Reading I -  Isaiah 65:17-21

Thus says the LORD:

Lo, I am about to create new heavens

  and a new earth;

The things of the past shall not be remembered

  or come to mind.

Instead, there shall always be rejoicing and happiness

  in what I create;

For I create Jerusalem to be a joy

  and its people to be a delight;

I will rejoice in Jerusalem

  and exult in my people.

No longer shall the sound of weeping be heard there,

  or the sound of crying;

No longer shall there be in it

  an infant who lives but a few days,

  or an old man who does not round out his full lifetime;

He dies a mere youth who reaches but a hundred years,

  and he who fails of a hundred shall be thought accursed.

They shall live in the houses they build,

  and eat the fruit of the vineyards they plant.

Responsorial Psalm -  Psalm 30:2 and 4, 5-6, 11-12a and 13b

R.  (2a) I will praise you, Lord, for you have rescued me.

I will extol you, O LORD, for you drew me clear

  and did not let my enemies rejoice over me.

O LORD, you brought me up from the nether world;

  you preserved me from among those going down into the pit.

R.  I will praise you, Lord, for you have rescued me.

Sing praise to the LORD, you his faithful ones,

  and give thanks to his holy name.

For his anger lasts but a moment;

  a lifetime, his good will.

At nightfall, weeping enters in,

  but with the dawn, rejoicing.

R.  I will praise you, Lord, for you have rescued me.

“Hear, O LORD, and have pity on me;

  O LORD, be my helper.”

You changed my mourning into dancing;

  O LORD, my God, forever will I give you thanks.

R.  I will praise you, Lord, for you have rescued me.

Gospel - John 4:43-54

At that time Jesus left [Samaria] for Galilee.

For Jesus himself testified

that a prophet has no honor in his native place.

When he came into Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him,

since they had seen all he had done in Jerusalem at the feast;

for they themselves had gone to the feast.

Then he returned to Cana in Galilee,

where he had made the water wine.

Now there was a royal official whose son was ill in Capernaum.

When he heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea,

he went to him and asked him to come down

and heal his son, who was near death.

Jesus said to him,

“Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.”

The royal official said to him,

“Sir, come down before my child dies.”

Jesus said to him, “You may go; your son will live.”

The man believed what Jesus said to him and left.

While the man was on his way back,

his slaves met him and told him that his boy would live.

He asked them when he began to recover.

They told him,

“The fever left him yesterday, about one in the afternoon.”

The father realized that just at that time Jesus had said to him,

“Your son will live,”

and he and his whole household came to believe.

Now this was the second sign Jesus did

when he came to Galilee from Judea.

Complete Lent Schedule (click on arrows)