5th Sunday of Lent (B)
March 16, 2021
Celebrating St Joseph’s Day
March 16, 2021
Msgr Michael de Verteuil, Chair of the Archdiocesan Liturgical Commission continues a series of articles for the Lenten season.
We continue our look at the prayers and readings of the Sundays of Lent to see what they tell us of the season and its spirituality.
The Collect (opening prayer): we pray that we may live in that same love which Jesus showed by His death on the cross. The prayers and readings today are full of references to death and resurrection.
As has been the case for the last two Sundays, there is an option of readings to be chosen.
The Preface used is determined by which choice (either Year A or Year B) is made.
Preface Year A. We thank God because as Jesus raised Lazarus from death, so He raises us and leads us to new life.
Preface Year B. There are two options if the readings of Year B are used. The first (Lent Preface 1) speaks of the joy of minds made pure as we journey to the sacred paschal feasts and that we may come to the fullness of grace. We remember our Lenten journey of conversion – are our minds becoming purer?
The second prayer reminds us that Lent is a sacred time for the renewing and purifying our hearts. We want to renew our Baptism with new hearts.
First Reading Year A. Ezek 37:12–14. The Lord’s promise to the people in exile that He would raise them from their ‘graves’ and ‘you will live’, a foreshadowing of the Gospel in which Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead.
Second Reading Year A. Romans 8:8–11. We are a spiritual people and ‘he who raised Jesus from the dead will give life to your own mortal bodies through his Spirit living in you.’
Gospel Year A. John 11: 1–45. The raising of Lazarus from the dead. Jesus declares Himself the resurrection and the life. ‘The one who believes in me will never die’. Through the waters of baptism, we die with Christ and rise with Him to new life.
First Reading Year B. Jeremiah 31:31–34. The promise of the Lord to make a new covenant (which we enter through Baptism and to which we recommit ourselves as a people when we renew our baptismal commitment at Easter).
Second Reading Year B. Hebrews 5:7–9. Jesus, obedient unto death, is ‘for all who obey him the source of eternal salvation.’ A reminder to us of the Paschal Mystery, the death and resurrection of Jesus, which we celebrate in an especially solemn way at Easter, and through which we have life.
Gospel Year B. John 12:20–30. The Paschal Mystery brings eternal life. ‘Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies it remains only a single grain; but if it dies it yields a rich harvest.’ We are called to follow the same path, dying to self-centredness, and having eternal life.
