Readings for the Sixth Sunday of Easter - 2026

Collect for the Sixth Sunday of Easter

God our redeemer, you have delivered us from the power of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of your Son; grant, that as by death he has recalled us to life, so by his continual presence in us he may raise us to eternal joy; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for

ever.

Amen

A reading from the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 17, verses 22 to 31

Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely

religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked

carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription,

‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I

proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord

of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he

served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to

all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all nations to

inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the

boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God

and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each

one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of

your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’ Since we are God’s offspring,

we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image

formed by the art and imagination of mortals. While God has overlooked the times

of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because

he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a

man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising

him from the dead.”

A reading from the first letter of Peter, chapter 3, verses 13 to 22

Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? But even if you do

suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do

not be intimidated, but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to

make your defence to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope

that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience

clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good

conduct in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if

suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil. For Christ also

suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring

you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which

also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times

did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building

of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. And

baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you - not as a removal of dirt from the

body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of

Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with

angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.

A reading from the gospel according to John, chapter 14, verses 15 to 21

”If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and

he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth,

whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You

know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. I will not leave you

orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but

you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I

am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments

and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by

my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

Second Collect

God our Father, whose Son Jesus Christ gives the water of

eternal life; may we thirst for you, the spring of life and source of goodness,

through him who is alive and reigns, now and for ever.

Amen