May 12, 2026
Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Easter
Lectionary: 292
Reading
1
The crowd in
Philippi joined in the attack on Paul and Silas,
and the magistrates had them stripped
and ordered them to be beaten with rods.
After inflicting many blows on them,
they threw them into prison
and instructed the jailer to guard them securely.
When he received these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell
and secured their feet to a stake.
About midnight, while Paul and Silas were praying
and singing hymns to God as the prisoners listened,
there was suddenly such a severe earthquake
that the foundations of the jail shook;
all the doors flew open, and the chains of all were pulled loose.
When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open,
he drew his sword and was about to kill himself,
thinking that the prisoners had escaped.
But Paul shouted out in a loud voice,
"Do no harm to yourself; we are all here."
He asked for a light and rushed in and,
trembling with fear, he fell down before Paul and Silas.
Then he brought them out and said,
"Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"
And they said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus
and you and your household will be saved."
So they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to everyone in his house.
He took them in at that hour of the night and bathed their wounds;
then he and all his family were baptized at once.
He brought them up into his house and provided a meal
and with his household rejoiced at having come to faith in God.
Responsorial
Psalm
R. (7c) Your
right hand saves me, O Lord.
or:
R. Alleluia.
I will give thanks to you, O LORD, with all my heart,
for you have heard the words of my mouth;
in the presence of the angels I will sing your praise;
I will worship at your holy temple,
and give thanks to your name.
R. Your right hand saves me, O Lord.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Because of your kindness and your truth,
you have made great above all things
your name and your promise.
When I called, you answered me;
you built up strength within me.
R. Your right hand saves me, O Lord.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Your right hand saves me.
The LORD will complete what he has done for me;
your kindness, O LORD, endures forever;
forsake not the work of your hands.
R. Your right hand saves me, O Lord.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia,
alleluia.
I will send to you the Spirit of truth, says the Lord;
he will guide you to all truth.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Jesus said to his
disciples:
"Now I am going to the one who sent me,
and not one of you asks me, 'Where are you going?'
But because I told you this, grief has filled your hearts.
But I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go.
For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you.
But if I go, I will send him to you.
And when he comes he will convict the world
in regard to sin and righteousness and condemnation:
sin, because they do not believe in me;
righteousness, because I am going to the Father
and you will no longer see me;
condemnation, because the ruler of this world has been condemned."
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/051226.cfm
Commentary on Acts
16:22-34
Today we have part of one of the most dramatic events in the
story of the Acts of the Apostles. Paul is still in Philippi. We might wonder
at the sudden attack on Paul and Silas with which today’s reading opens. It is
such a change from the positive welcome they had been receiving up to this. In
fact, the first part of the story and also the sequel are omitted in the
reading, but they are needed if we are to appreciate today’s passage fully.
One day, on their way to the river for prayer, Paul had
incurred the anger of the owners of a slave girl who had fortune-telling gifts
(see Acts 16:16-22). The text literally translates “with a Python spirit”. The
Python was the serpent or dragon that guarded the oracle at Delphi. It later
came to designate an evil ‘spirit that pronounced oracles’ and also a
ventriloquist who, it was thought, had such a spirit in the belly.
This girl kept shouting after them:
These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim
to you the way of salvation. (Acts 16:17)
Even though what she was saying could be interpreted
favourably, Paul became irritated by her pestering and exorcised the evil
spirit from her. She immediately lost her psychic powers and, as a result,
could no longer earn money for her masters. The owners were understandably not
very happy about this, and hauled Paul and Silas off to court. They accused
them of being Jews who were disturbing the peace and breaking Roman laws.
Basically they were accused of proselytising, which was indeed against Roman
law.
It is at this point that today’s reading takes up the story.
By this time the crowds had been worked up, so the magistrates sentenced Paul
and his companion to a flogging with rods, and had them thrown into an inner
cell and their feet put in stocks. Here they could be watched closely, and
could not escape or be rescued by their friends.
During the night while Paul and Silas prayed and sang
praises to God (they rejoiced to suffer for the name of Christ), a severe
earthquake struck (Greece is very earthquake-prone). The prison building
collapsed, the chains fell from the walls and the gates were thrown open. The
jailer, who was responsible with his own life for the security of his
prisoners, presumed they must all have run away and was prepared to kill
himself. To take his own life would remove the shame and distress and was
preferable to public execution. It was then he heard Paul calling from inside:
Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.
Then:
The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell
down trembling before Paul and Silas.
He was beginning to realise that the people he was treating
as dangerous criminals were in fact messengers of God.
In deep gratitude, the jailer asked what he should do to be
saved. Perhaps he meant it in a more immediate sense vis-a-vis his superiors,
who might blame him for the loss of the prisoners.
On the other hand, between the frightening earthquake and
the possible escape of his prisoners, he had been close to death. He also
realised he was in the presence of two very special people. All this obviously
made him reflect. He very likely had heard that these men were preachers of a
way of salvation. Now with the earthquake and his own near death, he wanted to
know about their Way. Paul showed him where real salvation lay:
Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and
your household.
And so it was that the jailer and all his household would be
instructed in the word of the Lord. Late in the night though it was, the
jailer:
…took them and washed their wounds; then he and his
entire family were baptized without delay. He brought them up into [his] house
and set food before them, and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had
become a believer in God.
Whatever form it took, it was truly a Eucharistic meal, a
meal of thanksgiving for all concerned. As well, their accusers are nowhere in
sight; they were probably too much concerned with the damage the earthquake had
caused in the city to be bothered with a couple of wandering preachers.
It is at that point that the reading ends, but it is not the
end of the story, which needs to be heard for completeness. The next morning,
the magistrates presented the lictors with an order that Paul and Silas be
released. Lictors were the equivalent of police officers, among whose duties
were the arrest and punishment of criminals. The message was passed to Paul by
the jailer. He told them they were free to go and he wished them well.
However, that was not good enough for Paul who said:
They have beaten us in public, uncondemned, men who are
Romans, and have thrown us into prison, and now are they going to discharge us
in secret? Certainly not! Let them come and take us out themselves. (Acts
16:37)
There had been a very serious miscarriage of justice, and
the magistrates were alarmed that they had treated two Roman citizens in this
way. Roman citizenship granted special privileges with regard to criminal
process. Roman law forbade, under severe penalty, the beating of Roman
citizens. This will not be the last time that Paul will cause alarm by
revealing his citizenship, which granted privileges totally unknown to the
ordinary resident of Roman colonies.
The magistrates humbly presented themselves, led Paul and
Silas out of the prison and begged them to leave the city. However, Paul and
Silas first went to say farewell to Lydia, their host, and to the other
Christian brothers and sisters, and only then left the city.
This story once again indicates how God can write straight
with crooked lines. Out of what seemed catastrophe for both the evangelisers
(flogging and jail) and the jailer (the earthquake and its consequences) there
came out something beautiful for all of them, and in the midst of it all was the
love of Christ. A thriving community was left behind and they would be the
recipients of one of Paul’s most beautiful letters.
We too continue to benefit from this saga. If only we could
see Jesus at the heart of everything that happens in our lives!
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Commentary on John
16:5-11
The disciples are sad because Jesus is going to leave them.
He now reassures them that, contrary to what they must be thinking at this
moment, it is better for him to go. If Jesus does not go away, then the Spirit,
the Paraclete, will not come.
As long as Jesus is with his disciples in his present form,
he is actually very limited in his presence. It is fine as long as they are all
together, but what would happen if they were to be scattered in various places
to do his work? And what of the many more disciples in distant places who would
never have an opportunity to be in direct contact with Jesus?
It is through the Spirit of Jesus, the risen and ascended
Jesus, that he can continue to be with his people at all times and in any place
on earth. Yes, it is better that Jesus should go and come back through the
Spirit.
And the Spirit:
…will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness
and judgment…
That is, the Spirit will reveal the wrongness of the
world—that world of the purely secular—in not putting its trust in the Way of
Jesus.
The world’s sin is primarily one of unbelief, an
‘unreadiness’ to open its mind to the vision of life that Jesus gives. The
Spirit will clearly show the rightness of Jesus in his claims to come from God
and to being the Word of God to the world. The Spirit will reveal the meaning
of Christ’s death as the condemnation of all that is evil in the world, above
all in its denial of love as the centre of living.
The New American Bible expresses it thus:
“These verses illustrate the forensic character of the
Paraclete’s role: in the forum of the disciples’ conscience he prosecutes the
world. He leads believers to see (a) that the basic sin was and is refusal to
believe in Jesus; (b) that, although Jesus was found guilty and apparently died
in disgrace, in reality righteousness has triumphed, for Jesus has returned to
his Father; (c) finally, that it is “the ruler of this world”, Satan, who has
been condemned through Jesus’ death”.
On which side am I—on that of the Spirit or that of the
world?
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https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/e1063g/
Tuesday,
May 12, 2026
Easter Weekday
Opening Prayer
Lord our God, if we really believe in you and in your Son, we cannot be
but witnesses. Send us your Spirit of strength, that we may give no flimsy
excuses for not standing up for you and for the love and rights of our
neighbour.
Make us only afraid of betraying you
and people and of being afraid to bear witness.
We ask you this through Christ our Lord.
Gospel Reading - John 16: 5-11
Jesus told to his
disciples: “Now I am going to the one who sent me. Not one of you asks, 'Where
are you going?' Yet you are sad at heart because I have told you this. Still, I
am telling you the truth: it is for your own good that I am going, because unless
I go, the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.
And when he comes, he will show the world how wrong it was, about sin, and
about who was in the right, and about judgement: about sin: in that they refuse
to believe in me; about who was in the right: in that I am going to the Father
and you will see me no more; about judgement: in that the prince of this world
is already condemned.”
Reflection
•
John 16: 5-7: The sadness of the Disciples.
Jesus begins with a rhetorical question that makes evident the sadness of the
disciples, at this time evident in the heart of the disciples because of the
detachment from Jesus: «Now I am going to the One who sent me; not one of you
asks, where are you going?” It is clear that for the disciples the detachment
from the lifestyle lived with Jesus implies suffering. And Jesus urges saying:
“Yet you are sad at heart because I have told you this” (v. 6). Thus Saint
Augustine explains such a sentiment of abandonment of the disciples: “they were
afraid to think of losing the visible presence of Christ... they were grieved,
saddened in their human affection, at the thought that their eyes would no
longer be consoled in seeing him”. (Comment of the Gospel of John, XCIV, 4).
Jesus tries to dispel this sadness, due to the fact that they will not have his
presence, revealing to them his departure. We can say that if he does not leave
them, the Paraclete will not be able to join them; if he dies and therefore,
returns to the Father, he will be able to send him to the disciples. His
departure and the detachment of the disciples is the previous condition for the
coming of the Paraclete: “because unless I go, the Paraclete will not come to
you...” (v. 7).
•
John 16: 8-11: The Mission of the Paraclete.
Jesus continues to describe the mission of the Paraclete. The term “Paraclete”
means “advocate”, that is, support, assistant. Here the Paraclete is presented
as the accuser in a process that is carried out before God and in which the
accused is the world which has made itself guilty for condemning Jesus:
«He will show the world how wrong it was, about sin, and
about who was in the right and about judgment” (v. 8). The Greek verb elègken means that he will make an
inquiry, he will question, will test: he will bring out to light a reality, and
will furnish the proof of the guilt.
The object of the confutation is sin: he will give the
world the proof of the sin that it has committed regarding Jesus and will
manifest it. Of which sin is there a question here?; that of unbelief (Jn 5:
44ff; 6: 36; 8: 21, 24, 26; 10: 31ss). Besides, for the world to have thought
that Jesus was a sinner (Jn 9: 24; 18: 30) is an inexcusable sin (Jn 15: 21ff).
In the second place he will “refute” the world “concerning
justice”, On the juridical level, the notion of justice which adheres more to
the text, is the one which implies a declaration of guilt or of innocence in a
judgment. In our context this is the only time that the term “justice” appears
in the Gospel of John, elsewhere there is the term “just”. In John 16: 8
justice is linked to all that Jesus has affirmed about himself, that is, the
reason why he is going to the Father. Such a discourse concerns his
glorification: Jesus goes to the Father, he is about to disappear in him and
therefore, the disciples will no longer be able to see him; he is about to
entrust and to submerge himself completely in the will of the Father. The
glorification of Jesus confirms his divine filiation or son ship and the
approbation of the Father regarding the mission which Jesus has accomplished.
Therefore, the Spirit will show directly the justice of Christ (Jn 14: 26; 15:
26) protecting the disciples and the ecclesial community.
The world that believed to have judged Jesus condemning
him is condemned by the “prince of this world”, because it is responsible for
his crucifixion (13: 2, 27). Jesus in dying on the Cross is exalted (12: 31)
and he has triumphed over Satan. Now the Spirit will give witness to all about
the significance of the death of Jesus which coincides with the fall of Satan
(Jn 12: 32; 14: 30; 16: 33).
Personal Questions
•
Is the fear, consternation of the disciples in
losing Jesus also ours?
•
Do you allow yourself to be led by the Spirit,
the Paraclete who gives you the certainty of the error of the world and helps
you to adhere to Jesus, and, therefore, he introduces you into the truth about
yourself?
Concluding Prayer
I thank you, Lord, with all my heart,
for you have listened to the cry I uttered. In the presence
of angels I sing to you, I bow down before your holy Temple. (Sal 138: 1-2)
