April 24, 2026
Friday of the Third Week of Easter
Lectionary: 277
Reading
1
Saul, still
breathing murderous threats against the disciples of the Lord,
went to the high priest and asked him
for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, that,
if he should find any men or women who belonged to the Way,
he might bring them back to Jerusalem in chains.
On his journey, as he was nearing Damascus,
a light from the sky suddenly flashed around him.
He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him,
"Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?"
He said, "Who are you, sir?"
The reply came, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.
Now get up and go into the city and you will be told what you must do."
The men who were traveling with him stood speechless,
for they heard the voice but could see no one.
Saul got up from the ground,
but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing;
so they led him by the hand and brought him to Damascus.
For three days he was unable to see, and he neither ate nor drank.
There was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias,
and the Lord said to him in a vision, "Ananias."
He answered, "Here I am, Lord."
The Lord said to him, "Get up and go to the street called Straight
and ask at the house of Judas for a man from Tarsus named Saul.
He is there praying,
and in a vision he has seen a man named Ananias
come in and lay his hands on him,
that he may regain his sight."
But Ananias replied,
"Lord, I have heard from many sources about this man,
what evil things he has done to your holy ones in Jerusalem.
And here he has authority from the chief priests
to imprison all who call upon your name."
But the Lord said to him,
"Go, for this man is a chosen instrument of mine
to carry my name before Gentiles, kings, and children of Israel,
and I will show him what he will have to suffer for my name."
So Ananias went and entered the house;
laying his hands on him, he said,
"Saul, my brother, the Lord has sent me,
Jesus who appeared to you on the way by which you came,
that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit."
Immediately things like scales fell from his eyes
and he regained his sight.
He got up and was baptized,
and when he had eaten, he recovered his strength.
He stayed some days with the disciples in Damascus,
and he began at once to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues,
that he is the Son of God.
Responsorial
Psalm
R. (Mark
16:15) Go out to all the world and tell the Good News.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Praise the LORD, all you nations;
glorify him, all you peoples!
R. Go out to all the world and tell the Good News.
or:
R. Alleluia.
For steadfast is his kindness toward us,
and the fidelity of the LORD endures forever.
R. Go out to all the world and tell the Good News.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia,
alleluia.
Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood,
remains in me and I in him, says the Lord.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
The Jews quarreled
among themselves, saying,
“How can this man give us his Flesh to eat?”
Jesus said to them,
“Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood,
you do not have life within you.
Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood
has eternal life,
and I will raise him on the last day.
For my Flesh is true food,
and my Blood is true drink.
Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood
remains in me and I in him.
Just as the living Father sent me
and I have life because of the Father,
so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.
This is the bread that came down from heaven.
Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died,
whoever eats this bread will live forever.”
These things he said while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/042426.cfm
Commentary on Acts
9:1-20
Today’s reading touches on one of the major turning points
in the development of the early Christian community and indeed for the future
of the whole Church in centuries to come. Luke gives three accounts in Acts
(9:1-20; 22:5-16; 26:10-18) of this momentous event. The second and third
accounts are given in Paul’s own words as parts of discourses he gave. Paul
also speaks about the experience in the Letter to the Galatians (Gal 1:12-17).
The incident probably took place in 36 AD, about 12 years before the Council of
Jerusalem, which cleared the way for Gentiles to be fully incorporated into the
Christian community. The Council was held in AD 49.
Saul, we are told, was:
…still breathing threats and murder against the disciples
of the Lord…
We know that he was directly implicated in the killing of
Stephen, but there are hints, by Paul himself, that others died or came very
close to it because of his actions (see Acts 22:4; 26:10).
His next target were the Christians in Damascus. For this he
got letters of authorisation from the high priest, probably Caiaphas. The
Sanhedrin had authority over Jews not only in Judea, but elsewhere in the
diaspora as well. The Romans recognised the high priest’s jurisdiction over the
members of the Jewish communities even outside Palestine and, according to 1
Maccabees (15:21), this even included right of extradition.
Damascus was located in the Roman province of Syria and was
the nearest important city outside of Palestine. It was about 250 km (150
miles) north of Jerusalem, and it would have taken four to six days to get
there. It had a large Jewish population.
Saul’s mission was to find men and women who “belonged to
the Way” and bring them back in shackles to Jerusalem, where they could be
tried and perhaps even sentenced to death. ‘Followers of the Way’ is a name for
the early Christians, and refers to the pattern of life characteristic of the
Christians. The term occurs a number of times in Acts and only there. Jesus, of
course, we remember had said:
I am the way and the truth and the life. (John
14:6)
On his way, Saul was suddenly surrounded by a bright light
and fell to the ground. (We are told in Acts 26:13 that it was about noon.) At
the same time, he heard a voice saying,
Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?
To which Paul replied with another question, “Who are you,
sir [Lord]?” In the rabbinic tradition, such a disembodied voice would have
been understood as the voice of God himself. The solemn repetition of Saul’s
name (“Saul, Saul…”) and the bright light suggested to him that he was in the
presence of a deity and hence his use of the address, “Lord” (Kyrie).
The reply he gets is:
I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.
Here we have Jesus identifying himself fully with his
followers.
Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least
of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me. (Matt 25:40)
and
Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me
welcomes the one who sent me.
(Matt 10:40)
In the New Testament letters, it is specifically Paul who
will later remind us that the Christian community is the Body of the Risen
Christ. To attack the Body is to attack Christ himself.
Saul is told to go into Damascus, where he will be given
further instructions. Saul’s companions could hear what was being said, but
could not see anything. Saul, meanwhile, rose to his feet unable to see,
although his eyes were open. His companions lead the sightless and helpless
Saul to the city. The recently all-powerful official is reduced to near impotence.
For three whole days he was unable to see and he observed a total fast. The
symbolism seems very clear: Saul, who was so confident that he was in
possession of the truth, is shown to be very deficient in his vision of the
truth.
In the meantime, a Christian called Ananias is told to go to
a house in Damascus where Saul will be found praying. He was told to go to
Straight Street, which is probably the same long, straight street that still
runs through the city from east to west, and is in strong contrast to the other
numerous winding streets of the city.
Not surprisingly, Ananias is rather reluctant to visit the
man who has been arresting Christians right and left and says:
Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much
evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem…
The term “saints” was originally applied to the people of
Israel, but later became the usual term for Christians. It occurs many times in
Paul’s letters. Since God is the Holy One, those who are consecrated to his
service can be called ‘holy’ also.
But the Lord insists:
Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring
my name before gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; I myself
will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.
What an extraordinary turn of events! How strange are God’s
ways! How often they go contrary to all our presumptions and expectations! The
man, the committed Pharisee, who was so set on wiping out the Christian way, is
to become Jesus’ chosen instrument to spread his name among the non-Jews,
hitherto seen as utter infidels. He will become one of the main pillars,
together with Peter, as a founder of Christianity. Through his writings, his
influence will be enormous in the centuries following, right down to our own.
And, in the process, he will pay a high price in personal sacrifice and
suffering.
Ananias then goes to the house. He addresses Saul, whom he
had been so reluctant to see, as his “brother”. He says he has been sent by the
Lord, the same one who appeared to Saul on the road. The Risen Jesus had
actually appeared to Saul; it was not a mere vision. It is on this ‘seeing’
that Saul would base his qualification to be an Apostle.
Ananias then lays his hands on Saul, giving him the gift of
the Spirit of Jesus. Immediately the scales of blindness fall from Saul’s eyes
and he can see again.
Saul rises up—hints of resurrection and new life—and is
baptised. He begins eating again and regains his strength. And, almost
immediately, the persecutor of Christians who had been breathing murderous
threats was going to the Jewish synagogues proclaiming Jesus as the Son of God.
Again, we see the strange ways of God. Ananias, the man who
‘received’ Paul into the Christian community, is someone who only appears here
and never again. He was, in every other way, a very inconsequential member of
the community. He is like most of us in that regard, but like him, God may send
a Saul/Paul into our lives too and ask us—insignificant though we feel
ourselves to be—to act as the agent to bring this person to God. In the life of
every great Church leader or prophet are hundreds of unidentified people who
played a crucial role in their becoming what they became.
Paul could now see, but not just physically. He could see
the truth about Jesus and the inadequacy of his own previous ideas, however
sincerely they may have been held. He was now ready for baptism and, for the
first time since his experience on the road to Damascus, he broke his fast.
A completely new chapter in the development of the early
Church was about to begin. There is obviously here a great deal for us to
reflect on in our own lives, about our way of treating others, about our
blindness and our constant need for conversion, and about our responsibility to
share our faith with others.
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Commentary on John
6:52-59
The discussion of Jesus as the Bread of Life continues in
today’s Gospel. Understandably enough the Jews are deeply shocked at Jesus’
invitation to eat his flesh and drink his blood. It sounds like a primitive
recipe for cannibalism. If we were to put ourselves in their shoes and hear
those words for the very first time, we too would likely find them very
strange, to say the least.
For the Jews it was even more shocking because they had the
greatest reverence for, even a fear of, blood. It was the source of life and
should never be touched. To come in contact with blood was immediately to
become ritually unclean.
In the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37), one of
the reasons why the priest and the Levite did not come to the help of the
injured man lying on the road between Jericho and Jerusalem was almost
certainly because he was bleeding and they were on their way to the Temple to
pray or offer sacrifice. The woman with the chronic bleeding problem (Mark
5:25-34) did not dare to reveal herself to the crowd or even to Jesus because
she should not have been in such close proximity with people. She could have been
harmed if they knew.
To this day, Jews only eat meat from which the blood has
been previously drained (kosher). And here is Jesus inviting, even telling,
people to drink his own blood! We have heard these words so often that they
have lost their impact. Yet Jesus makes no apologies for what he has said. On
the contrary, he tells his hearers that if they do not eat his flesh and drink
his blood, they will not have life. Those who do eat and drink are guaranteed
life. Because Jesus’ flesh is real food and his blood is real drink:
…whoever eats me will live because of me.
What are we to make of all this? What do the words mean?
Obviously they are not to be taken literally. Rather, to eat Jesus’ flesh and
drink his blood is to assimilate totally into our very being the whole way of
thinking and acting of Jesus, the very Person of Jesus. To be able to say with
Paul:
…it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives
in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of
God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal 2:20)
Nor are the Body and Blood of Christ only to be understood
in the context of ‘receiving communion’ in the Eucharist. Certainly there are
Eucharistic references in what Jesus is saying, but we need to understand the
Eucharist as a sacrament or sign of a much wider relationship with Jesus.
The Eucharist is primarily a community celebration of what
we are—brothers and sisters who are the Body of Christ for each other and for
the whole world. Jesus’ flesh and blood come to us through the Word that we
hear during the Eucharistic Liturgy, as well as during the sharing of the Bread
and the Cup. But Jesus also comes to us through every loving experience that we
have in community. The Eucharist is not the whole of our eating and drinking of
the body and blood of Christ. It is the sacramental celebration pointing to our
total experience of meeting Jesus in our lives. It is something which should be
happening all through our day wherever we are, whatever we are doing.
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https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/e1036g/
Friday, April 24,
2026
Easter Time
Opening Prayer
Our living and loving God,
how could we know the depth of Your love if Your Son had not become flesh of
our flesh and blood of our blood?
How could we ever have the courage to live for one another
and if necessary to die if
He had not given up His body and shed His
blood for us?
Thank you for letting
Him stay in the eucharist
with us and making Himself
our daily bread.
Let this bread be the food that empowers
us to live and die as He did, for one
another and for You, our living God, for ever and ever.
Gospel Reading - John 6: 52-59
The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying,
"How can this man give us his Flesh to eat?" Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink
his Blood, you do not have life within you.
Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks
my Blood has eternal life, and I will raise him
on the last day. For my Flesh
is true food, and my Blood is true drink. Whoever
eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living
Father sent me and I have life because of the Father,
so also the one who feeds
on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever." These things
he said while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
Reflection
We are almost at the end of the discourse of the Bread of Life. Here begins
the part of the greatest
polemic. The Jews close themselves to, and begin to discuss, the affirmations
of Jesus.
•
John 6: 52-55: Flesh and Blood: the expression of life and of the total gift. The Jews react:
“How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” The feast of the Passover
was close at hand. After a few days everybody would have eaten the meat of the paschal
lamb in the celebration of the night
of the Passover. They did not understand the words of Jesus, because
they took them literally. But Jesus does not diminish the
exigencies, He does not withdraw or take away anything of what He has said and He insists: “In all truth I tell you, if you do not eat
the flesh of the Son of man and
drink his blood, you have no life in you. Anyone who does eat My flesh and drink My blood has eternal
life, and I shall
raise that person up on the last day. For My flesh is real food and My blood is
real drink. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood lives
in Me and I live in
that person”. What gives life is not to celebrate the manna of the past, but
rather to eat this new bread which is Jesus, His flesh and His blood.
Participating in the Eucharistic Supper, we assimilate His life, His
surrender, His gift of self. “If you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and you do not
drink His Blood you will not have life in you”. They should accept
Jesus as the Crucified Messiah, whose blood will
be poured out.
•
John 6: 56-58:
Whoever eats My flesh, will live in Me. The last phrases
of the discourse of the Bread of Life are of the greatest
depth and try to summarize everything which has been said.
They recall the mystical dimension which surrounds the participation in the Eucharist. They express what Paul says in the letter to the Galatians: “It is no longer I, but Christ living in me (Ga 2: 20). And
what the Apocalypse of John says: “If one of you hears me calling and opens the door, I will come in to share a meal at that person’s
side” (Rev 3: 20). And
John himself in the Gospel: “Anyone who loves Me will keep my word, and My
Father will love him and We shall come to him and make a home in him” (Jn 14:
23). And it ends with the promise of life which marks the difference with the ancient
Exodus: “This is the bread
which has come down
from heaven. It is not like the bread our ancestors ate, they are dead, but
anyone who eats this bread
will live for ever.”
•
John 6: 59: The discourse in the Synagogue ends. The conversation between Jesus and the people and the Jews in the Synagogue of
Capernaum ends here. As it has been
said before, the
discourse of the Bread of Life offers
us an image of how the catechesis of that time was, at the end of the first century, in the Christian communities of
Asia Minor. The questions of the people and of the Jews show the difficulties
of the members of the communities. The answer of Jesus represents the
clarification to help them to overcome the difficulties, to deepen their faith,
and to live more intensely the Eucharist which was celebrated above all in the
night between Saturday and Sunday, the day of the Lord.
Personal Questions
•
Beginning with the discourse on the Bread of Life, the
celebration of the Eucharist receives a very strong light and an enormous
deepening. Does this clarify the role of the
Eucharist in my life?
•
To eat the flesh and blood of Jesus is the commandment that he leaves.
How do I live the Eucharist in my life? Even if I cannot go to Mass every day or every Sunday, my life should
be Eucharistic. How do I try to attain this objective?
•
Eucharistic Adoration is available in many parishes
and highly recommended by Popes St John Paul II,
Benedict, and Francis, among others. “In many places, adoration of the
Blessed Sacrament is also an important daily
practice and becomes an inexhaustible source of holiness”
(Encyclical Letter: Ecclesia De Eucharistia). Do I take the time to sit and just “be” with Him when I can?
Concluding Prayer
Praise Yahweh, all nations, extol Him, all peoples, for His faithful love is strong and His constancy
never-ending. (Ps 117: 1-2).
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