Daily TV Mass Monday March 23, 2026

Fr. Gustave Ineza, OP

Transcript

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From the historic Loreto Abbey Chapel. With the kind cooperation of the Toronto Catholic District School Board, the National Catholic Broadcasting Council presented. The Daily TV Mass.

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Welcome to the celebration of the Daily TV Mass. I am Father Gustave Ineza. The devising of this Mass is made possible by the contributions from three donors. The first is Irene Remedios from Scarborough, Ontario, for the reports of the soul of her husband Albert, for her personal intentions, and for family members to strengthen their faith. The second is the Gomez family from Scarborough, Ontario, in the memory of Tony Gomez on the seventh anniversary of his passing in 2019, and for the living and deceased members of the Gomez and D'Souza families. In thanksgiving for blessings received and for the souls in purgatory who have no one to pray for them. The third is in remembrance of Greta and Godfrey Degas offered by their children. May their souls and the souls of all the faithful who departed through the mercy of God rest in peace. Our thanks to our donors for the gift of this mass. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

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And in the Holy Spirit.

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Dear brothers and sisters, let us entrust ourselves to God, acknowledging that we need God's presence in our lives and God's mercy. Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy. May the mighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life.

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Amen.

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Let us pray. Oh God, by whose wondrous grace we are enriched with every blessing. Grant us so to pass from former ways to newness of life, that we may be made ready for the glory of the heavenly kingdom. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever.

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Amen.

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A reading from the book of the Prophet Daniel. Joachim married the daughter of Hilkiah named Susanna, a very beautiful woman, and one who feared the Lord. Joachim was very rich and had a fine garden adjoining his house. The Jews used to come to him because he was a most honored of them all. That year, two elders from the people were appointed as judges. These men were frequently at Joachim's house. Every day the two elders used to see Susanna going in and walking about the garden, and they began to lust for her. Once, while they were watching for an opportune day, Susanna went in as before with only two maids, and wished to bathe in the garden, for it was a hot day. No one was there except the two elders, who had hidden themselves and were watching her. When the maids had gone out, the two elders got up and ran to her. They said, We are burning with desire for you, so give your consent and lie with us. Then Susanna cried out with a loud voice and said, O eternal God, you know what is secret and are aware of all things before they come to be. You know that these men have given false evidence against me, and now I am to die, though I have done none of the wicked things that they have charged against me. The Lord heard her cry, just as she was being led off to execution. God stirred up the Holy Spirit of a young lad named Daniel, and he shouted with a loud voice, I want no part in shedding this woman's blood. Taking a stand among the people, he said, Are you such fools, O Israelites, as to condemn a daughter of Israel without examination and without learning the facts? Return to courts, for these men have given false evidence against her. So all the people hurried back, and the rest of the elders said to him, Come, sit among us and inform us, for God has given you the standing of an elder. Daniel said to them, Separate the men far from each other, and I will examine them. When they were separated from each other, he summoned one of them and said to him, You old relic of wicked days, your sins have now come home, which you have committed in the past, pronouncing unjust judgments, condemning the innocent, and acquitting the guilty. Though the Lord said, You shall not put an innocent and righteous person to death. Now then, if you really saw this woman, tell me this. Under what tree did you see them being intimate with each other? He answered, Under a mastic tree. And Daniel said, Very well, this lie has cost you your head, for the angel of God has received the sentence from God and will immediately cut you in two. Then, putting him to one side, he ordered them to bring the other. And he said to him, You offspring of Canaan, and not of Judah, beauty has beguiled you, and lust has perverted your heart. This is how you have been treating the daughters of Israel. And they were intimate with you through fear. But a daughter of Judah would not tolerate your wickedness. Now then, tell me, under what tree did you catch them being intimate with each other? He answered, Under an evergreen oak. Daniel said to him, Very well, this lie has cost you your head, for the angel of God is waiting with his sword to split you in two. So as to destroy you both. Then the whole assembly raised a great shout, and bless God who saves those who hope in him. And they took action against the two elders, because out of their own mouths Daniel had convicted them of bearing false witness. They did to them as they had wickedly planned to do to their neighbor. Acting in accordance with the law of Moses, they put them to death. Thus, innocent blood was spared that day. Hilkiah and his wife praised God for their daughter Susanna, and so did her husband Joachim and all her relatives. And from that day onward, Daniel had a great reputation among the people.

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For you are with me. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. Though I walk in the valley of darkness, I feel no evil, for you are with me. He leads me in the right paths for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valleys, I feel no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff they comfort me. Though I walk in the valley of darkness, I feel no evil for you are with me. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ, King of Endless Gory. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ, King of endless glory. I do not wish the sinner to die, says the Lord, but to turn to me and live. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ, King of Endless Glory.

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Everything from the Holy Gospel according to John. Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning, he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and making us stand before all of them, they said to him, Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now, in the law of Moses, he commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say? They said these to test him so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her. And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning by the elders. And Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus straightened up and said to her, Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? She said, No answer. And Jesus said, Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again. The Gospel of the Lord.

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Praise you, Lord Jesus Christ.

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Dear sisters and brothers, today's passage from the Gospel of John has been acknowledged to be a special passage. The biblical scholar Moody Smith explained that the story of the woman caught in adultery was likely not part of the original Gospel of John, since the oldest manuscripts or the copies did not have it. Scholars point out that the style, the language, and the vocabulary of this passage are quite different from the rest of John's writings. The story also follows the pattern often found in the synoptic Gospels like Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And during the 16th century, Catholic and Protestant scholars noticed this absence while they were going back to the early texts written in Greek, wanting to move away from the Latin translation by Saint Jerome. You see the same pattern in this Gospel, and it is not similar to the rest of the Gospel of John. In this gospel, a woman accused of adultery is brought to Jesus in a trap set by her accusers. At the time, a married woman was seen as her husband's property, and adultery brought shame on him. The accusers refer to the law of Moses, which is found in the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 22, verse 22 to 23, which they claimed required stunning, though such punishments had not been carried out for centuries. And Jewish leaders under Roman rule could not legally impose the death penalty. You know what happened when Jesus was brought to the high priest. They had to take him to Pontius Pilate because they did not have the right to kill him. So they hope to force Jesus into choosing between breaking Roman law or rejecting Moses' law. Instead of answering directly, Jesus bends down and writes on the ground a mysterious gesture that may recur when God was writing the commandments. He then says that whoever is without sin should throw the first stone. Since the law required that those who are accusing should be also the first one to give the punishment, no one was left to punish the woman because those who brought her had left. Over the centuries, some important Christian thinkers wrote about women in ways that remind us of this story of what we read in the first reading. People like Tertullian understood women as the occasion of sin and temptation. Even St. Augustine, at some point, he focused too much on their sexual aspect and their bodies, which some did not find very appropriate. Thomas Aquinas, following the ancient biology, described them as weak, and many others did not really give them the space they should have. So we understand that for centuries women were not treated as full human beings. These ideas were reinforced by certain patterns in our cultures, associating women more with the body than with reason, fearing women's sexuality, and assuming women were more naturally less capable, even when not meant to harm. These views often justified limiting women's role in society and in the church. When we place this story beside John chapter 8, the story of the woman caught in adultery, we see a striking difference in Jesus' attitude. The woman is dragged forward as an object of shame, while the men who sinned with her remain invisible. Jesus refuses to join the crowd's moral judgment. Instead, he protects her dignity, challenges the hypocrisy of her accusers, and he speaks to her as a moral subject capable of conversion. Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more. This gospel, dear brothers and sisters, reminds us that Christ does not reduce people to their sin, nor does he treat women as symbols of temptation. He restores dignity, responsibility, and hope. And modern Christian thinkers have increasingly tried to return to seeing women as full persons, called to holiness and freedom as men. So, dear brothers and sisters, today's gospel passage ultimately calls the church not only to admire Jesus' mercy, but to imitate it. If Christ defends the dignity of a woman publicly, shamed, and refuses to define her by her sin, then we too must examine the ways our words, attitudes, and structures may have become burdens to women. So the gospel does not erase moral responsibility, but it always restores the person before judging the fault. Let us do like Jesus, not show our insecurities, and let us see our sisters and our mothers as full human beings. Let us try to see that people's sufferings and weights are much bigger than their sins. Amen. Now let us bring our prayers to God. For all those in our Daily TV Mass Prayer Intentions book, we pray to the Lord. This month's community prayer is for fathers, grandfathers, and protectors that they may lead with wisdom and humility, inspired by the quiet faith of Saint Joseph. We pray to the Lord. All these prayers and the prayers that we keep in our hearts, we bring them to God and we ask God to grant them through Christ our Lord. Let us pray. Grant we pray, O Lord, that preparing to celebrate the holy mysteries, we may bring before you as the fruit of bodily penance a joyful purity of heart through Christ our Lord.

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Amen.

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The Lord be with you.

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And with your spirit.

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Lift up your hearts. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is right and just truly right and just our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere, to give you thanks, Lord the Holy Father, Almighty and Eternal God. For through the saving passion of your Son, the whole world has received the heart to confess the infinite power of your majesty. Since by the wondrous power of the cross, your judgment on the world is now revealed and the authority of Christ crucified. And so, Lord, with all the angels and saints, we to give you thanks, as in exaltation we acclaim.

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Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of all sheaven and earth your glory.

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You are indeed holy, O Lord, the fount of all holiness. Make holy therefore these gifts we pray by sending down your spirit upon them like the dew for, so that they may become for us the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. At the time he was betrayed and entered willing into his passion, he took bread, and giving thanks broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, Take these all of you and eat of it, for this is my body which will be given up for you. In a similar way, when supper was ended, he took the chalice, and once more giving thanks, he gave it to his disciples, saying, Take these all of you and drink from it, for this is the chalice of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do these in memory of me. The mystery of faith.

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We proclaim your death, O Lord, and profess your resurrection until you come again.

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Therefore, as we celebrate the memory of his death and resurrection, we offer you, Lord, the bread of life and the charities of salvation, giving thanks that you have heard us worthy to be in your presence and minister to you. Humbly pray that partaking of the body and blood of Christ, we may be gathered into one by the Holy Spirit. Remember, Lord, your church, spread throughout the world, and bring us to the fullness of charity, together with Leo, our Pope, and Francis, our bishop, and all the clergy. Remember also our brothers and sisters who have fallen asleep in the hope of the resurrection, and all have died in your mercy. Welcome them into the light of your face. Have mercy on us all, we pray that with the blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, with Blessed Joseph our spouse, with the blessed apostles, and all the saints who are pleased you throughout the ages, we may merit to be coherent to eternal life and may praise and glorify you through your Son, Jesus Christ. Through him and with him and in him. O God, Almighty Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, our glory and honor is yours forever and ever.

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Amen.

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At the Savior's command and formed by divine teaching, we dare to say, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy kingdom come. Thou will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses.

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As we forgive those who trespass against us.

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And lead us not to be temptation, but deliver us from evil.

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Deliver us, Lord, we pray from every evil, graciously grant peace in our days. That by the help of your mercy we may be always free from sin and safe from all distress, as we await the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ.

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The kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and forever.

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Lord Jesus Christ, who said to your apostles, peace I leave you, my peace I give you. Look not on our sins, but on the faith of your church, and graciously go and have peace and unity in accordance with your will, who live and reign forever and ever. Amen. The peace of the Lord be with you always.

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And with your spirit.

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Let us offer each other the sign of peace.

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Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world. Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world.

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Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world. Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb. Lord, I'm not worthy that you should enter under my word.

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My Jesus, I believe that you are present in this holy sacrament of the altar. I love you above all things, and I passionately desire to receive you into my soul. Since I cannot now receive you sacramentally, come spiritually into my soul, so that I may unite myself wholly to you now and forever. Amen.

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Strengthened by the blessing of your sacraments, we pray, O Lord, that through them we may constantly be cleansed of our faults and by following Christ hasten our steps upward toward you through Christ our Lord.

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Amen.

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The Lord be with you.

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And with the Holy Spirit.

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May the Almighty God bless you, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Our Mass is ended. Let us go and glorify the Lord by our lives.

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And speak to God.

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Our thanks to our donors for the gift of this Mass.