Saturday, May 16, 2026
Saturday of the Sixth week of Easter
John 16:23-28
Listen to the whole reading — MP3
First reading
Acts 18:23-28
Having spent some time there, he departed, and went through the region of Galatia, and Phrygia, in order, establishing all the disciples. Now a certain Jew named Apollos, an Alexandrian by race, an eloquent man, came to Ephesus. He was mighty in the Scriptures. This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, although he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside, and explained to him the way of God more accurately. When he had determined to pass over into Achaia, the brothers encouraged him, and wrote to the disciples to receive him. When he had come, he greatly helped those who had believed through grace; for he powerfully refuted the Jews, publicly showing by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.
Gospel
John 16:23-28
“In that day you will ask me no questions. Most certainly I tell you, whatever you may ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now, you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be made full. I have spoken these things to you in figures of speech. But the time is coming when I will no more speak to you in figures of speech, but will tell you plainly about the Father. In that day you will ask in my name; and I don’t say to you, that I will pray to the Father for you, for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me, and have believed that I came from God. I came from the Father, and have come into the world. Again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.”
Lectio
Apollos was already eloquent, already fervent, already mighty in the Scriptures — and yet he did not know everything. It took a married couple, Priscilla and Aquila, to draw him quietly aside and explain the way of God more accurately. There is something tender in this scene: the gifted preacher who still needs forming, and the humble pair willing to teach without humiliating him. Notice they did not correct him in the synagogue, before the crowd. They took him aside. Holiness often arrives through people unimpressive on paper, offered in private, received without defensiveness.
And in the Gospel, Jesus promises a day when we will no longer speak in riddles or strain to reach a distant God. "The Father himself loves you," he says — not as a reward we negotiate, but as a relationship already given because we have loved his Son. This is the deeper accuracy that Apollos still needed and that we still need: not merely correct doctrine about God, but the lived conviction that we are loved by the Father directly, that we may come to him plainly, that our joy is meant to be made full.
There is a movement here from being taught to being intimate, from speaking about God to speaking with him. The disciple grows not by abandoning what he knows but by being drawn into the love that lies beneath it. We are all, in some way, Apollos — gifted in places, incomplete in others, in need of someone gentle enough to show us the way more accurately, and a Father near enough to hear us without an intermediary.
Where in your life are you still speaking "boldly" about something you have not fully let yourself be corrected on — and who is the Priscilla or Aquila God may be sending to draw you aside?
When you pray, do you truly believe that "the Father himself loves you," or do you still approach him as someone you must convince — and what fear keeps you from coming to him plainly today?
Saint of the day
Bl. Vladimir Ghika, Priest and Martyr († 1954)
Ora reads this aloud, every morning, free. Ora