Invitation
May I hereby draw your attention to
the daily reading of the Gospel?
This invitation wants to share with You the joy
of the Gospel. Everyone, no one excepted,
can experience that joy by opening their hearts
to the healing power of God’s word.
Available every day
Consideration
The Lord extends a warm welcome to us all.
In this time of ‘joyful expectation’ – Advent –
the birth of the Long-awaited One is announced to us today.
Let us joyfully look forward to his coming in the midst of us.
Do we now first turn to the Lord with an Advent heart
and humbly ask Him for mercy.
FIRST READING Isa. 7:10-14
Behold, the virgin will receive.
In those days Isaiah spoke to Achaz:
“Ask the LORD your God for a sign,
either high in heaven or deep in hell.”
But Achaz replied:
“I am not asking for a sign.
I don’t want to test the LORD.” And Isaiah spoke:
“Listen then, house of David,
is it not enough for you to annoy people,
that ye also desire to annoy my God?
Therefore the LORD also gives you an unsolicited sign:
Behold, the young woman shall conceive and bear a son,
and she shall name him “Immanuel”: “God with us”.
Responsorial Ps. 24 (23), 1-2, 3-4ab, 5-6
Refrain
Open the gates to the king of glory.
To God belongs the earth and all that is upon it,
the globe and all that dwells therein;
for He founded her on the water,
established her on the sea.
Who shall ascend the mountain of the Lord,
who shall stand in his sanctuary?
Who is pure of hands and pure of heart,
sets not his sights on what is evil.
He will be blessed by the Lord,
justified by God, his salvation.
So does the generation that turns to Him,
that stands before the face of Jacob’s God.
SECOND READING Rom. 1:1-7
Jesus Christ of the lineage of David, is the Son of God.
Beginning of the holy apostle Paul’s letter to the Christians of Rome
From Paul, servant of Christ Jesus,
by God’s calling apostle,
destined to the service of the gospel,
which God in former times through his prophets
announced in the holy scriptures.
It is the message about his Son,
who was born to the flesh of the lineage of David,
who according to the Holy Spirit
is designated as the Son of God
by God’s mighty act,
by his resurrection from the dead,
Jesus Christ our Lord.
Through Him I have received the grace of apostleship,
in honour of His name
among all nations
bring people to the obedience of faith.
You too belong to them, called as you are by God
to the fellowship of Jesus Christ.
I send my greetings to all of you in Rome:
God loves you
and called you to his holy congregation.
Grace and peace to you
because of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!
Verse for the gospel Mt 1, 23
Alleluia.
Behold, the Virgin will conceive
and bring a Son into the world.
And they will give Him the name Immanuel: God with us.
Alleluia.
GOSPEL Mt 1:18-24
Jesus was born of Mary, the betrothed of Joseph, son of David.
From the holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew
The birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way.
When his mother Mary was engaged to Joseph,
she, before they went to live together,
pregnant with the Holy Spirit.
Because Joseph, her husband, was righteous
and did not want to compromise her,
he considered
divorcing her quietly.
While he was contemplating this,
an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream
who spoke to him:
“Joseph, son of David,
do not be afraid to take Mary, your wife, to yourself;
the child in her womb is of the Holy Spirit.
She will give birth to a son whom you must name Jesus,
for He will save His people from their sins.”
All this was done so that it might be fulfilled
what the Lord spoke through the prophet, saying:
“Behold, the virgin shall conceive
and give birth to a son
and they will give Him the name Immanuel.”
That is in translation:
God with us.
Awakened from sleep
joseph did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him
and took his wife to himself.
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Laudato Si
Encyclical of
POPE FRANCISCUS
On caring for the common home
221. Some convictions of our faith, described at the beginning of this
encyclica, help us come to conversion. I mention the
awareness that every creature reflects something of God and us a message
brings, or the certainty that Christ has taken this material world into himself
and now, as Risen Lord, dwells in the innermost being of
every being and surrounds it with His affection and permeates it with His
light. As well as the recognition that God created the world and placed in it
an order and dynamism that man is not entitled to
ignore. When someone reads in the gospel that Jesus speaks of the
birds and says that “surely God does not forget any of them” (Luke 12:6), will he
then be able to treat them badly and do harm? I invite all
christians to make explicit this dimension of their own conversion
in that they involve the power and light of the grace received also
to their relationship with other creatures and the world around them and the
exalted brotherhood with all creation that the
St Francis of Assisi lived in such a luminous way.
To be continued
Every day at 1 am
The Bible text in this edition is taken from The New Bible Translation,
©Dutch Bible Society 2004/2007.
Considerations from Liturgical suggestions for weekdays and Sundays
Laudato Si Official English translation
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