Saturday of the Fourth Week of Lent (March 12, 2016)

Reading 1 and//usccb.org/bible/jeremiah/11:18 JER 11:18-20 I knew their plot because the LORD informed meat that time you, O LORD, showed me their doings.Yet I, like a trusting lamb led to slaughter,had not realized that they were hatching plots against meand Let us destroy the tree in its vigorlet us cut him off from the land of the living,so that his name will be spoken no more.”But, you, O LORD of hosts, O just Judge,searcher of mind and heart,Let me witness the vengeance you take on them,for to you I have entrusted my cause! Responsorial Psalm and//usccb.org/bible/psalms/7and2 PS 7and2-3, 9BC-10, 11-12 R. (2a)O Lord, my God, in you I take refuge. O LORD, my God, in you I take refugesave me from all my pursuers and rescue me,Lest I become like the lion’s prey,to be torn to pieces, with no one to rescue me. R.O Lord, my God, in you I take refuge. Do me justice, O LORD, because I am just,and because of the innocence that is mine.Let the malice of the wicked come to an end,but sustain the just,O searcher of heart and soul, O just God. R.O Lord, my God, in you I take refuge. A shield before me is God,who saves the upright of heartA just judge is God,a God who punishes day by day. R.O Lord, my God, in you I take refuge. Verse Before TheGospel and//usccb.org/bible/luke/8:15 SEE LK 8:15 Blessed are they who have kept the word with a generous heartand yield a harvest through perseverance. Gospel and//usccb.org/bible/john/7:40 JN 7:40-53 Some in the crowd who heard these words of Jesus said, This is truly the Prophet.”Others said, This is the Christ.”But others said, The Christ will not come from Galilee, will he?Does not Scripture say that the Christ will be of David’s familyand come from Bethlehem, the village where David lived?”So a division occurred in the crowd because of him.Some of them even wanted to arrest him,but no one laid hands on him.So the guards went to the chief priests and Pharisees,who asked them, Why did you not bring him?”The guards answered, Never before has anyone spoken like this man.”So the Pharisees answered them, Have you also been deceived?Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him?But this crowd, which does not know the law, is accursed.”Nicodemus, one of their members who had come to him earlier, said to them, Does our law condemn a man before it first hears himand finds out what he is doing?”They answered and said to him, You are not from Galilee also, are you?Look and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.”Then each went to his own house.