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Daily Readings - 14/09/2026
EXALTATION OF THE HOLY CROSS
First Reading : Nm 21, 4b-9
No se encontró el libro para la sigla: Nm
Psalm : Ps 78 (77)
R// Do not forget the deeds of the Lord.
Of Asaph
78:1 Listen to this Law, my people, pay attention to what I say;
78:2 I am going to speak to you in parable and expound the mysteries of our past.
78:3 What we have heard and known for ourselves, and what our ancestors have told us,
78:4 must not be withheld from their descendants, but be handed on by us to the next generation; that is: the titles of Yahweh, his power and the miracles he has done.
78:5 When he issued the decrees for Jacob and instituted a Law in Israel, he gave our ancestors strict orders to teach it to their children;
78:6 the next generation was to learn it, the children still to be born, and these in their turn were to tell their own children
78:7 so that they too would put their confidence in God, never forgetting God’s achievements, and always keeping his commandments,
78:8 and not becoming, like their ancestors, a stubborn and unruly generation, a generation with no sincerity of heart, in spirit unfaithful to God.
78:9 The sons of Ephraim, who were bowmen, turned tail when the time came to fight;
78:10 they had not kept God’s covenant, they refused to follow his Law;
78:11 they had forgotten his achievements, the marvels he had shown them:
78:12 he had worked wonders for their ancestors in the plains of Zoan, down in Egypt:
78:13 dividing the sea, bringing them through, making the waters stand up like dikes,
78:14 leading them with a cloud by day and with a fiery glow at night,
78:15 splitting rocks in the wilderness, quenching their thirst with unlimited water,
78:16 conjuring streams from the rock and bringing down water in torrents.
78:17 They only sinned against him more than ever, defying the Most High in the desert,
78:18 deliberately challenging God by demanding their favourite food.
78:19 They blasphemed against God, ‘Is it likely’ they said ‘that God could give a banquet in the wilderness?
78:20 ‘Admittedly, when he struck the rock, waters gushed, torrents streamed out, but bread now, can he give us that, can he provide meat for his people?’
78:21 Yahweh was enraged when he heard them, a fire flared at Jacob, the wrath attacked Israel
78:22 for having no faith in God, no trust in his power to save.
78:23 He gave orders to the skies above, he opened the doors of heaven,
78:24 he rained down manna to feed them, he gave them the wheat of heaven;
78:25 men ate the bread of Immortals, he sent them more food than they could eat.
78:26 He stirred up an east wind in the heavens, he conjured up a south wind by his power,
78:27 he rained down meat on them like dust; birds as thick as sand on the seashore
78:28 he sent tumbling into their camp, in all directions round their tents.
78:29 They all had enough and to spare, he having provided what they wanted;
78:30 but they had hardly satisfied their craving, the food was still in their mouths,
78:31 when the wrath of God attacked them, slaughtering their strongest men and laying the flower of Israel low.
78:32 Despite all this they went on sinning, and put no faith in his marvels;
78:33 for which he blasted their days and their years in a flash.
78:34 Whenever he slaughtered them they sought him, they came to their senses and sought him earnestly
78:35 remembering that God was their rock, God the Most High, their redeemer.
78:36 But though they outwardly flattered him and used their tongues to lie to him,
78:37 in their hearts they were not true to him, they were unfaithful to his covenant.
78:38 Compassionately, however, he forgave their guilt instead of killing them, repeatedly repressing his anger instead of rousing his full wrath,
78:39 remembering they were creatures of flesh, a puff of wind that passes and does not return.
78:40 How often they defied him in the wilderness, how often they outraged him in the desert,
78:41 repeatedly challenging God, provoking the Holy One of Israel –
78:42 entirely oblivious of his hand and of the time he saved them from the oppressor:
78:43 by imposing his signs on Egypt, by displaying his wonders in the plains of Zoan,
78:44 by turning their rivers into blood to stop them drinking from their streams,
78:45 by sending horseflies to eat them and frogs to devastate them,
78:46 by consigning their crops to the caterpillar and their hard-won harvest to the locust,
78:47 by killing their vines with hail and their sycamore trees with frost,
78:48 by condemning their cattle to plague and their flocks to feverish pests,
78:49 by unleashing his fierce anger, rage, indignation and hardship on them, a mission of angels of disaster,
78:50 by giving his anger free rein, by not even exempting them from death, by condemning them to plague,
78:51 by striking down all the first-born in Egypt, the first-fruits of their virility in the tents of Ham,
78:52 by driving his people out like sheep, by leading them through the wilderness like a flock,
78:53 by guiding them safe and unafraid while the sea engulfed their enemies,
78:54 by bringing them to his sacred frontier, the highlands conquered by his own right hand,
78:55 by expelling the pagans in front of them and by marking out a heritage for each, in which the tribes of Israel could pitch their tents.
78:56 Even so, they went on challenging God the Most High, rebelliously disregarding his decrees;
78:57 as perverse and disloyal as their ancestors, treacherous as a bow with a warp,
78:58 provoking him with their high places and rousing his jealousy with their idols.
78:59 God was enraged when he heard them, he rejected Israel out of hand,
78:60 he left his home in Shiloh, that tent where he once lived with men.
78:61 He consigned his power to captivity, his splendour[*a] to the enemy’s clutches;
78:62 he condemned his own people to the sword, he raged at his heritage,
78:63 whose young men were then burnt to death – no brides left to hear the wedding song;
78:64 whose priests fell by the sword – no widows left to raise the dirge.
78:65 Then, like a sleeper, like a hero fighting-mad with wine, the Lord woke up
78:66 to strike his enemies on the rump and put them to everlasting shame.
78:67 Rejecting the tent of Joseph, not choosing the tribe of Ephraim,
78:68 instead he chose the tribe of Judah and his well-loved mountain of Zion,
78:69 where he built his sanctuary, a copy of high heaven, founding it firm as the earth for ever.
78:70 Choosing David as his servant, he took him from the sheepfolds,
78:71 called him from tending ewes in lamb to pasture his people Jacob and Israel his heritage:
78:72 who did this with unselfish care and led them with a sensitive hand.
Gospel : Jn 3, 13-17
3:13 No one has gone up to heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven; and the Son of Man must be lifted up
3:14 as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,
3:15 so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.
3:16 Yes, God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life.
3:17 For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but so that through him the world might be saved.