Introduction

From today on and in the Holy Week, the opposition between the Jewish leaders and Jesus is growing.

People always tend to adore their own god - a god or gods made in their own image and likeness, rather than accepting in humility, conscious of our limitations, that we are made in the image and likeness of God.

But we are fortunate enough to have Christ - as the Hebrews had Moses - a mediator who pleads for us, whom we can easily accept and identify with because in him we can recognize one of us, who opts for people, who defends us, who is involved with us in spite of our failures.

Opening Prayer

Lord our God, we know,
perhaps more in theory than in practice,
that you are with us,
that you are our God and we your people.
Forgive us, Lord, when we fashion
our own gods made in our own image -
honor, power, prestige,
things to which we are attached and enslaved.
Remind us again and again
that you are our loyal God,
who made us in your own indelible image
and who shows us your perfect likeness
in Jesus Christ, your Son and our Lord.

Liturgy of the Word

First Reading: Ex 32:7-14

Then Yahweh said to Moses, "Go down at once, for your people, whom you brought up from the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned from the way I commanded them and have made for themselves a molten calf; they have bowed down before it and sacrificed to it and said: 'These are your gods, Israel, who brought you out of Egypt.'"

And Yahweh said to Moses, "I see that these people are a stiff-necked people. Now just leave me that my anger may blaze against them. I will destroy them, but of you I will make a great nation."

But Moses calmed the anger of Yahweh, his God, and said, "Why, O Yahweh, should your anger burst against your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with such great power and with a mighty hand? Let not the Egyptians say: 'Yahweh brought them out with evil intent, for he wanted to kill them in the mountains and wipe them from the face of the earth.' Turn away from the heat of your anger and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the promise you yourself swore: I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land I spoke about I will give to them as an everlasting inheritance."

Yahweh then changed his mind and would not yet harm his people.

Responsorial Psalm: Ps 106:19-20, 21-23

R (4a) Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.

Our fathers made a calf in Horeb
and adored a molten image;
They exchanged their glory
for the image of a grass-eating bullock.
R Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.

They forgot the God who had saved them,
who had done great deeds in Egypt,
Wondrous deeds in the land of Ham,
terrible things at the Red Sea.
R Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.

Then he spoke of exterminating them,
but Moses, his chosen one,
Withstood him in the breach
to turn back his destructive wrath.
R Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.

Gospel Reading: Jn 5:31-47

Jesus said to the Jews, "If I bore witness to myself, my testimony would be worthless. But Another One is bearing witness to me and I know that his testimony is true when he bears witness to me. John also bore witness to the truth when you sent messengers to him, but I do not seek such human testimony; I recall this for you, so that you may be saved.

"John was a burning and shining lamp, and for a while you were willing to enjoy his light. But I have greater evidence than that of John-the works which the Father entrusted to me to carry out. The very works I do bear witness: the Father has sent me. Thus he who bears witness to me is the Father who sent me. You have never heard his voice and have never seen his likeness; then, as long as you do not believe his messenger, his word is not in you.

"You search in the Scriptures thinking that in them you will find life; yet Scripture bears witness to me. But you refuse to come to me, that you may live. I am not seeking human praise; but I have known that love of God is not within you, for I have come in my Father's name and you do not accept me. If another comes in his own name, you will accept him. As long as you seek praise from one another instead of seeking the glory coming from the only God, how can you believe?

"Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father. Moses himself in whom you placed your hope, accuses you. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?"