December 25, 2025
The Nativity of the Lord
(Christmas)
Mass during the Day
Lectionary:
16
Reading
I
How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of him who brings glad
tidings,
announcing peace, bearing good news,
announcing salvation, and saying to Zion,
“Your God is King!”
Hark! Your sentinels raise a cry,
together they shout for joy,
for they see directly, before their eyes,
the LORD restoring Zion.
Break out together in song,
O ruins of Jerusalem!
For the LORD comforts his people,
he redeems Jerusalem.
The LORD has bared his holy arm
in the sight of all the nations;
all the ends of the earth will behold
the salvation of our God.
Responsorial
Psalm
R.
(3c) All the ends of the earth have seen the saving power of God.
Sing to the LORD a new song,
for he has done wondrous deeds;
his right hand has won victory for him,
his holy arm.
R. All the ends of the earth have seen the saving power of God.
The LORD has made his salvation known:
in the sight of the nations he has revealed his justice.
He has remembered his kindness and his faithfulness
toward the house of Israel.
R. All the ends of the earth have seen the saving power of God.
All the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation by our God.
Sing joyfully to the LORD, all you lands;
break into song; sing praise.
R. All the ends of the earth have seen the saving power of God.
Sing praise to the LORD with the harp,
with the harp and melodious song.
With trumpets and the sound of the horn
sing joyfully before the King, the LORD.
R. All the ends of the earth have seen the saving power of God.
Reading
II
Brothers
and sisters:
In times past, God spoke in partial and various ways
to our ancestors through the prophets;
in these last days, he has spoken to us through the
Son,
whom he made heir of all things
and through whom he created the universe,
who is the refulgence of his glory,
the very imprint of
his being,
and who sustains all things by his mighty
word.
When he had accomplished purification
from sins,
he took his seat at the right hand of the
Majesty on high,
as far superior to the angels
as the name he has inherited is more
excellent than theirs.
For
to which of the angels did God ever say:
You are my son; this day I have begotten you?
Or again:
I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me?
And again, when he leads the firstborn into the world, he says:
Let all the angels of God worship him.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia,
alleluia.
A holy day has dawned upon us.
Come, you nations, and adore the Lord.
For today a great light has come upon the earth.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came to be through him,
and without him nothing came to be.
What came to be through him was life,
and this life was the light of the human
race;
the light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness has not overcome it.
A man named John was sent from God.
He came for testimony, to testify to the light,
so that all might believe through him.
He was not the light,
but came to testify to the light.
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
He was in the world,
and the world came to be through him,
but the world did not know him.
He came to what was his own,
but his own people did not accept him.
But
to those who did accept him
he gave power to become children of God,
to those who believe in his name,
who were born not by natural generation
nor by human choice nor by a man’s decision
but of God.
And the Word became flesh
and made his dwelling among us,
and we saw his glory,
the glory as of the Father’s only Son,
full of grace and truth.
John testified to him and cried out, saying,
“This was he of whom I said,
‘The one who is coming after me ranks ahead of me
because he existed before me.’”
From his fullness we have all received,
grace in place of grace,
because while the law was given through Moses,
grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
No one has ever seen God.
The only Son, God, who is at the Father’s side,
has revealed him.
OR:
In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came to be through him,
and without him nothing came to be.
What came to be through him was life,
and this life was the light of the human
race;
the light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness has not overcome it.
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
He was in the world,
and the world came to be through him,
but the world did not know him.
He came to what was his own,
but his own people did not accept him.
But
to those who did accept him
he gave power to become children of God,
to those who believe in his name,
who were born not by natural generation
nor by human choice nor by a man’s decision
but of God.
And the Word became flesh
and made his dwelling among us,
and we saw his glory,
the glory as of the Father’s only Son,
full of grace and truth.
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/122525-Day.cfm
Commentary on Isaiah
52:7-10; Hebrews 1:1-6; John 1:1-18
The magnificent passage read today is from the opening of
John’s Gospel. There is no mention of Bethlehem, of Mary, of shepherds, or the
stable and the manger, so why do we read this Gospel for Christmas Day?
The Bethlehem story was told during last night’s Midnight
Mass (or during the evening mass at some parishes). But today we are, as it
were, going behind the scenes, and looking at the deeper meaning of that story.
After all, who is that little baby, so small, so helpless? And why do we make
such a fuss about his birth?
He is the Word of God. From the beginning, he was with God
and was God. Think of those extraordinary words as you gaze at
the stable or the crib.
Through the Word, God expresses his very self, just as in an
analogous way we reveal ourselves through the way we speak and what we say (and
sometimes we reveal just as much by what we do not say!). But
God’s Word does not just communicate; God’s Word is active—it is a verb rather
than a noun. It makes; it produces; it creates.
Again, in an analogous way we can speak of the ‘word’ of
Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel; the ‘word’ of Shakespeare in
Hamlet, Othello, or King Lear; or the ‘word’ of Beethoven in the Fifth
Symphony—all these do far more than express ideas; they have a powerful impact
in changing us. So through this Word, “all things came into being”. To this
Word, we and our whole world owe our very existence.
Light in darkness
At this time our city and homes are filled with light, guiding us through the
dark valleys of our lives. It is no coincidence that Christmas is celebrated in
the depth of winter, just after the winter solstice, as we look forward in hope
to the longer days of light and the new life ready to burst forth. Jesus will
say later that he is “the Light of the world”. Today’s Gospel says:
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did
not overtake it.
It is in this hope that we long to see the darkness of our
world put to flight. Alas:
He was in the world, and the world came into being
through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and
his own people did not accept him.
But nevertheless:
…the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have
seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
It does not say the Word became a human being, but “flesh”
(Greek, sarx). In John’s language, “flesh” refers to all that is
weak and sinful in our human nature.
The Word came and was fully inserted into that world.
‘World’ has two meanings in John’s writings. It means, first of all, the world
in general, our planet and all that is in it. But it also refers to that part
of our human world which is caught up in all that is evil, negative, degrading
and dehumanising. The Word entered both of these worlds. He did not live on the
fringe, but in the very centre of human activity. This caused difficulties for
some religious people who found it disturbing that Jesus mixed with sinners and
(even worse) ate with them. All this is being said in the Bethlehem story, but
in more concrete, image-filled language.
In touch with God
As the letter to the Hebrews (Second Reading) tells us today, God in the past
spoke to us through many prophets and other spokespersons. But now, because the
Son is the Word of God:
…he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir
of all things…
This Son:
…is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact
representation of his being…
In seeing all that Jesus says and does, we are being put in
touch with the very nature of God. The baby Jesus was born in utter simplicity,
without many of the conveniences of life that we would take for granted and
regard as essential, away from home, rejected by every place of shelter in the
town, and visited by ‘shepherds’ who were the despised outcasts of their day. A
good exercise would be to think of the birth of Jesus in a corresponding
situation in our city today.
It is important to be aware that this scene is not just for
pious contemplation—it contains a message. God has become a human person like
us—he has come to live and work among us. He has entered our world to bless it
and to liberate all those enslaved by oppression, by hunger and homelessness;
people enslaved by addictive habits and substances; and those enslaved by fear,
anger, resentment, hatred and loneliness. Let us pray that we may approach this
Child to be liberated from our particular enslavement, because we are all
slaves to something!
But more than that, as brothers and sister of Jesus, we are
called to work together with him, to help others break the chains of their
enslavements, so that, in the words of Isaiah today:
…all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our
God.
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https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/a1225r/
Thursday,
December 25, 2025
Solemnity
of the Nativity of the Lord (Christmas)
Opening Prayer
In the darkness of a starless night, a
night of no sense, you, the Word of life, like lightning in the storm of
forgetfulness, entered within the bounds of doubt under cover of the limits of
precariousness to hide the light.
Words made of silence and of the
ordinary, your human words, heralds of the secrets of the Most High: like hooks
cast into the waters of death to find man once more, immersed in his anxious
follies, and reclaim him, plundered, through the attractive radiance of
forgiveness.
To you, Ocean of Peace and shadow of eternal Glory, I render
thanks:
Calm waters on my shore that
awaits the wave, I wish to seek you! And may the friendship of the brothers
protect me when night falls on my desire for you. Amen.
Gospel Reading – John 1: 1-18
The Text:
[1] In the beginning was
the Word: the Word was with God and the Word was God. 2 He was with
God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things came into being, not
one thing came into being except through him. 4 What has come into
being in him was life, life that was the light of men; 5 and light
shines in darkness, and darkness could not overpower it. 6 A man
came, sent by God. His name was John. 7 He came as a witness, to
bear witness to the light, so that everyone might believe through him. 8
He was not the light, he was to bear witness to the light. 9 The
Word was the real light that gives light to everyone; he was coming into the
world. 10 He was in the world that had come into being through him,
and the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to his own and his
own people did not accept him.. 12 But to those who did accept him
he gave power to become children of God, to those who believed in his name 13
who were bornnot from human stock or
human desire, or human will but from God himself. 14 The
Word became flesh, he lived among us, and
we saw his glory, the glory that he has from the Father as only Son of the
Father, full of grace and truth. 15 John witnesses to him. He proclaims: 'This is the one
of whom I said: He who comes after me has passed ahead of me because he existed
before me.' 16
Indeed, from his fullness we have, all of us, received -- one gift replacing
another, 17
for the
Law was given through Moses, grace and truth have come through
Jesus Christ.
18
No one has ever seen God; it is the only Son, who is close to the Father's
heart, who has made him known.
A Moment of Silence:
Allow the
voice of the Word echo within us.
Meditation
Some question for reflection:
•
God who is light has chosen to dispel the
darkness of man by making himself darkness. Man is born blind (cfr Jn 9: 1-41):
blindness is his condition of creature. The symbolical gesture of Jesus in
gathering mud to spread over the eyes of the man born blind in John, signifies
the newness of the incarnation: it is a gesture of new creation. The blind man
whose eyes are still covered with the mud of creation is asked to make not an
act of faith but one of obedience: to go to the pool of Siloe, which means
“sent.” The one “sent” is Jesus. Are we
able to obey the Word, which comes to us every day?
•
The blind man in the Gospel of John is poor: he
has no pretense and asks for nothing. We often live in daily blindness,
resigned that we do not deserve better horizons. Can we see ourselves as having nothing so that the gift of God may be
ours too, a gift of the redemption of the flesh, but above all a gift of light
and faith?
•
“The law
was given through Moses, grace and truth have come through Jesus one has ever seen God; it is the only Son,
who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known” (Jn 1: 17-18).
The knowledge of what happens in the story of our lives leads us to get out of
the blindness of presumption and to contemplate the light that shines on the
face of the Son of God. Our eyes, flooded
with light, become open to events.
When shall we be able to see God in our midst?
A Key to the Reading:
John was someone who was able to see the
light shining, who saw, heard, and touched the light. In the beginning was the
Word: constantly turned towards the love of the Father, the Word became the
Father’s true explanation, his only exegesis (Jn 1: 18), the revelation of his
love. In the logos was life and life
was light, but the darkness did not welcome the light. In the OT the revelation
of the Word is the revelation of light: to this corresponds the fullness of
grace, the grace of grace, given to us in Jesus, the revelation of God’s
unlimited love (Jn 1: 4-5, 16). The whole witness of the OT is a witness of
light: from Abraham to John the Baptist, God sends witnesses to his light. John
the Baptist is the last of these: he announces the light that is to come into
the world and recognizes in Jesus the long-awaited light (Jn 1: 6-8; 15).
Dabar IHWH is God’s communication with man, which took place with
all those whom God has called and to whom the word of the Lord came (cfr Is 55:
10-11). As Augustine says: The Word of
God is the true light.
The word comes from the mouth
of God, but it keeps its full force, and it is a person who creates and
sustains the world. This word that creates and saves is identified with the
Torah, which for Israel is the divine revelation in its totality, with Wisdom: The law will go out from Zion, and the oracle of Yahweh from Jerusalem (Is 2: 3).
The memra
(aramaic) is the concept used by John to go from the dabar to the logos: in
the targum the memra has a creating
function, but above all a revealing function that is expressed particularly
through the image of light. In the Targum Neophiti,
the famous poem of the four nights on Ex 12:42 it is written: “The first night was when IHWH revealed
himself above the world to create it: the world was desert and empty and
darkness covered the face of the abyss. And the memra of IHWH was the light
that shone.” In the Targum Jerushalaim
manuscript 110 says: “With his word IHWH shone
and shed light.” The midrash stresses
that the law was before the world, it was life, it was light: “The words of the Torah are light for the
world” (Midrash Dt Rabba 7: 3). Only daughter of God, the Torah was written
with black fire in the white flame and sits on God’s knees while God sits on
his throne of glory (cfr Midrash on Psalm
90: 3).
The logos-light becomes present in the
world. All is life in him: the Word takes the place of the Torah. The signs are
transcendent, and more than a substitution we see a fulfilment. If for the Jew
the Torah is God’s daughter, John shows that she is the logos that from the beginning is with God, is God. This logos
becomes flesh: man, frail, limited, finite, placing his glory in the flesh. He
put down his tent, skené, among us,
he became the shekinah of God among
us, and he showed his glory, the overwhelming presence of God to men. The glory
that dwelt in the tent of the exodus (Ex 40: 34-38), that dwelt in the temple
(1 Kings 8: 10), now dwells in the flesh of the Son of God. This is indeed an
epiphany. The shekinah is made
visible, because the shekinah is
Christ, place of the presence and of the divine glory. There is one who has
seen the glory of God: the only Son full of grace and truth; he comes to reveal
to us the face of the Father, the only one who can do this because he has his
existence in the bosom of the Father. From this fullness of life comes the new
creation. Moses gave the law.
Christ gives grace and truth, love and
fidelity. In the Son we can contemplate God without dying because whoever sees
the Son sees also the Father: Jesus is the exegesis, the narration of the
divine life.
And the place of revelation is his
flesh. This is why John says at the time of fulfilment: “We have seen his glory” (Jn 1: 14), when at the “time of
glorification” there is only darkness. The light is hidden when it gives its
life for love of men, love to the very end, without restriction, respecting the
freedom of man to crucify the Author of life. God is glorified at the moment of
the passion: a love completed, definitive, unlimited, a love shown even to its
extremist consequences. This is the mystery of the light that becomes a way in
the darkness, because love likes the darkness of the night when life becomes
more intimate and one’s words die to live in the breath of the words of the
person loved, the light is in the love that gives light to that hour of expropriation,
the hour when one loses oneself to find oneself again in the embrace of life.
Prayer
Jerusalem, take off your dress of sorrow
and distress, put on the beauty of God's glory for evermore, wrap the cloak of
God's saving justice around you, put the diadem of the Eternal One's glory on
your head, for God means to show your splendor to every nation under heaven,
and the name God gives you for evermore will be, 'Peace-through-Justice, and
Glory-through-Devotion.' Arise, Jerusalem, stand on the heights and turn your
eyes to the east: see your children reassembled from west and east at the Holy
One's command, rejoicing because God has remembered.
Though they left you on foot
driven by enemies, now God brings them back to you, carried gloriously, like a
royal throne.
For God has decreed the flattening of
each high mountain, of the everlasting hills, the filling of the valleys to
make the ground level so that Israel can walk safely in God's glory.
And the forests and every fragrant tree
will provide shade for Israel, at God's command; for God will guide Israel in
joy by the light of his glory, with the mercy and saving justice which come
from him. Baruc 5: 1-9
Contemplation
Father of light, I come to you with my
whole being. After going through times of goodness and times of slipping into
evil I finally understand, because of my experience, that alone I only exist in
shadow and darkness. Without your light I cannot see anything. Indeed, you are
the source of life; you, Sun of justice, who opens my eyes, you the way that
leads to the Father. Today you have come among us, eternal Word, as light that
goes on crossing the pages of history to offer humankind the gifts of grace and
joy in the desert of famine and emptiness: the bread and wine of your holy Name,
which at the hour of the cross will become visible signs of consummated love,
give us birth with you from that fertile side that is the Church, the cradle of
your life for us. Like Mary, we wish to stay by your side to learn to be like
her, full of grace from the Most High. And when our tents will welcome the
cloud of the Spirit in the radiance of one more word, we shall understand the
Glory of your Face and we shall bless in an adoring silence without any further
hesitation the Beauty of being one with you, living Word of God.
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