During the Lenten season, the Church gives great importance to the Word of God, in the faith and hope that its proclamation will lead to conversion. We see this taking place in various ways, for example through Lenten retreats and sermons—offered in different formats according to circumstances—through devotional prayer that contemplates the mystery of Jesus’ Passion and Death for our redemption, and above all through the proclamation of the Word of God during the Liturgy.
If we consider the passages chosen by the Church to be read at Mass, we notice that there are not two weekday cycles for the First Reading (Year I and Year II). Instead, there is a single cycle in which the Old Testament reading is paired with a passage from the Gospel in order to address various themes connected with the spiritual importance of this liturgical season. Then, from the day after the Fourth Sunday of Lent, there is a semi-continuous reading of the Gospel according to Saint John, which leads us in a dramatic way towards the celebration of the Lord’s Passion.
On the Sundays, however, we still have the usual three-year cycle—Years A, B, and C. On the First and Second Sundays we always hear the accounts of the temptations in the desert and of the Transfiguration, taken from the Synoptic Gospels, according to the year in question. But on the three Sundays that follow, in Year A we find three Gospels connected with the celebration of the Scrutinies, which form part of the rites preceding the celebration of the Sacraments of Christian Initiation at the Easter Vigil. From the earliest centuries, for these Sundays the Church chose three accounts from the Holy Gospel according to Saint John through which both those who are preparing for Baptism and the community that will welcome the newly baptised are led more deeply into the heart of the mystery of these sacraments, by which we are united to Christ who died and rose again.
Therefore, as we are in Year A, on the Third Sunday we hear proclaimed the Gospel of the Samaritan woman, in which Christ is revealed as the living water; on the Fourth Sunday, the account of the man born blind, during which Christ shows himself as the true Light; and finally, on the Fifth Sunday, the account of the raising of Lazarus, as an image of how Christ grants new life through Baptism.