Readings for

March 8, 2026

Third Sunday of Lent

Mass of the Day
Reading I

Exodus 17:3-7

3Here, then, in their thirst for water, the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “Why then did you bring us up out of Egypt? To have us die of thirst with our children and our livestock?” 4So Moses cried out to the LORD, “What shall I do with this people? A little more and they will stone me!” 5The LORD answered Moses: Go on ahead of the people, and take along with you some of the elders of Israel, holding in your hand, as you go, the staff with which you struck the Nile. 6I will be standing there in front of you on the rock in Horeb. Strike the rock, and the water will flow from it for the people to drink. Moses did this, in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7The place was named Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled there and tested the LORD, saying, “Is the LORD in our midst or not?”
Responsorial Psalm

Psalm 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9

1Psalm 95 A Call to Praise and Obedience I - Come, let us sing joyfully to the LORD; cry out to the rock of our salvation. 2Let us come before him with a song of praise, joyfully sing out our psalms. 6II - Enter, let us bow down in worship; let us kneel before the LORD who made us. 7For he is our God, we are the people he shepherds, the sheep in his hands. III - Oh, that today you would hear his voice: 8Do not harden your hearts as at Meribah, as on the day of Massah in the desert. 9There your ancestors tested me; they tried me though they had seen my works.
Reading II

Romans 5:1-2, 5-8

1Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2through whom we have gained access [by faith] to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in hope of the glory of God. 5and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the holy Spirit that has been given to us. 6For Christ, while we were still helpless, yet died at the appointed time for the ungodly. 7Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die. 8But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.
Verse Before the Gospel

John 4:42, 15

42and they said to the woman, “We no longer believe because of your word; for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the world.” 15The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
Gospel

John 4:5-42

5So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s well was there. Jesus, tired from his journey, sat down there at the well. It was about noon. 7A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. 9The Samaritan woman said to him, “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” (For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.) 10Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” 11[The woman] said to him, “Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the well is deep; where then can you get this living water? 12Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself with his children and his flocks?” 13Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; 14but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” 16Jesus said to her, “Go call your husband and come back.” 17The woman answered and said to him, “I do not have a husband.” Jesus answered her, “You are right in saying, ‘I do not have a husband.’ 18For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19The woman said to him, “Sir, I can see that you are a prophet. 20Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain; but you people say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.” 21Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You people worship what you do not understand; we worship what we understand, because salvation is from the Jews. 23But the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him. 24God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth.” 25The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Anointed; when he comes, he will tell us everything.” 26Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking with you.” 27At that moment his disciples returned, and were amazed that he was talking with a woman, but still no one said, “What are you looking for?” or “Why are you talking with her?” 28The woman left her water jar and went into the town and said to the people, 29“Come see a man who told me everything I have done. Could he possibly be the Messiah?” 30They went out of the town and came to him. 31Meanwhile, the disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat.” 32But he said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.” 33So the disciples said to one another, “Could someone have brought him something to eat?” 34Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work. 35Do you not say, ‘In four months the harvest will be here’? I tell you, look up and see the fields ripe for the harvest. 36The reaper is already receiving his payment and gathering crops for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together. 37For here the saying is verified that ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38I sent you to reap what you have not worked for; others have done the work, and you are sharing the fruits of their work.” 39Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me everything I have done.” 40When the Samaritans came to him, they invited him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. 41Many more began to believe in him because of his word, 42and they said to the woman, “We no longer believe because of your word; for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the world.”