Reading 1
Jer 23:5-8
Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD,
when I will raise up a righteous shoot to David;
As king he shall reign and govern wisely,
he shall do what is just and right in the land.
In his days Judah shall be saved,
Israel shall dwell in security.
This is the name they give him:
“The LORD our justice.”
Therefore, the days will come, says the LORD,
when they shall no longer say, “As the LORD lives,
who brought the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt”;
but rather, "As the LORD lives,
who brought the descendants of the house of Israel
up from the land of the north”–
and from all the lands to which I banished them;
they shall again live on their own land.
Ps 72:1-2, 12-13, 18-19Responsorial PsalmRR. (see 7) Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace for ever.
O God, with your judgment endow the king,
and with your justice, the king’s son;
He shall govern your people with justice
and your afflicted ones with judgment.
R. Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace for ever.
For he shall rescue the poor when he cries out,
and the afflicted when he has no one to help him.
He shall have pity for the lowly and the poor;
the lives of the poor he shall save.
R. Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace for ever.
Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel,
who alone does wondrous deeds.
And blessed forever be his glorious name;
may the whole earth be filled with his glory.
R. Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace for ever.
Mt 1:18-25GospelThis is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about.
When his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph,
but before they lived together,
she was found with child through the Holy Spirit.
Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man,
yet unwilling to expose her to shame,
decided to divorce her quietly.
Such was his intention when, behold,
the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said,
“Joseph, son of David,
do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home.
For it is through the Holy Spirit
that this child has been conceived in her.
She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus,
because he will save his people from their sins.”
All this took place to fulfill
what the Lord had said through the prophet:
Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel,
which means “God is with us.”
When Joseph awoke,
he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him
and took his wife into his home.
He had no relations with her until she bore a son,
and he named him Jesus.
Meditation: Jeremiah 23:5-8
“They shall no longer say, ‘As the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites out of the land of Egypt.’” (Jeremiah 23:7)
The Israelites loved to recall their history. Every Jew in Jeremiah’s time knew about how God had rescued their ancestors from slavery and brought them into the Promised Land. They all took great pride in their national heroes—people like David and Solomon and Moses and Elijah. In fact, their Temple worship was built around the telling and retelling of these stories.
If this sounds so good, then why did Jeremiah say that the people would no longer hearken back to their history to proclaim God’s mighty deeds? Did God really want them to forget the past?
Not at all. He wanted, rather, to give them hope for the future. Just as God had rescued their forebears from Egypt centuries earlier, even so would he rescue them from Babylon, the “land of the north” that had become their place of exile and humiliation (Jeremiah 23:8).
What a hope-filled message! God wasn’t done working with his chosen people. He hadn’t left them with nothing more than their wistful memories of the past. He still wanted to protect them, teach them, and guide them.
Like the Israelites, we can look at the past and think: “If only I could go back there!” If only we could go back to the time before the sexual revolution or to the time when everybody went to church and held a reverence for God. But the problem with this kind of thinking is that it leads us to live in the past instead of finding out what challenges and adventures God has for us today.
God is just as powerful today as he was yesterday. He hasn’t abandoned us. He wants to bless us each and every day. So open your heart to the Lord today. Ask him to fill you and your family with the grace to help you do more than just survive today. Remember, too, that God wants you to give his blessing away to everyone you meet. So see if you can bless at least ten people today—and every day until Christmas. This is the best gift we could possibly give!
“Lord, I believe that you are the living God. Come to me today, Jesus, and show me your power!”
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