29 May 2026 – Friday of Week 8

29 May 2026 – Friday of Week 8

Optional Memorial: St Paul V1, 1897-1978, ordained priest May 1920, worked in the Vatican, became AB of Milan in 1954, elected pope in 1963, succeeding Pope John XX111 and continuing the Second Vatican Council. A man of peace. Beatified in 2014, canonised 2018 – his memorial is on the anniversary of his priestly ordination.

1st Reading: 1 Peter 4:7-13

The end of all things is near; be glad and shout for joy

The end of all things is near; therefore be serious and discipline yourselves for the sake of your prayers. Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without complaining. Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received. Whoever speaks must do so as one speaking the very words of God; whoever serves must do so with the strength that God supplies, so that God may be glorified in all things through Jesus Christ. To him belong the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ’s sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed.

Responsorial: Psalm 95:10-13

R./: The Lord comes to judge the earth

Proclaim to the nations: ‘God is king.’
The world he made firm in its place;
he will judge the peoples in fairness. (R./)

Let the heavens rejoice and earth be glad.
Let the sea and all within it thunder praise,
let the land and all it bears rejoice,
all the trees of the wood shout for joy
at the presence of the Lord for he comes,
he comes to rule the earth. (R./)

With justice he will rule the world,
he will judge the peoples with his truth. (R./)

Gospel: Mark 11:11-26

The barren fig-tree; the driving out of money-changers

Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see whether perhaps he would find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. He said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard it.

Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves; and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. He was teaching and saying, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer or all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”

And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him; for they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching. And when evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city.

In the morning as they passed by, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. Then Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.” Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you. So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”

“Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive you your trespasses.”

An End and New Beginning

We have been reading from the Baptismal homily attributed to St. Peter with its splendid portrayal of our Christian vocation. Now he offers a startling motivation for staying close to Christ: the end of history is near, and this gives added seriousness to all our efforts to live a good life. “The end of all things is near; therefore be serious and discipline yourselves…” He goes on to highlight the Christian ideal of sharing, as one large family: “Be hospitable to one another… Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received.”

Mark’s story about the cleansing of the temple puts it in some relation to the cursing of the fig tree and its withering away, since the story of the fig tree envelops the other incident. The sandwiching of one event between two halves of another, is a style often found in Mark.

Jesus was doing more than cleansing the temple, for his words, drawn from the Old Testament, announce a new type of temple: “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all people.” In Jerusalem, non-Jews were forbidden under pain of death to advance beyond the outer court of the gentiles, and the Roman authorities ratified this prescription. But Jesus draws from an Old Testament passage (Isaiah, 56) an ideal which had not yet taken root in Israel but which points towards their future. God wants them to live more prayerfully and to allow outsiders a full share in the special Jewish awareness of God’s presence.

Peter warns his readers not to be surprised if they have to face a trial by fire, which may refer to the persecution under Nero. If it should come to that, they still have hope. “Rejoice insofar as you share in Christ’s sufferings.” We can overcome our trials by joining them to the Passion of Christ. No matter what life may send our way, the mercy of Christ is there to help us.

The fig-tree and the temple

Mark often links two things together that for him have something in common. Here he links the purification of the Jerusalem temple with the story of Jesus cursing the fig tree. When he found no fruit on the fig tree, that tree had no future. Mark is implying that since the temple was not bearing its proper fruit it was doomed. Instead of being a house of prayer it had become a robber’s den. Like the fig tree, it too had no future.

Jesus goes on to speak about prayer. The temple will be replaced by a new “house of prayer”, a new kind of faith-community, the worldwide family of those who do the will of God as taught by Jesus, his living church. We are to be a prayerful community, marked by goodwill and forgiveness. A readiness to forgive as we have been forgiven is one of the main fruits God expects to find in a true house of prayer.