FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT
22 December 2024
LECTIONARY READINGS
First reading: Micah 5:1-4
Responsorial psalm: Psalm 79(80):2-3, 15-16, 18-19
Second reading: Hebrews 10:5-10
Gospel: Luke 1:39-44
Link to readings
Today’s Scripture readings bring us at last to the threshold of Jesus’ birth. The First Reading, from the prophet Micah, 5:1-4, is famous for designating Bethlehem as the place of the Messiah’s birth. The early Christians found it rich with pointers to what they believed God had done in Christ: salvation coming from what is ‘least’ in human terms; the sense of the ‘ruler’ to be born ‘out of her’ who, in contrast to most of the rulers of the time, will be a ‘shepherd’ who will feed his flock (a theme picked up in the Responsorial Psalm). Finally, there is the pledge that his rule will be synonymous with ‘peace’, something that the angels will echo when they announce the birth of a Saviour to the shepherds of Bethlehem (Luke 2:14).
The Second Reading, from Hebrews 10:5-10, stresses the superiority and effectiveness of what Christ has achieved, in comparison with the sacrificial ritual of the old covenant. To bring this out the writer appeals to a passage from one of the psalms (Ps 40 [39]:7-9). This makes the point that what God wants from worshippers is not so much material sacrifices – holocausts of animals and the like – as an inward commitment to do God’s will. The text of Hebrews exploits a curious variant featured, it would seem, in the author’s copy of the Greek version of the psalm. Instead of reading ‘ears you have opened for me’, as in the Hebrew original, it reads: ‘a body you have prepared for me’. This makes the psalm all the more applicable to Christ in that it perfectly describes the obedience with which he offered up his body to death on Calvary.
Along with this, the Advent setting invites us to hear in the phrase, ‘You ... prepared a body for me’, a reference to the Incarnation, about to become manifest in the birth of the Lord. The human life of Jesus, from its very first moment to its end on Calvary, will be a continual act of bodily obedience offered for the salvation of the world.
FAITH OVERFLOWS
The Gospel, Luke 1:39-45, at last brings us to the major players in the story of Jesus’ birth. Presuming our knowledge of the Annunciation to Mary, it describes the meeting between Mary and her cousin, Elizabeth. In this ‘Visitation’ story, the two women share their remarkable experience. As their two stories come together, faith overflows in new insight, knowledge and celebration.
Mary has surrendered in faith and obedience to the extraordinary role that Gabriel has announced to her. In faith, too, she has obeyed the angel’s additional command to go and seek out the ‘sign’ to be seen in the pregnancy, at an advanced age, of her cousin Elizabeth. Biblical faith does not presuppose signs already given: it acts, goes on its journey, and then discovers signs that confirm what has been believed. This is how Elizabeth’s pregnancy functions for Mary. This lesser wonder brought about by God’s power (the conception of a child to parents of advanced years) confirms her faith in the far greater marvel: that with God’s Spirit replacing the role of male parent she is to become the mother of her people’s Messiah.
The account makes much of Mary’s greeting, which in the language of the time, would have been ‘Peace’ (Shalom). Mary brings the ‘peace’ that is to characterise the messianic age. As soon as she utters this messianic greeting, Elizabeth experiences the infant John within her womb leaping with ‘messianic’ joy. The Baptist is already exercising his role of pointing to the presence of the Messiah. Hence Elizabeth confirms what Mary has hitherto simply believed: that she is indeed pregnant with the infant Messiah whose role and destiny Gabriel had announced. She now has the ‘sign’ that she was sent to find.
BLESSED IS SHE WHO BELIEVED
It is important to note Elizabeth’s insistence that Mary is ‘blessed’, not simply because she is ‘the mother of my Lord’, but because of her faith: ‘Blessed is she who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled’. What Mary had to believe far outstripped the faith required of Zechariah. Her faith was the essential channel through which salvation would flow into the world. It is people of faith who open up the world to God’s power. All the scriptural promises heard through Advent come to their point of focus in the faith of Mary, the beginning and the model of all subsequent Christian believing.
This presentation of Mary as a paramount example of faith goes along with the decision of the Second Vatican Council not to devote a separate schema to her but rather to place her within the great Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium (§§52-69), signifying her role as the Mother of the Church’s faith.
Christmas Midnight Mass
25 December 2024
LECTIONARY READINGS
First reading: Isaiah 9:1-7
Responsorial Psalm: 95(96):1-3,11-13
Second reading: Titus 2:11-14
Gospel: Luke 2:1-14
Link to readings
Understandably, the Lectionary offers a rich selection of Scriptural texts for this midnight celebration of Christ’s birth, perhaps the most loved of the entire year.
The magnificent passage from Isaiah that forms the First Reading, Isa 9:1-17, seems in its original context to be a poem celebrating the birth of a prince to the ruling house of David. In a situation where the fortunes of the people have sunk very low, the birth of a male heir gives rise to hopes for a future that will recall the glories of the original kingdom of David and Solomon. The series of remarkable titles bestowed upon the prince reflect the sense of closeness to divinity attributed to rulers in the Ancient Near East. Attributed to Jesus Christ in light of the later belief in his unique status and role, the titles attain a whole new meaning. As divine Wisdom he is “wonderful Counsellor”; he is “mighty God”, “Father of the world to come”, “Prince of (everlasting) peace”.
SACRED HISTORY
The beginning of the account of Jesus’ birth that forms the Gospel, Luke 2:1-14 (20 [see below]), reflects Luke’s concern always to relate “sacred history” (the saving events of Jesus’ life) to concrete historical circumstances. The Roman emperor Caesar Augustus, ruler of the sole superpower of the time, has decreed a universal census. Along with countless other subjects of Rome, the family of Jesus has to submit to this requirement. No matter! The grave inconvenience for Joseph and Mary is all gathered into a divine plan. The census means that Jesus will be born where Israel’s Messiah should be born: in David’s city, Bethlehem.
Almost but not quite! There is no room for Joseph and Mary in the town caravansary, the place where travellers would typically find lodging (“Caravansary” rather than, as traditionally, “inn”, better translates the Greek word katalyma). So Mary gives birth to her child outside the town, the added detail about laying him in a manger suggesting a barn or stall for the housing of animals. Wrapping a new-born child in “bands of cloth” (“swaddling cloths”) is what any careful Palestinian mother would do. The details convey the sense that this royal child, son of David (and indeed, as we know [Luke 1:32-35]) “Son of God”) shares from the first moments of his life, the common lot of humankind. His birth takes place on the margins of society, beginning a pattern to be repeated over and over in his life and ministry.
BRINGER OF PEACE
The marginal situation of Jesus’ birth renders it accessible to a group particularly on the margins of society themselves. The shepherds of Bethlehem are the first of the “poor” to whom, the scriptural promises (Isa 61:1) of the “good news” of the Saviour’s birth is announced.
Like Mary herself (1:27), they initially take fright at the heavenly apparition. They are reassured. What they hear is a message “of great joy for all the people (see the First Reading): the birth of a “Saviour, who is Christ the Lord”. In the Greco-Roman world “saviour” was a title bestowed upon kings and rulers who brought peace and prosperity to their realms. In particular, the emperor Augustus, in whose reign Jesus was born, was acclaimed paradigm “Saviour” because his rule had brought peace – or at least the absence of war – to the entire world. Now, in the brief Gloria canticle, a multitude of the heavenly army signal the birth of a Saviour bringing peace of a different kind:
Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace
to those who enjoy God’s favour.
The Gospel is not setting Jesus as Saviour over against the civil power (Rome) in a hostile sense. But by placing the birth of Jesus within this context, it claims the notions of salvation and peace for the divine project now underway. The true peace for which the world longs can only flow from the divine favour that the ministry of Jesus will proclaim.
The final phrase does not suggest, in a restrictive sense, that some will “enjoy God’s favour” and others not. It expresses the divine initiative. God’s favour is poured out on the entire world, but only those who have the faith to believe that God is so gracious will enjoy its benefits to the full.
IN SEARCH OF A SIGN
Like Mary, the shepherds are told to go in search of a sign: a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger (v. 12). The sign describes something unusual but not in itself remarkable — in the way, for instance, that the pregnancy of the aged and hitherto barren Elizabeth was remarkable. But when the shepherds — again like Mary (1:39) — go “with haste” to Bethlehem and find the child lying in the manger exactly as they had been told by the angels, the coherence of reality with promise becomes for them “knowledge of salvation’.
(In fact, the Gospel reading set down for the Midnight Mass stops at v. 14; it does not include, therefore, the shepherds’ discovery of the “sign” when they make their way to Bethlehem and find the child in the manger [vv. 15-20]. This curtailing of the reading at v. 14 is unfortunate. I would strongly recommend that the Gospel reading includes this final element — something that the congregation, especially the children (!), will be looking forward to with considerable expectation).
In this way, the shepherds join Zechariah and Mary in modelling the reception of salvation as Luke understands it. One can experience salvation before receiving all the promised blessings. To see that the gap between promise and reality has been overcome in some lesser way gives confidence that God will in due course faithfully bring to pass the full measure. This is what the canticles of Mary and Zechariah affirm and what the shepherds also acknowledge when they return “glorifying and praising God” (v. 20). Salvation, then, has essentially to do with a sense that God is faithful. It connotes, to be sure, the attainment of eternal life. But it begins when people discern instances of God’s faithfulness in their lives. These instances then become “signs” of a more complete measure of salvation to come.
SENSE OF SALVATION
The Second Reading, from Paul’s Letter to Titus (2:11-14) picks up this sense of the salvation already revealed in the appearance of the Son of God in human form as a sign and pledge of a salvation made “possible for the whole human race”. So the Apostle reminds Titus of how the lives of believers should be transformed by the hope for the (second) appearing of “our great God and saviour Jesus Christ”, one of the rare instances in the New Testament where Jesus Christ is explicitly termed “God”. While we celebrate this evening the first “appearance” of our Saviour, we do not lose sight of the fullness of salvation. of which it is the pledge.
FEAST OF THE HOLY FAMILY YEAR C
29 December 2024
Lectionary readings
First reading: 1 Samuel 1:20-22, 24-28
Responsorial psalm: Ps 83(84):2-3, 5-6, 9-10
Second reading: 1 John 3:1-2, 21-24
Gospel: Luke 2:41-52
Link to readings
In respect to the family the New Testament shows a decided ambiguity. Documents that stem from the developed Christian tradition, such as the Pastoral Letters and the excerpt from the Letter to the Colossians included as the Second Reading for today, commend family life in a highly traditional way. The Synoptic tradition, however, with its roots in the teaching and practice of Jesus himself, insists that family ties can be a hindrance to following the call of the Kingdom. Did not Jesus say that no one could be his disciple without ‘hating’ one’s father, mother, wife, children, brothers and sisters’ (Luke 14:26)? Of course, such statements need not be taken at face value: Semitic idiom uses ‘love’ and ‘hate’ simply to express a preference for one thing over another. Still the ambiguity remains.
But the task of finding some relevance to current family life is at least easier this year when the Year C readings for the feast of the Holy Family have as Gospel reading Luke’s account of the loss and finding of Jesus in the Temple when he was twelve years of age (2:41-52). This offers what might seem to be a more realistic view of family life. Though part of the Luke’s Infancy Story, it presents Jesus no longer as a passive infant but as a young adolescent beginning to grasp, at this age, his adult identity.
ELEMENT OF MISUNDERSTANDING
Luke tells the story in a way that brings out very strongly the element of misunderstanding between the boy and his parents. Jesus’ response to his mother’s complaint (‘My child, why have you done this to us? See how worried your father and I have been looking for you’) reflects adolescent impatience: ‘Why were you searching for me? Did you not know I must be about my Father’s business?’ (or ‘in my Father’s house’ but ‘business’ seems more appropriate). On Mary’s lips, ‘father’ refers to her husband, Joseph. But Jesus is speaking of his Father in heaven. Into their tranquil family life bursts a sharp reminder of his true status as unique Son of God and of the destiny – the Father’s ‘business’ – to which they are going to have to surrender him. This surrender, beginning here and now and culminating at the cross, is the ‘sword’ that will pierce Mary’s heart, as the aged Simeon has prophesied at the Presentation (2:35).
It would be trite simply to say that here we see that the Holy Family was not immune to the trials of children going adolescence – though, of course, some comfort can be drawn from that. The Gospel is bringing out the uniqueness of Jesus as well as his identification with the ordinary human condition. ‘His Father’s business’, which will ultimately involve a very painful destiny indeed, is his mission to draw the entire human race back into a ‘family’ relationship with God that it had lost through sin.
PICTURE OF GOD
No image of God or of the relationship God wishes to have with us is ever adequate. But we do have to picture God in human terms and the ‘family’ image is the one that Jesus left us. He taught his disciples to pray, ‘Our Father, . . .’ (Matt 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4) and, as Paul says, his Spirit comes into our hearts crying ‘Abba, Father’ (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6), impelling us, that is, to address God with the familial intimacy characteristic of Jesus – something that impressed the early believers so much that they preserved the address in the original Aramaic.
Jesus said of those who hear the word of God and keep it that they are ‘my father and mother and sister and brother’ (Luke 8:21). Here, in the truth that Jesus draws us into his own divine family life, lies the foundation for the dignity of all family life. But growing into Christian adulthood is perhaps no easier than growing into human adulthood and no less immune to the trials all growth entails. Each of us is called to discover and ‘be about’ our Father’s business in our own unique way.
The Epiphany of The Lord Year C
5 January 2025
LECTIONARY READINGS
First reading: Isaiah 60:1-6
Responsorial Psalm: 71(72):1-2, 7-8, 10-13
Second reading: Ephesians 3:2-3, 5-6
Gospel: Matthew 2:1-12
Link to readings
The ancient Feast of the Epiphany celebrates the fact that Israel’s Messiah is also the Saviour of the entire world. We believers of later generations take this for granted. But it is clear that for the earliest Christians of non-Jewish (“Gentile”) origin it was a source of immense wonder and gratitude. The passage from Ephesians (3:2-3, 5-6) read as today’s Second Reading speaks of it as a great “mystery” that Paul himself came to know by revelation (cf. Gal 1:16), before becoming, as Apostle to the Gentiles, the principal instrument of its realisation.
Faced with this “mystery” of the extraordinary richness and scope of God’s salvation, the early Christians sought to find some foretelling of it in the Scriptures of Israel. The Book of Isaiah, more especially, the oracles of the post-exilic prophet(s) we hear in chapters 40-66, proved a rich mine for this purpose. The prophecies feature the kind of inclusive vision that emerges so magnificently from the text set for today’s First Reading (Isa 60:1-6). It has clearly influenced Matthew’s account of the coming of the Wise Men, which forms the Gospel.
BREAK OF DAWN
The reading from Isaiah addresses the holy city, Jerusalem. The image seems to be that of the break of dawn. All around, in the valleys, is darkness (“night still covers the earth and darkness the peoples”). But the highly elevated city of Jerusalem is beginning to catch the rays of the rising sun, a magnificent illumination identified with the “glory of the Lord”. At this, the nations begin streaming to Jerusalem, bringing their riches to the God of Israel.
Providing the Gospel for today’s Feast, the story of the coming of the Wise Men (“magi”) from the East (Matt 2:1-12) catches up and expands upon this vision. It is interesting that Matthew’s gospel, so much at pains as it is to portray Jesus in Jewish light, lets this pilgrimage from the Gentile world dominate the story of Jesus’ childhood. Matthew’s gospel will conclude on the same note when, standing on a mountain, clad with all authority in heaven and on earth, the risen Lord commissions his disciples to go and “make disciples of all nations, ...” (28:16-20).
There are so many ways to draw rich reflections from the coming of the Wise Men. I think it is important to bring out the blend between pagan wisdom and (Jewish) scribal information that led them to the Saviour. Their own natural gifts, the wisdom of their people and their scientific investigations (astronomy) have impelled their quest. With many peoples in the ancient world they shared a belief that the birth of persons destined for greatness, especially as rulers, was signalled by extraordinary manifestations in the heavens. So they have seen in their eastern homeland a “star”, according to biblical prophecy (Num 24:17), signaled the birth of a “king of the Jews” who would have universal significance. They have followed this star in their journey and it has brought them to Jerusalem.
But to locate more precisely the One whose birth it announces they need to consult the scribal wisdom of Israel. The chief priests and scribes tell them of the prophecy of Micha that points them, accurately as it turns outs, to David’s city, Bethlehem.
A PATTERN OF REVELATION
We see here a pattern whereby revelation springs from a combination of natural wisdom and biblical prophecy. The human gifts and learning of these representatives of the Gentile world play an essential role in leading them to the Saviour.
Foreshadowing the later adherence of multitudes of Gentile believers to the faith, the wise men discover the child with his mother Mary (Joseph at this point has faded from view) and pay homage to him as their ruler. They place before him the gifts of their culture—gifts graciously received. Much has been made in Christian tradition of the symbolism of the three gifts (gold, frankincense and myrrh [a pleasing aromatic substance]). In the original account the gifts fulfil significant details contained in the biblical (OT) texts lying behind the story: Isaiah 60 (forming the First Reading) and Psalm 71[72] (forming the Responsorial Psalm. They complete the biblical picture of the nations of the world bringing their wealth to Jerusalem in exchange for the spiritual riches they will receive from the Jewish Saviour.
Their journey has been one of faith and risk. Their coming has caused “disturbance” in Jerusalem. The treacherous and murderously calculating figure of Herod looms over all, presaging the Passion that is to come. But the riches of God’s salvation will go to the Gentiles. We walk in the footsteps of the wise men. We share their wisdom, their longing, their faith, and the joy of their discovery, and all nations of the world continue to bring their gifts to the Lord.
BAPTISM OF THE LORD
Sunday 12 January 2025
LECTIONARY READINGS
First reading: Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11
Responsorial Psalm: Ps 103(102):1-4, 24-25, 27-30
Second reading: Titus 2:11-14; 3:4-7
Gospel: Luke 3:15-16, 21-22
Link to readings
With the feast of the Baptism we make a swift transition from Jesus’ childhood to the event that, in all four gospels, inaugurates his adult public ministry. The first two readings are the same as in Year A (as in the commentary below), though the Lectionary gives the option of substituting Isa 40:1-5, 9-11 and Titus 2:11-14; 3:4-7 in Year C. The Gospel account of Jesus’ Baptism for Year C is that of Luke, 3:15-16, 21-22.
In the Gospel (Luke 3:15-16, 21-22), Luke’s account begins with a notice about ‘a feeling of expectancy’ that had arisen among the people. What they are ‘expecting’ of course is appearance of the long-promised Messiah. They wonder whether John the Baptist might fill this role. But John’s disclaimer is clear: he baptises with water – a simple rite of conversion and preparation for the messianic age. A ‘stronger One’ is coming who will baptise, not with water, but ‘with the Holy Spirit and fire’. It is probably right to take these two terms, ‘Holy Spirit’ and ‘fire’, closely together. At Pentecost the ‘baptism’ with the Spirit that the disciples are to receive will involve the appearance upon them of tongues ‘as if of fire’ (Acts 2:3). Essentially, then, the role of the Stronger One (Jesus) will be to cleanse and empower people with the gift of the Spirit, the force of the messianic era that is now at hand.
PRAYER THEME
Luke notes but does not particularly stress (contrast Matthew 3:13-17) the baptism of Jesus at the hands of John. It is what happens next that is truly significant. Distinctive to Luke is the notice that the experience Jesus is about to undergo takes place while he is ‘at prayer’ (v. 21). Prayer is a notable theme in Luke. Jesus prays at significant moments in his ministry (6:12; 9:18; 9:28; 22:40-46; 23:34, 46). Prayer erases the barrier between heaven and earth. While Jesus is praying, the ‘heavens are opened’, responding to a plea in Isa 64:1 (‘O that you would tear open the heavens and come down’), signalling the onset of the messianic age.
The descent of the Spirit (‘in bodily form like a dove’) has been variously explained. In view of the address that follows: ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased’, there are grounds for thinking that Jesus’ experience of the Spirit here is essentially an assurance of the Father’s love (cf. Paul in Rom 5:5: ‘God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us’). This is his ‘anointing’ with the Spirit that he will announce when inaugurating his ministry, proclaiming the fulfillment of Isa 61:1-2, in the synagogue of Nazareth (4:16-22). His mission, empowered by the Spirit (4:14), will be to rebuild a People of God upon that same assurance of love.
TRINITARIAN
Without wanting to suggest an anticipation here of the fully formulated doctrine of the Trinity, it is important, I think, to note the ‘trinitarian’ dimension of the scene: the divine communion of love that is the Trinity (Father, Son, and Spirit) is operative, not in heavenly remoteness, but here on earth at the Jordan river. The mission of the Son which will be to draw human beings (the ‘lost family’ of God for Luke) back into the warmth of the Father’s home, into the ‘fire’ of that divine communion of love.
In this way, I think, today’s feast, while overtly about the baptism of Jesus, is also about us as well. Every baptised and confirmed believer can hear the Father’s voice from heaven: ‘You are my beloved son; you are my beloved daughter; in you I am well pleased’.
Brendan Byrne, SJ, FAHA, taught New Testament at Jesuit Theological College, Parkville, Vic., for almost forty years. He is now Emeritus Professor at the University of Divinity (Melbourne). His commentaries on the Gospels can be found at Pauline Books and Media