December 24, 2025
The Nativity of the Lord
(Christmas)
Vigil Mass
Lectionary:
13
Reading
I
For Zion’s sake I will not be silent,
for Jerusalem’s sake I will not be quiet,
until her vindication shines forth like the dawn
and her victory like a burning torch.
Nations shall behold your vindication,
and all the kings your glory;
you shall be called by a new name
pronounced by the mouth of the LORD.
You shall be a glorious crown in the hand of the LORD,
a royal diadem held by your God.
No more shall people call you “Forsaken,”
or your land “Desolate,”
but you shall be called “My Delight,”
and your land “Espoused.”
For the LORD delights in you
and makes your land his spouse.
As a young man marries a virgin,
your Builder shall marry you;
and as a bridegroom rejoices in his bride
so shall your God rejoice in you.
Responsorial
Psalm
R.
(2a) For ever I will sing the goodness of the Lord.
I have made a covenant with my chosen one,
I have sworn to David my servant:
Forever will I confirm your posterity
and establish your throne for all generations.
R. For ever I will sing the goodness of the Lord.
Blessed the people who know the joyful shout;
in the light of your countenance, O LORD, they walk.
At your name they rejoice all the day,
and through your justice they are exalted.
R. For ever I will sing the goodness of the Lord.
He shall say of me, “You are my father,
my God, the rock, my savior.”
Forever I will maintain my kindness toward him,
and my covenant with him stands firm.
R. For ever I will sing the goodness of the Lord.
Reading
II
When
Paul reached Antioch in Pisidia and entered the synagogue,
he stood up, motioned with his hand, and said,
“Fellow Israelites and you others who are God-fearing, listen.
The God of this people Israel chose our ancestors
and exalted the people during their sojourn in the
land of Egypt.
With uplifted arm he led them out of it.
Then he removed Saul and raised up David as king;
of him he testified,
‘I have found David, son of Jesse, a man after my own heart;
he will carry out my every wish.’
From this man’s descendants God, according to his promise,
has brought to Israel a savior, Jesus.
John heralded his coming by proclaiming a baptism of repentance
to all the people of Israel;
and as John was completing his course, he would say,
‘What do you suppose that I am? I am not he.
Behold, one is coming after me;
I am not worthy to unfasten the sandals of his feet.’”
Alleluia
R. Alleluia,
alleluia.
Tomorrow the wickedness of the earth will be destroyed:
the Savior of the world will reign over us.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
The
book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ,
the son of David, the son of Abraham.
Abraham
became the father of Isaac,
Isaac the father of Jacob,
Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers.
Judah became the father of Perez and Zerah,
whose mother was Tamar.
Perez became the father of Hezron,
Hezron the father of Ram,
Ram the father of Amminadab.
Amminadab became the father of Nahshon,
Nahshon the father of Salmon,
Salmon the father of Boaz,
whose mother was Rahab.
Boaz became the father of Obed,
whose mother was Ruth.
Obed became the father of Jesse,
Jesse the father of David the king.
David
became the father of Solomon,
whose mother had been the wife of Uriah.
Solomon became the father of Rehoboam,
Rehoboam the father of Abijah,
Abijah the father of Asaph.
Asaph became the father of Jehoshaphat,
Jehoshaphat the father of Joram,
Joram the father of Uzziah.
Uzziah became the father of Jotham,
Jotham the father of Ahaz,
Ahaz the father of Hezekiah.
Hezekiah became the father of Manasseh,
Manasseh the father of Amos,
Amos
the father of Josiah.
Josiah became the father of Jechoniah and his brothers
at the time of the Babylonian exile.
After
the Babylonian exile,
Jechoniah became the father of Shealtiel,
Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel,
Zerubbabel the father of Abiud.
Abiud became the father of Eliakim,
Eliakim the father of Azor,
Azor the father of Zadok.
Zadok became the father of Achim,
Achim the father of Eliud,
Eliud the father of Eleazar.
Eleazar became the father of Matthan,
Matthan the father of Jacob,
Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary.
Of her was born Jesus who is called the Christ.
Thus
the total number of generations
from Abraham to David
is fourteen generations;
from David to the Babylonian exile,
fourteen generations;
from the Babylonian exile to the Christ,
fourteen generations.
Now
this 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 conceive 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.
OR:
Matthew
1:18-25
This
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 conceive 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.
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/122525-Vigil.cfm
Commentary on Isaiah
62:1-5; Acts 13:16-17,22-25; Matthew 1:1-25
This beautiful Mass is not often celebrated, especially when
the first Mass of Christmas takes place in the early evening (say 8:00 pm, as
is not unusually the case in large parishes) and uses the readings from
Midnight Mass. Yet, each one of these three readings from the Vigil Mass
deserves attention and prayerful reflection.
The Gospel is the opening of Matthew’s Gospel and consists
of a combined re-reading of the Gospels we had on December 17 and 18—the
genealogy of Jesus and the birth of Jesus (Matthew’s version).
Many find the genealogy a rather boring and incomprehensible
list of unpronounceable names. That only goes to show how much the Hebrew
Testament is a closed book to so many of us. It begins with Abraham, the father
of God’s people, and is in three parts, with 14 generations in each part. It
ends with the words:
Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, who bore
Jesus, who is called the Messiah.
Although Joseph’s role as Jesus’ earthly father is carefully
excluded, it is clear that Jesus’ family line comes through him and reaches
back to David.
It would be worth our while some day to go through that list
of names and then we would learn something about the kind of people from whom
Jesus was descended. They were by no means all saints; there are real ruffians
among them. There are also four women.
By giving us this list of names, Matthew is emphasising,
especially to the Jews of his day, that Jesus’ lineage goes back to the very
beginnings of Israelite history starting with Abraham, the father of the
nations, and including David, Jesus’ kingly ancestor. Jesus is the natural
continuation of God’s long connection and involvement in the history of his
people. He is in fact the long awaited climax to that history. He is the
Messiah King.
This is further emphasised by Matthew’s telling in the
second part of the Gospel how Jesus came to be. The conception, the beginning
of the life of the Child in the womb of Mary, takes place after she and Joseph
are betrothed, but before they are married and begin to live together as
husband and wife. Clearly, the agent of bringing the new life into existence is
not Joseph, but God himself. It is God who is the Father of the Child, and Mary
is his mother. This is the Incarnation, when the Word of God is made flesh and
begins to live among us. This puts this Child in a totally different category
from that of all his ancestors, and yet he shares their blood and their genes
while, at the same time, being Someone quite other.
The Second Reading, from the Acts of the Apostles,
represents a speech which Paul gave on his first missionary journey to fellow
Jews in the synagogue at Antioch. In it he gives a brief history of the Jewish
people leading up to John the Baptist and the appearance of Jesus, the Saviour
of his people. Here too, there is the emphasis on the continuity between the
Jewish people and the emergence of Jesus as a Saviour arising from among
them—their Saviour and ours.
The First Reading is a beautiful passage from Isaiah. It is
a message of consolation for Zion, but can easily be applied to the Church and
to all of us in the community of Christ who look forward to the birth and the
coming of our Saviour.
Let us just pick out a few phrases worth reflecting on:
I will not keep silent,
and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest,
until her vindication shines out like the dawn
and her salvation like a burning torch.
The nations shall see your vindication
and all the kings your glory,
and you shall be called by a new name
that the mouth of the Lord will give.
“Vindication” in this context means ‘integrity’, a precious
gift needed by the Church as a whole and by each one of us. Integrity means
that we are everything we proclaim to be, that there is no hidden agenda, no
false fronts, but total transparency—what you see is all there is.
You shall no more be termed Forsaken,
and your land shall no more be termed Desolate,
but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her
and your land Married…
For as a young man marries a young woman,
so shall your builder marry you,
and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
so shall your God rejoice over you.
The three readings combined sum up beautifully the context
in which the Child Jesus will be born in the strange surroundings of a stable
in Bethlehem. All is now about to fulfilled for each one of us as we prepare
this evening to celebrate the birth of God’s Son among us as one of us.
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https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/christmas-eve-vigil-mass-evening-of-24-december/
A
reflection for the Nativity of the Lord (Christmas)
Reflection:
Our holy-ish Families
The
best Christmas homily I’ve ever heard was maybe 20 years ago, at my home
parish: Epiphany of Our Lord in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania. My family had
gone to the family mass, which, as you know, is usually held around 4 or 5 PM,
to accommodate families with kids, sometimes even earlier.
At
the gospel, Msgr. Joseph Gentili, the pastor, looked out onto a sea of
families, many with babies and toddlers who were crying and fussing. Then he
launched into the Gospel reading for that day, from Matthew: the genealogy of
Jesus, the reading for the Christmas vigil mass. And it’s a long reading,
tracing Jesus’s family tree all the way back to Abraham and ending up with
Joseph, Mary’s husband. Matthew’s gospel, which was probably addressed to a
largely Jewish audience, is very much concerned with linking Jesus to the Old
Testament.
Msgr.
Gentili read that long reading, and you could hear all the kids squirming as he
read out names like Ram and Boaz and Rahab and David and Uriah. After the
gospel, he said, “Well, you’re probably asking yourself: Why did he read that
whole reading?”
Then
he proceeded to say that it was to show that Jesus’s family wasn’t
perfect.
And
it’s true. In the middle of that long list are some surprising people,
not always the holiest of men and women. Abraham, to begin with, unfairly
banishes Ishmael, his own son, and Ishmael’s mother, Hagar, into the desert;
Jacob steals his brother Esau’s birthright by deceiving their father; and David
commits adultery with a woman named Bathsheba and then arranges to have
Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, a warrior, put in the front of a battle, where he
is killed
Jesus’s
family tree also includes Tamar, a Canaanite woman, someone outside the Jewish
faith, who seduces her father-in-law, Judah, so she could have a child, and
Rahab, another Canaanite and an outsider, who is also a prostitute.
Msgr.
Gentili said, “Look, out of that family could come something holy: Jesus.” And
so our families, messed up as they may be, are also places where the holy can
dwell.
All of us have families, none of them are perfect all of them are
dysfunctional. And you know even the Holy Family, Jesus, Mary and Joseph would
have had aunts and uncles and cousins who weren’t perfect. Even they knew
what it meant to live among imperfection. So this Christmas let’s all take a
deep breath and remind ourselves how holiness makes its home in humanity. Just
like God did at Christmas, in the person of Jesus.
Father
James Martin, S.J. reflects on the readings for December 25, 2022.
https://uscatholic.org/articles/202212/a-reflection-for-the-nativity-of-the-lord-christmas-2/
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