 29),
Samson (Judg 13: 25; 14: 6,
19;
15:14), Saul (1Sam 11: 6), and Deborah, the prophetess (Judg 4: 4). He is present in the group of the prophets and acts in them
with the force
which is contagious (1Sam 10: 5-6, 10). His action in the prophets produces envy in the others.
But Moses reacts,
“If only all Yahweh’s
people were prophets, and Yahweh
had given them His spirit!”
(Num 11: 29).
•
All along the centuries the hope grew that the Spirit
of God would have oriented the Messiah in the realization of God’s project
(Isa 11: 1-9) and it would
have descended upon all the people of God (Ezek 36: 27; 39: 29; Isa 32:
15; 44: 3). The great promise
of the Spirit appears in various ways in the prophets of the exile: the vision of the dry bones,
risen by the force of the Spirit of God (Ezek
37: 1-14); the effusion of the
Spirit of God on all
the people (Joel
3: 1-5);
the vision of the Messiah-Servant who will be anointed by the Spirit to
establish the right on earth
and announce the
Good News to the poor (Isa 42: 1; 44: 1-3; 61: 1-3). They perceive a future,
in which people,
always more and more, are reborn thanks to the effusion of the Spirit
(Ezek 36: 26-27; Ps 51: 12; cf. Isa 32: 15-20).
•
The Gospel of John uses many images and symbols to
signify the action of the Spirit.
Just like in creation (Gen 1: 1), in the same way the
Spirit descended upon Jesus “like a
dove, coming from heaven” (Jn 1: 32). It is the beginning of the new creation!
Jesus pronounces the words of God and communicates to us His Spirit (Jn 3: 34). His words are spirit and life (Jn 6:
63). When Jesus announces that he is going to the Father, He says that He will
send another Consoler, another defender, so that He can remain with us. He is
the Holy Spirit (Jn 14: 16-17). Through His Passion,
death and resurrection, Jesus obtains for us the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Through Baptism all of us receive this same
Spirit of Jesus (Jn 1: 33).
When He appears to the Apostles,
He breathes on them and says, "Receive the Holy Spirit!” (Jn 20: 22). The Spirit is like the water which springs
up from persons
who believe in Jesus (Jn 7: 37-39;
4: 14). The first effect of the action of the
Spirit in us is reconciliation: "If you forgive anyone’s sins they are
forgiven; if you retain anyone’s
sins they are retained”
(Jn 20: 23). The Spirit is given to us in order that we may remember and
understand the full meaning of the words of Jesus (Jn 14: 26; 16: 12-13). Animated
by the Spirit of Jesus we can adore God anywhere (Jn 4: 23-24). Here is realized
the liberty of the Spirit of whom Saint Paul speaks: “Where the Spirit is, there is liberty” (2 Cor 3: 17).
Personal Questions
•
How do you react to new things which present themselves; like Nicodemus or do you accept God’s surprises?
•
Jesus compares the action of the Holy Spirit to the wind (Jn 3: 8). What does
this comparison reveal
to me about the action
of the Spirit of God in my life?Have
you already had some experience which has given you the impression
of being born again?
Concluding Prayer
I will bless Yahweh
at all times, His praise
continually on my lips.
I will praise Yahweh from my heart; let the humble hear and rejoice. (Ps 34: 1-2)
