◀ All Reading Plans / Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous) / Acts 5:27-32 (The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus); Psalm 118:14-29 (Glad songs of victory); or Psalm 150 (Let everything praise the Lord); Revelation 1:4-8 (Jesus Christ firstborn of the dead); John 20:19-31 (Beholding the wounds of the risen Christ) (New Catholic Bible)

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April 27, 2025

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Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Daily Bible readings that follow the church liturgical year, with sequential stories told across multiple weeks.

Duration: 1245 days

Acts 5:27-32

²⁷When they had brought them in, they had them stand before the Sanhedrin. The high priest questioned them, saying, ²⁸“Did we not give you strict orders not to teach in this name? Yet, despite that, you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you appear determined to hold us responsible for that man’s death.”

²⁹Peter and the other apostles replied, “We must obey God rather than men. ³⁰The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus after you had put him to death by hanging him on a tree. ³¹God exalted him at his right hand as leader and Savior so that he might grant repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel. ³²And we are witnesses to these things, as is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him.”

Psalm 118:14-29

¹⁴The Lord is my strength and my song,
    and he has become my salvation.^[a]
¹⁵Joyful shouts of triumph
    ring out in the tents of the righteous:
“The right hand of the Lord has done wondrous deeds;
¹⁶    the right hand of the Lord is exalted;
    the right hand of the Lord has done wondrous deeds.”
¹⁷I shall not die; rather I shall live
    and recount^[b] the works of the Lord.
¹⁸Even though the Lord punished me harshly,
    he did not hand me over to death.
¹⁹^[c]Open to me the gates of righteousness
    so that I may enter them and praise the Lord.
²⁰This is the gate of the Lord
    through which the righteous enter.
²¹I thank you for having answered me;
    you have become my salvation.
²²^[d]The stone that the builders rejected
    has become the cornerstone.
²³This is the Lord’s doing,
    and it is marvelous in our eyes.
²⁴This is the day that the Lord has made;^[e]
    let us exult and rejoice in it.
²⁵O Lord, grant us salvation.^[f]
    O Lord, grant us success.
²⁶Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.^[g]
    We bless you from the house of the Lord.
²⁷The Lord is God,
    and he has given us light.
Holding leafy branches, join in the festal procession
    up to the horns of the altar.^[h]
²⁸^[i]You are my God, and I will offer thanks to you;
    you are my God, and I will extol you.
²⁹Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
    his kindness endures forever.

Psalm 119^[j]

Praise of God’s Law

Aleph

Footnotes

Psalm 118:14 This verse is an exact quotation from the song of victory at the Red Sea (see Ex 15:2) and is echoed in verses 15 (“right hand”) and 28 (“extol you”). Hence, God’s saving acts throughout history bear the stamp of the Exodus events (see 1 Cor 10:6) culminating in the work of Christ (see Lk 9:31: “his departure [literally, ‘exodus’], which would come to pass in Jerusalem”).
Psalm 118:17 Live and recount: see note on Ps 6:6.
Psalm 118:19 The procession has arrived at the gates of the rebuilt temple; all the righteous may enter and give thanks.
Psalm 118:22 The community of the righteous join in with thanksgiving. They praise the Lord because he has given prominence to his suffering servant Israel like a cornerstone. It was rejected by the worldly powers but has been made the cornerstone for God’s salvation of the world in the Messiah. These verses allude to Isa 8:14; 28:16; Jer 51:26; Zec 3:9; 4:7, passages that are interpreted in a Messianic sense. Israel is here a type of Christ, in whom these words have been most eminently fulfilled (see Mt 21:42 par; Acts 4:11; Rom 9:33; 1 Cor 3:11; Eph 2:20; 1 Pet 2:7).
Psalm 118:24 This is the day that the Lord has made: the day given by the Lord in which joy and jubilation are appropriate, the day of thanksgiving and rejoicing because of the wondrous deed of the Lord (vv. 22-23; see Ps 71:17; Jer 32:17, 27), the day of salvation. Used by the Liturgy as an antiphon for the Easter Season, this phrase identifies the “day” as that of Christ’s Resurrection.
Psalm 118:25 O Lord, grant us salvation: the Hebrew for this cry has come into English as “Hosanna.” The crowd takes it up on Palm Sunday (see Mt 21:9; 23:39; Mk 11:9; Jn 12:13). It has become part of the Sanctus at Mass.
Psalm 118:26 Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord: words used in the Gospels to welcome Jesus entering the temple on Palm Sunday (see Mk 11:9 par).
Psalm 118:27 The people respond to the blessing by confessing that the Lord alone is God. He has made his light shine upon them, protecting them from the darkness of great trials (e.g., famine, war, and exile; Ps 43:3). Accordingly, they are here renewing their commitment to the Lord in a formal liturgical celebration. The horns of the altar: the four corners of the altar of burnt offerings (see Ex 27:2; 38:2; Lev 4:25, 30, 34).
Psalm 118:28 The psalm concludes with the community’s affirmation that the Lord alone is God, similar to the confession of Moses (see Ex 15:2). Kindness: see note on Ps 6:5.
Psalm 118:29 This longest of the psalms is a monumental literary piece consisting of twenty-two strophes, each containing eight verses (sixteen lines) and each beginning with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet that is repeated at the beginning of each pair of verses. Each strophe is a unit, but does not have a close connection with the strophe that precedes or follows. The whole is a free-flowing meditation, now sad, now joyous, now peaceful, now passionate. It is a reflection and a prayer in which the author, a sage and a mystic who draws his inspiration from the Prophets and Deuteronomy, converses with God and voices his deepest feelings: love of true wisdom, attachment and fidelity to the word of God in spite of weakness and obstacles; desire to better understand and live the truth; joy of outdoing oneself to follow the will of God manifested in the law.
In practically every verse, there is the word “law” or some equivalent. We can point to eight such terms—four with a more juridic nuance (statutes, precepts, decrees, commands or commandments) and four with a more religious nuance (law, promise, word, laws, or judgments). These terms introduce us into the heart of the psalm, for they signify less an ensemble of laws to observe than the word of God, which sometimes ordains and judges and sometimes reveals and promises. It is a psalm of spiritual intimacy, of love for God (which means doing his will). In meditating on the law, believers contemplate above all the visage of God and let themselves be transformed in the very depths of their hearts. Such observance becomes liberty. Understood in this fashion, the law proclaims to us Jesus Christ, the living revelation of God, given to human beings to lead them to the Father: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6).

Psalm 150

Psalm 150^[a]

Harmonious Praise of God

¹Alleluia.

Praise God in his sanctuary;
    praise him in the firmament of his power.^[b]
²Praise him for his awesome acts,^[c]
    praise him for his immeasurable greatness.
³^[d]Praise him with the sound of the trumpet,
    praise him with the harp and lyre.
⁴Praise him with tambourines and dancing,
    praise him with strings and flutes.
⁵Praise him with clanging cymbals,
    praise him with crashing cymbals.
⁶Let everything that breathes
    offer praise to the Lord.
Alleluia.^[e]

Footnotes

Psalm 150:1 In the same manner in which our “Glory be to the Father” concludes the recitation of our psalms, this doxological psalm concludes the Psalter on an urgent invitation to praise (see the conclusions to the first four Books: Pss 41:14; 72:18f; 89:53; 106:48). May every living creature praise the Lord everywhere, on the part of everyone, and by every means. The word “Alleluia” or “Hallelujah” (translated as “Praise [or bless] the Lord” or “Praise [or bless] him”) echoes thirteen times in this psalm. The Psalter could not end on a richer or more powerful note. Everything leads to the immensity of God’s glory (see Rev 15:3-4; 19:4-8). “Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying: ‘To the One seated on the throne / and to the Lamb / be blessing and honor and glory and might / forever and ever!’. . . Amen!” (Rev 5:13f).
We should heed this recommendation and carry it out, for we Christians are more aware than the psalmist of the work of God and Christ in the world and in us. Christ is enthroned in the highest heavens, his own sanctuary, but he is present and active in the heart of every creature, giving to each existence, motion, and life, as the case may be. He is in the heart of the whole world, directing its march in the material, living, human, and spiritual spheres and realizing his greatest victory in the last—the construction of the Church, his Body, his spiritual Spouse.
Psalm 150:1 God is to be praised in his sanctuary on earth and his sanctuary in heaven (see Ps 8:3). The Church of the New Covenant has the mission to glorify God in the world, and her members must gather in the house of God in order to carry out this mission. Firmament of his power: this is also translated as “mighty heavens,” which ensures the well-being of those on earth.
Psalm 150:2 God is to be praised because of his creating and redeeming awesome acts (see Pss 106:2; 145:4, 12), which reveal his greatness (see Pss 145:3; 147:5; 1 Chr 29:11).
Psalm 150:3 God is to be praised with a full orchestra (with trumpet, harp, lyre, and tambourine) and with dance in a liturgy of praise that will reach as high as the heavens.
Psalm 150:6 God is to be praised by everyone and everything endowed with life by the Creator (see Pss 103:22; 148:7-12; Rev 5:13). By doing so, Christians will be following the “way” of the Lord, with which the Psalter began (see Ps 1:2), a way that leads to eternal life.

Revelation 1:4-8

He Is, He Was, and He Will Return.^[a] ⁴John, to the seven Churches^[b] in Asia: grace to you and peace from him who is, who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before his throne, ⁵and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness,^[c] the firstborn from the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth. He loves us and has washed away our sins with his blood ⁶and made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to him be glory and power forever and ever. Amen.^[d]

⁷Behold, he is coming with the clouds;
    every eye will see him,
    even those who pierced him.
All the peoples of the earth will mourn him.
    So shall it be. Amen.

⁸“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “the one who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”

Footnotes

Revelation 1:4 The greeting and the address introduce the work as a letter. [He] who is: this is how God revealed himself to Moses at the burning bush (Ex 3:14); this time, the divine name embraces the past, present, and future of humankind and is turned to the future, to the immediate fulfillment of all things: God, he who is to come. God is also described with the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, Alpha and . . . Omega; he is the Beginning and the End, the origin and the completion (a proper name of God according to Isa 44:6; 48:12). In addition, he is the master of all historical events, including the present ones, which, according to the author, are decisive. And Christ will appear in all the glory of his Resurrection and in the grandeur of the work accomplished to save humankind, comprising the body of the Church (see 1 Pet 2:5, 9), in the imminence of his coming to judge the world.
In order to speak of him, the author here multiplies Biblical reminiscences (Ex 19:6; Ps 89:28, 38; Isa 55:3). The seven spirits before the throne (v. 4) represent the Holy Spirit in the many ways that the Spirit manifests himself in the world (e.g., Isa 11:2, 5).
Revelation 1:4 Seven Churches: the Churches (named in v. 11) formed a circle in the province of Asia and were separated from one another by some fifty miles.
Revelation 1:5 Faithful witness: the Messiah is the witness to the promise the Lord made to David (2 Sam 7:1; Ps 89; Isa 55:3-4; Zec 12:8) in his person as well as in his work. He also fulfills this promise and is thus the efficacious Word, God’s Yes (see Rev 3:14; 19:11, 13; 2 Cor 1:20). He is the heir of David (see Rev 5:5; 22:16) but also the firstborn from the dead because of his Resurrection (see Col 1:18) who will rule the universe after his enemies have been overcome (see Rev 19:6; Dan 7:14).
Revelation 1:6 Those who follow Christ will be part of a kingdom, because they will rule over all the nations (see Isa 54:11-17; Dan 7:22, 27; Zec 12:1-3; see Rev 2:26; 5:10; 20:6; 22:5). They will also be priests because like Jesus the Priest they offer up the sacrifice of their own lives as a burnt offering of love.

John 20:19-31

¹⁹Jesus Appears to the Disciples.^[a] On the evening of that same day, the first day of the week, the doors of the house where the disciples had gathered were locked because of their fear of the Jews. Jesus then came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” ²⁰After saying this, he showed them his hands and his side.

The disciples were filled with joy when they saw the Lord. ²¹“Peace be with you,” Jesus said to them again.

“As the Father has sent me,
so I send you.”

²²After saying this, he breathed on them and said,

“Receive the Holy Spirit.
²³If you forgive anyone’s sins,
they are forgiven.
If you retain anyone’s sins,
they are retained.”

²⁴Jesus Appears to Thomas.^[b] Now Thomas, called the Twin, who was one of the Twelve, was not with the rest when Jesus came. ²⁵When the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord,” he replied, “Unless I see the mark of the nails on his hands and put my finger into the place where the nails pierced and insert my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

²⁶Eight days later, the disciples were again in the house, and on this occasion Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood in their midst, and he said, “Peace be with you.” ²⁷Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Do not doubt any longer, but believe.” ²⁸Thomas exclaimed, “My Lord and my God!” ²⁹Then Jesus said to him,

“You have come to believe
because you have seen me.
Blessed are those who have not seen
and yet have come to believe.”

³⁰Believe in Order To Live.^[c] Now Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not recorded in this work. ³¹But those written here have been recorded so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through your belief you may have life in his name.

New Catholic Bible (NCB)

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Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 119[j]

Praise of God’s Law

Footnotes

Psalm 150[a]

Harmonious Praise of God

Footnotes

Footnotes

Footnotes

Psalm 119^[j]

Psalm 150^[a]