- Admin
- Dec 13, 2024
- 3 min read
December 16 - December 21, 2024
Numbers 24:2-7, 15-17 Balaam was a prophet in Moab. When the king of Moab tried to get him to curse Israel, he uttered instead a remarkable blessing. The last lines speak of a star and a sceptre, symbols of the coming Messiah, picked up in Matthew 1-2.
Matthew 21:23-27 Jesus counters a trick question and yet it is obvious that he think John the Baptist came from God. In these nal days leading up to the feast of Christmas, the readings are very carefully chosen. They provide a very rich biblical tapestry against which it is possible to understand the teaching offered in Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2.
Genesis 49:2, 8-10 The great patriarch Jacob is about to die and he gathers his sons around him for a nal blessing. The blessing to Judah (= son, tribe and tribal area) includes a reference to the sceptre—pointing to the much later Davidic dynasty.
God’s delity to David’s line is fullled in Jesus. It thus prepares for the Gospel, which is the genealogy in Matthew. Matthew 1:1-17 The genealogy locates Jesus in real time with real people, warts and all. Neither the men nor the women were particularly moral—think only of David and the wife of Uriah.
Matthew 1:1-17 is a kind of Gospel in miniature: God writing straight with crooked human lines. The gures in the last two generations are consciously ambiguous: Jacob and his son Joseph, evoking the earlier father and son.
St Flannan, bishop
Jeremiah 23:5-8 The oracle cited here has its historical place in the Exile (as is very clear from the reading itself). But the real reason for the choice lies in the rst couple of verses, which underline God’s faithfulness to David and his offspring. This prepares directly for the Gospel.
Matthew 1:18-24 This passage continues where yesterday’s left off. God-with-us—Emmanuel—reminds us of God’s word to Jacob, Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon, Jeremiah and so forth. Also to us, if we reect back.
Judges 13:2-7, 24-25 The birth stories of Jesus in Matthew 1- 2 and Luke 1-2 often echo highly signicant accounts in the Old Testament. Today’s reading from Judges is an example: an annunciation to a women who is childless. There is even a similarity between the word nazirite (a kind of prophet) and Nazareth (or Nazarene).
Luke 1:5-25 Our Gospel is also an annunciation but this time to a childless father, to Zechariah the priest who is to become the father of John the Baptism.
St Fachanan, bishop
Isaiah 7:10-14 This passage from Isaiah is explicitly cited in Matthew’s account of the annunciation to Joseph in a dream.
Luke 1:26-38 The annunciation to Mary (the fourth in our sequence) matches the pattern of Old Testament annunciation scenes and then, signicantly, breaks it. Mary is open to God’s call.
St Peter Canisius, priest and doctor
Song of Songs 2:8-14 You may be surprised to hear in Advent a reading often used at weddings. It is however very suitable for two reasons. (1) Love is the ‘reason for the season’ as they say. (2) Like the lover bounding over the hills, Mary in the Gospel travels across the hill country to visit Elizabeth, her cousin.
or: Zephaniah 3:14-18 This delightful reading already appeared on the third Sunday of Advent this year. Being such a ringing invitation to rejoice, it is good to hear it again. The image of God dancing for joy is, perhaps, not so usual among us!!
Luke 1:39-45 Luke joins his two strands of narrative in this encounter between the two mothers. We notice the deep things said about Jesus before his birth.
References
-United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. (2024ai, December 15). Third Sunday of Advent. USCCB. https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/121524.cfm
-Sunday readings. (n.d.-s). Hearers of the Word. https://www.tarsus.ie/SundayReadings/
