Saturday, May 23, 2026
Saturday of the Seventh week of Easter
John 21:20-25
Listen to the whole reading — MP3
First reading
Acts 28:16-20,30-31
When we entered into Rome, the centurion delivered the prisoners to the captain of the guard, but Paul was allowed to stay by himself with the soldier who guarded him. After three days Paul called together those who were the leaders of the Jews. When they had come together, he said to them, “I, brothers, though I had done nothing against the people, or the customs of our fathers, still was delivered prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans, who, when they had examined me, desired to set me free, because there was no cause of death in me. But when the Jews spoke against it, I was constrained to appeal to Caesar, not that I had anything about which to accuse my nation. For this cause therefore I asked to see you and to speak with you. For because of the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain.” Paul stayed two whole years in his own rented house, and received all who were coming to him, preaching God’s Kingdom, and teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness, without hindrance.
Responsorial psalm
Psalms 11:4,5,7
The Lord is in his holy temple. The Lord is on his throne in heaven. His eyes observe. His eyes examine the children of men. The Lord examines the righteous, but the wicked and him who loves violence his soul hates. For the Lord is righteous. He loves righteousness. The upright shall see his face.
Gospel
John 21:20-25
Then Peter, turning around, saw a disciple following. This was the disciple whom Jesus loved, the one who had also leaned on Jesus’ breast at the supper and asked, “Lord, who is going to betray You?” Peter seeing him, said to Jesus, “Lord, what about this man?” Jesus said to him, “If I desire that he stay until I come, what is that to you? You follow me.” This saying therefore went out among the brothers, that this disciple wouldn’t die. Yet Jesus didn’t say to him that he wouldn’t die, but, “If I desire that he stay until I come, what is that to you?” This is the disciple who testifies about these things, and wrote these things. We know that his witness is true. There are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they would all be written, I suppose that even the world itself wouldn’t have room for the books that would be written.
Lectio
There is something quietly triumphant in how the Acts of the Apostles ends—not with Paul freed, not with his name cleared before Caesar, but with a man in chains still preaching the Kingdom "with all boldness, without hindrance." The hindrance is everywhere: the rented house, the guarding soldier, the years of waiting. And yet none of it can constrain the one thing that matters. Paul has learned to be free inside his circumstances rather than waiting for his circumstances to set him free. The chain that binds him, he says, is the very hope of Israel. He has stopped measuring his life by what has been taken from him.
Jesus offers Peter the same difficult freedom in the Gospel. Peter, having just been entrusted with the flock, turns to look at the beloved disciple and asks the oldest question of the wounded heart: "Lord, what about this man?" Why him and not me? Why his path and not mine? And Jesus does not explain. He only redirects: "What is that to you? You follow me." It is not a rebuke so much as a release. The comparison was always going to torment Peter; the Lord lifts it from his shoulders and hands him back his own road. The Psalm reminds us why this is safe to do—the Lord's eyes examine each of us, intimately and personally. We are not lost in the crowd. He sees the righteous one by one.
Both readings ask us to surrender the same illusion: that freedom and faithfulness depend on having a different life than the one we've been given. Paul preaches from a cell. Peter is told to stop watching the man beside him. The invitation, as Easter draws to its close, is to live the unrepeatable life that is actually ours.
Where in your life right now do you feel constrained—a relationship, a diagnosis, a situation you cannot change—and what might it mean to preach the Kingdom "without hindrance" from inside that very chain, rather than waiting to be free of it first?
Whose path are you secretly comparing to your own, silently asking "Lord, what about this man?"—and what would it free in you today to hear Jesus answer, gently, "What is that to you? You follow me"?
Saint of the day
St. Desiderius, Bishop and Martyr († 608)
Ora reads this aloud, every morning, free. Ora