December 14, 2025
Third Sunday of Advent
Lectionary: 7
Reading
1
The desert and the
parched land will exult;
the steppe will rejoice and bloom.
They will bloom with abundant flowers,
and rejoice with joyful song.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to them,
the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;
they will see the glory of the LORD,
the splendor of our God.
Strengthen the hands that are feeble,
make firm the knees that are weak,
say to those whose hearts are frightened:
Be strong, fear not!
Here is your God,
he comes with vindication;
with divine recompense
he comes to save you.
Then will the eyes of the blind be opened,
the ears of the deaf be cleared;
then will the lame leap like a stag,
then the tongue of the mute will sing.
Those whom the LORD has ransomed will return
and enter Zion singing,
crowned with everlasting joy;
they will meet with joy and gladness,
sorrow and mourning will flee.
Responsorial
Psalm
R. (cf. Is
35:4) Lord, come and save us.
or:
R. Alleluia.
The LORD God keeps faith forever,
secures justice for the oppressed,
gives food to the hungry.
The LORD sets captives free.
R. Lord, come and save us.
or:
R. Alleluia.
The LORD gives sight to the blind;
the LORD raises up those who were bowed down.
The LORD loves the just;
the LORD protects strangers.
R. Lord, come and save us.
or:
R. Alleluia.
The fatherless and the widow he sustains,
but the way of the wicked he thwarts.
The LORD shall reign forever;
your God, O Zion, through all generations.
R. Lord, come and save us.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Reading
2
Be patient,
brothers and sisters,
until the coming of the Lord.
See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth,
being patient with it
until it receives the early and the late rains.
You too must be patient.
Make your hearts firm,
because the coming of the Lord is at hand.
Do not complain, brothers and sisters, about one another,
that you may not be judged.
Behold, the Judge is standing before the gates.
Take as an example of hardship and patience, brothers and sisters,
the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.
Alleluia
Isaiah 61:1 (cited in Lk 4:18)
R. Alleluia,
alleluia.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring glad tidings to the poor.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
When John the
Baptist heard in prison of the works of the Christ,
he sent his disciples to Jesus with this question,
"Are you the one who is to come,
or should we look for another?"
Jesus said to them in reply,
"Go and tell John what you hear and see:
the blind regain their sight,
the lame walk,
lepers are cleansed,
the deaf hear,
the dead are raised,
and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.
And blessed is the one who takes no offense at me."
As they were going off,
Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John,
"What did you go out to the desert to see?
A reed swayed by the wind?
Then what did you go out to see?
Someone dressed in fine clothing?
Those who wear fine clothing are in royal palaces.
Then why did you go out? To see a prophet?
Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.
This is the one about whom it is written:
Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you;
he will prepare your way before you.
Amen, I say to you,
among those born of women
there has been none greater than John the Baptist;
yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he."
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/121425.cfm
Commentary on Isaiah
35:1-6; James 5:7-10; Matthew 11:2-11
Today used to be called “Gaudete Sunday” from the first word
of the Entrance Song in Latin. Gaudete means
‘Rejoice!’ Formerly, Advent was a much stricter penitential season.
At this earlier time in the Church, there was fast and abstinence for three
days of this week. This was known as “Quarter Tense” because it occurred
four times in the year. However, this Sunday was intended to be a relaxing
break reminding us of the celebrations soon to come. As a symbol of this,
the penitential violet of the vestments are softened to a kind of pink or rose
colour. There is a similar Sunday in the middle of Lent.
On the one hand, a penitential mood is an appropriate way to
prepare ourselves to welcome the coming of the Lord. And, though we may
not have fasting, many parishes will organise Penitential Services with the
Sacrament of Reconciliation during the days leading up to Christmas. At
the same time, it is difficult not to feel some excitement as we anticipate the
celebration of Jesus’ coming among us.
Full of joy
So, the Mass text and readings today are full of joy, especially the Entrance
Song, the Opening Prayer and the First Reading from Isaiah. The cry of the Entrance
Antiphon is:
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.
(Phil 4:4)
And why? Because:
The Lord is near! (Phil 4:5)
The Opening Prayer asks that we:
…who look forward to the birthday of Christ, experience
the joy of salvation and celebrate that feast with love and thanksgiving.
In the First Reading, the prophet goes overboard with
excitement and enthusiasm:
The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad;
the desert shall rejoice and blossom…
and rejoice with joy and shouting.
And the reason for all this?
They shall see the glory of the Lord,
the majesty of our God.
And is it just a matter of being able to see him? No,
because:
…your God….He will come and save you.
Salvation means bringing healing, wholeness and holiness as
we become closely united to him. This healing, wholeness and holiness is
depicted graphically:
…the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf shall be opened;
then the lame shall leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.
These words, as we will see below, will be applied
explicitly to Jesus, who brought this healing and wholeness into so many
people’s lives.
However, we should not confine this healing only to the
physical. It will also include healing on the emotional, social and spiritual
levels. We are not made whole until harmony and well-being flows through
our whole self.
The One who is to come
All this is closely linked to today’s Gospel. We find ourselves, in
Matthew’s Gospel, at the mid-point in Jesus’ ministry. John the Baptist
had already been arrested. He had accused King Herod of doing something
immoral, i.e. marrying his brother’s wife while his brother was still living.
While in prison, John hears about Jesus and sends some of
his disciples with a question:
Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for
another?
Whether John really wanted to know, or whether it was really
for the benefit of his disciples is not clear. After all, John had
already proclaimed Jesus at the River Jordan, and said he was not worthy to
unloose the thongs of Jesus’ sandals. “The one who is to come” is, of
course, the long-expected Messiah.
How does Jesus answer? As so often happens, he does
not respond directly to the question, but quotes the prophet Isaiah using the
passage which is our First Reading for today:
Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive
their sight, the lame walk, those with a skin disease are cleansed, the deaf
hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news [gospel] brought
to them.
This exactly describes what Jesus has been doing. It
also exactly conforms to what Isaiah said about the time of the Messiah.
Jesus in effect is saying “Yes, I am the one who is to come. I am the
Messiah, the Christ, the Saviour King of Israel.”
Still waiting
While the Gospel speaks of the Messiah already here, we at this very time are,
in a sense, still waiting in anticipation. Jesus, of course, is already
present and working through his Body, the Christian community—the Church.
But he still has to come more fully into our own lives. As the Opening
Prayer suggests, we need to “experience the joy of salvation”—that power of
healing and wholeness which Jesus can bring into our lives. This is
something each one of us has to do, and what we as a community also have to
do. I feel that there are still many, including Christians, who have not
yet experienced the deep joy of becoming whole in Christ.
For most of us, the transformation into becoming “another
Christ” takes time. We need the advice of James in the Second Reading:
Be patient, therefore, brothers and sisters, until the
coming of the Lord.
And James says:
The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth,
being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains.
One of the greatest
John the Baptist is presented by Jesus as one of the greatest persons ever
born. Yet, he missed the privilege of being born into the age of Christ,
a privilege that has been made available to us. We could do well to
emulate John in preparing ourselves for Jesus to become really part of our
lives.
John was strong—he was a man of integrity. He was not one of
the rich and famous, he was no pop star—all sound and no substance. He
would never have been a glamorous public icon. Yet many people went out
to hear him, to be challenged by him, to have their lives radically changed by
his words.
Actually, our Christian vocation is similar to his. We
are called to prepare the way for Jesus to come into our own hearts, and also
to prepare other people’s hearts so that they, too, may “experience the joy of
salvation”—that healing, wholeness and holiness we all long for, and which
alone gives real meaning to our lives. Christmas is a time of gifts—both
giving and receiving. Let us make sure that among the gifts we offer to
others is some of the Christian joy which we ourselves have received.
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https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/aa031/
Sunday,
December 14, 2025
Third
Sunday of Advent
Invoke the Holy
Spirit of God,
who at the beginning of creation
hovered over the abyss of the universe and transformed the great yawn of things
into a smile of beauty, come down again on earth and grant it the thrill of its
beginnings.
This world that is growing old,
touch it with the wing of Your glory, Restore to us the primordial joy.
Pour Yourself without measure on
all our afflictions. Hover once more over our old world in danger.
And, finally, the desert will once
more be a garden and in the garden the tree of justice will flower and the
fruit of justice will be peace.
Spirit of God, who by the banks
of the Jordan descended in Your fullness on Jesus’ head and proclaimed Him
Messiah, overshadow this portion of the mystical Body gathered before You.
Adorn it with a robe of grace.
Consecrate it with unction and
invite it to bring the good news to the poor, to bandage the wounds of broken
hearts, to proclaim freedom to slaves, release to prisoners and announce the
year of mercy of the Lord. Free us from the fear of not coping.
May our eyes radiate superhuman transparency.
May our hearts emit courage blended with tenderness.
May our hands pour out the blessing of the Father on all that
we touch.
Grant that our bodies may be resplendent
with joy. Clothe us with nuptial robes. Gird us with girdles of light, because,
for us and for all, the Bridegroom will not delay in coming.
T. Bello
The Gospel Text – Matthew 11: 2-11
2 Now John had heard in prison
what Christ was doing and he sent his disciples to ask Him, 3 'Are you the one
who is to come, or are we to expect someone else?' 4 Jesus answered, 'Go back
and tell John what you hear and see; 5 the blind see again, and the lame walk,
those suffering from virulent skin-diseases are cleansed, and the deaf hear,
the dead are raised to life and the good news is proclaimed to the poor; 6 and
blessed is anyone who does not find Me a cause of falling.' 7 As the men were
leaving, Jesus began to talk to the people about John, 'What did you go out
into the desert to see? A reed swaying in the breeze? No? 8 Then what did you
go out to see? A man wearing fine clothes? Look, those who wear fine clothes
are to be found in palaces. 9 Then what did you go out for? To see a prophet?
Yes, I tell you, and much more than a prophet: 10 he is the one of whom
scripture says, Look, I am going to send my messenger in front of you to
prepare your way before you. 11 'In truth I tell you, of all the children born
to women, there has never been anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet the
least in the kingdom of Heaven is greater than he.
Let Us Pause and Read the Gospel Text Again
Let us whisper quietly the
words of the Gospel and let them slowly pass from our tongue to our mind and
from our mind to our heart. Let us quietly savor some of these words …
•
We are gathered around Jesus and we are
listening to what the disciples are asking of Him concerning John: this is a
serious question from those who have the power to change history.
•
Jesus’ answer takes on a staid tone, but it
wounds our heart as with a spear: it is clear that the awaited Messiah is
Himself!
•
Let the questions, doubts, desires and hopes run
freely around the Word of Jesus. Let them confront and engage with it.
Gradually an answer will
come, even though it may be partial: not in the arguments, but when looking
squarely at “He who is to come” and who is speaking to you now. Do not weary of
repeating his Word in a soft voice and of keeping it in your heart, above and
within all the doubts and problems of your day.
Let Us Take a Closer Look at Matthew’s Text
= Our passage comes at the beginning of a new section of
the Gospel (11: 2–12, 50). This is a series of tales concerning Jesus’ activity
after His discourse on the apostolate. There are not many miracles, but the
Evangelist stresses the polemic between Jesus and His adversaries in growing
intensity for the whole of the rest of the Gospel.
•
In all probability, the text reflects the early
theological debates between the Christians and the disciples of John concerning
the nature of Jesus’ mission.
=
John in his prison…: It is a long time since Matthew has made reference to
the Baptizer (the last mention is in 4: 12) and now he tells us he is in prison
and it is only later that he will tell us the circumstances of his imprisonment
(14: 3-12).
•
John’s prison, as it was for all, is a place
apart, a kind of “world apart” which makes him almost a stranger to normal life
and twists the perception of news received from outside. Thus, the question of
the Baptizer is not surprising even though he was the first to recognize Jesus
as “more powerful” (3: 11) and as the eschatological judge whose “winnowing-fan
is in his hand” (3: 12), bowing before Him humbly and in fear (cf. 3: 11).
=
[When he] had heard what Christ was doing…: the expression “Christ was
doing”, used here to recall what Jesus was doing, anticipates the answer He
will give to John’s question.
•
John the Baptist, while in prison, hears news of
Jesus: we too every day, while we are in our “prisons” of solitude and distance
from God or of suffering, hear “something” that comes from various sources and
we feel troubled.
•
It is often difficult to distinguish between the
good news of the Gospel and so many other matters that take place in our daily
lives!
•
And yet, what Jesus does are the things that
“the Christ does”, even if we are not always aware of this, just as in the case
of John.
= Are you the one who
is to come, or have we got to wait for someone else? When John was baptizing
whole crowds in the Jordan, he had described a strong Messiah who would punish
severely the sins of all: “The one who
follows me is more powerful than I am, and I am not fit to carry His sandals;
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fan is in His
hand. He will clear his threshing-floor and gather His wheat into the barn, but
the chaff he will burn in a fire that will never go out” (Mt 3: 11- 12). In that severity that
cracked like a whip in view of conversion and, thus, of salvation, John had
read the seal of the mercy of YHWH. Suffering in prison, made fragile by a
sense of failure and powerlessness, victim of the injustice and arrogance
against which he had fought all his life, it seemed to John that evil was
winning and he is upset. Immersed irreversibly in that fog, he is no longer
capable of seeing clearly the power of God in action in the works of Jesus.
•
It is lawful to speculate: Jesus was revealing
Himself gradually as the Messiah, but He did so by breaking the canons of the
Jewish ideal and the usual interpretations of Sacred Scripture: He was not
“doing justice”, he was not separating the good from the bad like the sieve
separates the good wheat from the chaff; He preached conversion energetically
but pardoned sinners; He showed Himself to be “meek and humble of heart” (Mt
11: 29), open and available to all, a stranger to all vulgar ways of
contesting the system. It is, therefore, possible to think that John was in
crisis because Jesus did not correspond to the Messiah whom he expected and
whom he had constantly preached; so, he sends a delegation to Jesus to ask Him
some questions and for them to report to him a word that might enlighten this
mystery of contradictions: “Who are You, Jesus? What do You say of Yourself?
How can we believe in You when before arrogance and injustice You show Yourself
as a patient, merciful and non- violent Messiah?”
•
Who of us has not tried to form a more precise
idea of the One in whom we believe and His ways of acting, when life has made
us meet so many contradictions and injustices, even in the Church? Who of us
has not struggled to see and interpret correctly the signs of the active
presence of the Lord in our own history? It is difficult to welcome a God who
is “different” from our designs and so we must not accuse the Baptist, because
we too are subject to the temptation of wanting God to have our feelings and
tendencies and who might even be a little vindictive in carrying out “justice.”
Often we would like to have a God made in our image and likeness, but “My thoughts are not your thoughts, your
ways are not My ways…” (Isa 55:
8).
= Jesus answered, Go
back and tell John what you hear and see: Jesus does not answer quickly and
directly, but shows clearly the facts that result from His actions that are
changing history and realizing the old prophecy concerning the Messiah. Thus,
He does not give an answer “for immediate use”, but the disciples must go back
to John and refer to him what they themselves have heard and seen, because the
healings, resurrections and liberations are unequivocal signs of the messianic
nature of Jesus of Nazareth.
•
Every day we must learn to proclaim the good
news beginning from what we feel and see. Fraternal witness is indispensable to
communicate the Gospel.
•
Christ submits humbly to the questioning and
answers showing the disciples of John a true and personal method of
understanding and of proclaiming: "Go
back and tell John what you hear and see." The fourth Evangelist
recalls the same method in his first letter: “Something which has existed since the beginning that we have heard,
and we have seen with our own eyes; that we have watched and touched with our
hands: the Word, who is life – this is our subject. That life was made
invisible: we saw it and we are giving our testimony, telling you of the
eternal life which was with the Father and has been made visible to us. What we
have seen and heard we are telling you so that you too may be in union with us”
(1 Jn 1: 1-3). This was the missionary method used by the early Church: the
method learned from the incarnation of the Word.
•
A true and efficient proclamation must pass
through a simple and modest communication of personal experience: words without
fanfare of a life woven by faith.
= The blind see
again, and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead
are raised to life and the Good News is proclaimed to the poor: In these
words, a collection of various quotations from Isaiah (28: 18-19; 35: 5-6; 42:
18; 61: 1), we find the core of Jesus’ answer and of our passage. The Lord
presents His own works not as judgement and power, but as divine blessing for
those of the people in need.
•
It is significant that the prophetic passages
quoted make no reference to leprosy and death that the Evangelist puts into
Jesus’ mouth. This emphasizes the newness that Jesus brings to His manner of
fulfilling the prophecies concerning the Messiah awaited by Israel
•
The works of Jesus are great, but He is one of
the “little ones” who are His chosen ones, He is one of “the poor of JHWH” who
already sees the cross at the end of His journey as man. This is unbearable for
anyone expecting a triumphant Messiah. Blessed are they who hear and see with a
heart full of faith.
•
Indirectly Jesus invited John himself to hear
and see what He teaches and does. Thus the last of the prophets might recall
and now recognize that what Jesus says and does corresponds to the great
messianic prophecies so richly contained in the Old Testament. This is the
mechanism of the “religious memory” without which faith will never be enkindled
and, especially, may never survive the blows of scandal that life brings with
it: the works of God in the past are the signs of His fidelity to the promises
and the pledge of His future works.
•
Committing ourselves to recall every day the
“great things” that God worked for us and in us (cf. Lk 1: 49) does not mean falling into sterile reiteration but
gradually bringing the seed of the active grace of God to the very depths of
our being, so that it may grow and bear fruit. The Eucharist too is a memorial:
it is “the memorial of the Pasch of the Lord”, a living and actual memorial of
the salvation offered to each one of us.
= Happy is the man
who does not lose faith [is not scandalized]in Me: The word “scandal” comes
from the Greek: the “stumbling stone” prepared to strike a person by surprise.
Notwithstanding the meaning that we usually attribute to this word, in the
Bible “scandal” may be either negative or positive.
•
Jesus is one who “scandalizes” His fellow
citizens by His poor origins not well suited to a glorious Messiah; He
scandalizes the Pharisees with His cutting words; He scandalizes the disciples
of John with His way of doing things not according to foreseen plans and He
scandalizes His own disciples with His infamous death.
•
Jesus, however, does not praise those who
scandalize the little ones or those who are an occasion of scandal (cf. Mt 5:29) to the faith or morals thus
leading others into wrong ways.
•
The kind of scandal we need is the one that
comes from living the Gospel in a radical manner that shakes us from our habits
of life and from our mind-set.
•
We too are called to “scandalize” the world with
the scandal of the Gospel showing by our lives that we must not submit to uses
and customs that are at variance with the Christian faith, by refusing
compromises that could provoke injustices, by looking after the poor and the
least.
= What did you go out
into the wilderness to see?: Notwithstanding the weakness shown by the
questions put by John, Jesus describes His precursor with enthusiasm as a
prophet who by his burning words unites the living and incontestable signs of
his privileged connection with God in whose name he speaks to the People.
Rather, with this pressing series of six rhetorical questions and three
positive statements, Jesus says that John is more than a prophet: he is the one
of whom the ancient Scriptures of the fathers speak, the messenger who prepares
the way of the Lord (Mt 3:3) as the
old prophets had said (Mal 3:1; Ex 23:20). Nevertheless, the Lord
quickly explains the reasons for His affirmation: these may even be too evident
to His listeners.
= Of all the children born of women, a greater than John
the Baptist has never been seen: John is not only an eminent prophet and
precursor of the Messiah (because it is now clear that Jesus considers Himself
as such), but he is also great as a man, greater than his contemporaries and
those of past ages. This is an entirely personal kind of praise that Jesus
addresses to Herod’s prisoner and not merely a hyperbole. With these words,
Jesus anticipates the comparison between John the Baptist and Elijah, which He
will make explicit in verse 14: “he, if
you will believe me, is the Elijah who was to return.”
•
The expression “of all the children born of women” has a typically Semitic flavor,
but it also alludes to the mystery of Jesus’ origin: He too is “born of woman”,
but only in what concerns the flesh, because His human-divine genesis goes well
beyond His simple humanity.
•
Our birth as “children of God” in faith is also
wrapped in mystery: “who were born not
out of human stock or urge of the flesh or will of man but of God himself” (Jn
1: 13). We are “born of woman” but we are not meant for this earth, rather for
the Kingdom of heaven where we shall be judged according to our faith and the
works of faith, fruits of the welcome we give to our baptismal grace.
= Yet the least …: this part of the sentence (perhaps an
early gloss) seems to put a limit on the enthusiastic presentation of the
Baptist. Although he is great among men, yet John is small in the Kingdom,
because there everything is measured according to criteria quite different from
those on earth: the measure of the new times that are coming and have begun
with the human coming of the Son of God. Those who belong to this completely
new generation are greater than any of those who lived in preceding times, even
than John the Baptist.
•
The contrast between “great” and “small” is
created precisely to make it clear to all believers that to be great one has to
become ever smaller. In his human “greatness”, John is presented by Jesus as
the least in the Kingdom and thus even for John it is necessary for him to
“become small” in the hands of God. It is the same requirement every day for
each of us who are tempted to be like the “great” and “powerful”, at least in
our desire!
Let Us Pray the Word and Thank the Lord
God of our joy, giver of every salvation (Psalm 146)
Yahweh keeps faith for ever,
gives justice to the oppressed,
gives food to the hungry; Yahweh sets prisoners free.
Yahweh gives sight to the blind, lifts up those who are bowed
down.
Yahweh protects the stranger,
He sustains the orphan and the
widow. Yahweh loves the upright, but He frustrates the wicked.
Yahweh reigns for ever,
Your God, Zion, from age to age.
From the Word to Contemplation
Lord Jesus
who
“are about to come”, do not delay any more
and listen to the cry of the
poor who look to You for salvation, justice
and joy.
Grant us clear eyes and a
pure heart
so that we may be able to
discern Your active and fruitful presence also in the events of our “today” that looks so grey and empty of rays of hope! Come, Lord Jesus!
"The Spirit and the bride say:
'Come!' And those who listen repeat:
'Come!' Let those who thirst, come;
those who wish may draw the water of life
freely. He who bears witness to these things says:
'Yes, I shall come soon!' Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.” (Rev
22: 17, 20)
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