Invitation
May I hereby draw your attention to
the daily reading of the gospel?
This invitation wants to share the joy of the Gospel with you.
Everyone, no one excepted,
can experience this joy by opening their hearts
to the healing effect of God’s word.
Available every day
Opening word
After four weeks of Advent, we will celebrate the full light.
For three weeks we will joyfully celebrate the birth of the Lord.
After all, inexhaustibly rich is the miracle
that God has revealed himself in a vulnerable human child.
Not only then in the first silent Christmas night,
but also today God wants to dwell among all people of good will.
So many people hope for light in the darkness
and look longingly for a message of peace and joy.
Let us be strongly united with them today
and celebrate Christmas full of joy and hope.
FIRST READING Isaiah 52:7-10
All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.
From the prophet Isaiah
How lovely are the feet of the messenger of joy on the mountains,
who announces peace,
who proclaims good news,
who comes to proclaim salvation,
who says to Zion: Thy God reigns!
Hear!
Your tower watchers raise their voices,
they rejoice at the same time
for they see, face to face,
the Lord’s return to Zion.
Break out in jubilation, all together,
the ruins of Jerusalem,
for the Lord has comforted his people;
He has redeemed Jerusalem.
The Lord has bared his holy arm
before the eyes of all nations;
and all the ends of the earth
have beheld the salvation of our God.
INTERLUDIUM 98(97), 1, 2-3ab, 3cd-4, 5-6
Refrain
All the earth has beheld
what our God did for us.
Sing to the Lord a new song
for he has done wonders.
His hand was strong,
the strength of his holy arm.
The Lord revealed his salvation,
He showed justice to the nations.
He remained mindful of His mercy,
His faithfulness to the house of Israel.
All the earth saw
what our God did for us.
Glorify the Lord, all nations,
be glad, rejoice and sing.
Sing to the Lord with the zither,
with the zither and the psalterium.
Let the trumpet and the trombone sound
and dance before the Lord, your king.
SECOND READING Heb 1:1-6
God has spoken to us through the Son.
From the letter to the Hebrews
Brothers and sisters,
After God had spoken,
many times and in many different ways
to our fathers through the prophets,
he has now, at the end of the age
spoken to us through the Son,
whom He has made heir to all that exists
and through whom He created the universe.
He is the radiance of God’s glory
and the image of His being.
He sustains everything by His mighty word,
and after He accomplished the cleansing of sins
he has prostrated Himself
at the right hand of the Majesty on earth,
far exalted above the angels,
as He also surpasses them
in the dignity that has fallen to Him.
Did God ever say to an angel:
“Thou art my Son;
I have begotten thee this day?” Or :
“I will be a father to him, and he shall be my son?”
But when He
leads the Firstborn back into the world, He says:
“All the angels of God must give glory to Him.”
Verse for the Gospel
Alleluia.
We stand in the full light of this holy day:
Come, let us worship the Lord.
For today a great light has come down to earth.
Alleluia.
GOSPEL Jn 1:1-18
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
Beginning of the holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to
John
In the beginning was the Word
and the Word was with God
and the Word was God.
This was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by Him
and without Him nothing has become
of what has become.
In Him was life
and that life was the light of men.
And the light shone in the darkness
but the darkness did not accept it.
A man stood up, a sent one from God;
his name was John.
He came to bear witness,
to bear witness to the light
so that all might come to faith through him.
Not he was the light
but he was to be a witness to the light.
The true light,
which illuminates every human being,
came into the world.
He was in the world;
the world had become through Him
and yet the world did not recognise Him.
He came into His own, but His own people did not accept Him.
To all, however, who did accept Him,
those who believe in His name
he gave the ability
to become children of God;
they are not of blood
nor of the lust of the flesh
or the will of man,
but born of God.
The Word became flesh
and dwelt among us.
We beheld His glory,
a glory
as the Only-begotten receives from the Father,
full of grace and truth.
We have John’s testimony about Him when he exclaimed:
“It was He of whom I said:
He who comes after me is before me,
for He was before me.”
Of His fullness we have all received;
grace upon grace.
If the Law was given through Moses,
came grace and truth through Jesus Christ.
No one has ever seen God;
the only-begotten Son
who is in the bosom of the Father,
He has made Him known.
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Laudato Si
Encyclical of
POPE FRANCISCUS
On caring for the common home
225. On the other hand, no one can mature into happy sobriety if he
is not at peace with himself. And a right understanding of spirituality
consists in part in expanding our understanding of peace, which
is much more than absence of war. A person’s inner peace
is closely linked to concern for ecology and the common good,
because, when authentically lived, it is reflected in a balanced
lifestyle associated with a capacity for wonder
that leads to a depth of life. Nature is full of words of
love, but how will we be able to listen to it amidst
constant noise, constant and desire-inducing scattering or the
cult of appearances? Many people experience a profound lack of
balance that drives them to run past themselves just to be active
in a constant rush that in turn leads them to run over everything that
surrounds them. This affects the way people interact with the
environment. An integral ecology requires taking time to
restore a serene harmony with creation, to reflect on
our lifestyle and ideals, to contemplate the Creator who, among us
and in that which surrounds us, lives and whose presence “must not be
be manufactured, but must be discovered and revealed”.
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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