Monday within the Octave of Christmas, December 29, 2025

Luke 2, 22-35

When the days were completed for their purification according to the law of Moses, the parents of Jesus took him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, just as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every male that opens the womb shall be consecrated to the Lord”, and to offer the sacrifice of a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons, in accordance with the dictate in the law of the Lord.  Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was righteous and devout, awaiting the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Christ of the Lord. He came in the Spirit into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to perform the custom of the law in regard to him, he took him into his arms and blessed God, saying: “Lord, now let your servant go in peace; your word has been fulfilled: my own eyes have seen the salvation which you prepared in the sight of every people, a light to reveal you to the nations and the glory of your people Israel.”  The child’s father and mother were amazed at what was said about him; and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted (and you yourself a sword will pierce) so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”

St. Luke makes it quite clear in his prologue that he is writing his Gospel for the Gentile Christians.  We would expect, then, that he would emphasize those parts of the life and teaching of the Lord Jesus that would interest and appeal to this audience.  And he does so, recording some of the longer parables that Jesus told, such as that of the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan — for the Greeks loved fables, puzzles, and stories that contained wisdom.  He does this in other ways, too, as in showing the Lord to be a heroic figure — one who fulfills his duty though suffering greatly.  

But St. Luke also carefully showed Jesus and those associated with him as law-abiding Jews, even going beyond the prescripts of the Jewish Law in order to serve God.  Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth “were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless” (Luke 1, 6).  The Virgin Mary is “full of grace” (Luke 1, 28).  John the Baptist is put in prison by Herod for holding him accountable to the Law.  Jesus himself calls on the tax collectors and prostitutes to repent, and eats with them in order to spend time with them and to urge them to live righteously, though the Jewish authorities despise him for this.  The list of examples could be extended for pages.

Here, in the Gospel reading for today’s Mass, Luke tells us, “The parents of Jesus took him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, just as it is written in the law of the Lord.”  Certainly this fact could offer little of interest to his Greek readers, and much less the quotations Luke takes from the Jewish Torah.  Yet Luke does this in order to answer a big question that First Century Gentiles asked when the Gospel was preached to them: Why should we Greeks believe in the teachings of someone who was rejected even by his own people?  Luke responds to this question by showing that it was not Christ who was a renegade from his religion, for he followed it perfectly: it was the leaders of the religion who were the renegades.  Besides this being historically true, it would also have appealed to the Greeks, who had a high regard for irony.  

Also on display here is Luke’s appreciation for the interest the Greeks had in oracles and prophetic sayings.  Since before David was king in Israel, thousands of ancient Greeks had made the pilgrimage to Delphi to hear the priestess there mutter oracles supposedly inspired by Apollo.  Kings even went there to find out whether to go to war or not.  Luke tells his audience of the appearances of the Angel Gabriel and the clear messages he has for Zechariah and Mary — in sharp contrast to the ambiguous messages of the pagan prophets.  In today’s Gospel, Simeon and Anna, two holy people, prophesy about the newborn Jesus.  Luke tells us that they were inspired, but by the Holy Spirit.

We learn from considerations of this kind that we should also adapt the way we talk about the Lord or the Faith according to the background of the folks with whom we talk, while speaking the truth accurately.  We should not give people more than they can handle, or use unfamiliar words or expressions with them that we do not explain.  We begin with what is easiest to learn first, then, when folks are ready, some deeper matters.  Most of all. We must love our God.  The more we love him, the more our love for him will show itself in natural ways of which we will be unaware but which our hearers will notice.  Luke wrote his Gospel very carefully for his audience, but what captured their hearts for Jesus was the passionate love Luke had for him and the joy that filled him because of him.

The Feast of the Holy Family, Sunday, December 28, 2025

Colossians 3, 12–21

Brothers and sisters: Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if one has a grievance against another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do. And over all these put on love, that is, the bond of perfection. And let the peace of Christ control your hearts, the peace into which you were also called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, as in all wisdom you teach and admonish one another, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Wives, be subordinate to your husbands, as is proper in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and avoid any bitterness toward them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is pleasing to the Lord. Fathers, do no

The excerpt from St. Paul’s Letter to the Colossians used in today’s Mass is similar to the Apostle’s instructions in Ephesians 5, 21-33.  He is presenting the Church’s teaching on the relations between members of a Christian family.  We should not underestimate the necessity for him doing this because these Gentile Christians did not have Jewish tradition and culture to draw on.  That is, they did not have even the foundation for understanding how members of a Christian family should understand and act towards each other — in short, how to live as the Holy Family lived.  

He prefaces his teaching with general admonitions to the Colossians on how to live in society, particularly within their own community of believers: “Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.”  We should notice that he first of all reminds them that they are “God’s chosen ones”, his “elect”, chosen before the world began.  They belong to him and now should act as he directs them.  They therefore should act with one another as he has acted with them, with compassion and patience.  “And over all these put on love, that is, the bond of perfection.”  For Paul, love was the love of Christ Crucified for us which we share with one another.  It is not a mere affection or feeling but “a bond” that makes us members of one another in the Body of Jesus Christ.  Another translation of the Greek word for “bond” is “chain”, and for believers in the Lord Jesus, our chain is not one that restricts but that liberates.

“Wives, be subordinate to your husbands, as is proper in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and avoid any bitterness toward them.”  The Greek word translated here as “subordinate” means something more like “make yourself subject to”, which is not quite the same thing.  To be “subordinate” has the sense of making oneself less than another in all things.  To “make oneself subject to” has the sense of a person placing him or herself at the service of another while remaining and being treated as an equal.  We see this is what follows the instruction to wives: “Husbands, love your wives.”  In understanding what Paul is saying we must refer back to how he understands “love”, a supernatural gift from God.  We can also look to a similar verse in Ephesians 5, 21: “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ”, and Ephesians 5, 25: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her” — keeping in mind that out of his love for the Church, his Bride, Christ died for her.

“Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is pleasing to the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, so they may not become discouraged.”  The place of a child in the Gentile world was a matter of great uncertainty.  For example, unwanted children were left in the woods by their parents to be devoured by the beasts.  Under Roman Law, a father could kill his child up to the age of twelve and not be charged with murder.  For a certain period in Rome, if a parent was sentences to death, his wife and children were killed with him.  For the Christian, a child is a welcome sign of God’s love.  Paul teaches children to obey their parents not out of servile fear but in order to make Jesus happy, Jesus, who obeyed his parents.  Parents are also counseled not to “provoke” their children, that is, to spew their rage at them or blame them for what they have not done.  Paul repeats this counsel and adds to it in Ephesians 6, 4: “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”  Teach your children who come to you from God, to serve him.

As never before in history, society is attacking and attempting to redefine the family.  That is, society is engaged in destroying that out of which it consists, for it is based on the family — and always has been — not on the individual, as it is claimed today.  It is self-destructive behavior which will lead to final disaster there is no conversion.  Let us give good example through our families of the beauty and love that are possible for anyone to have, and which will lead them to the model of all families, that of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

The Feast of St. John the Apostle, Saturday, December 27, 2025

John 20, 1–8

On the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we do not know where they put him.” So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb. They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first; he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in. When Simon Peter arrived after him, he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there, and the cloth that had covered his head, not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place. Then the other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed.

The “other disciple” is understood to be John the Apostle and the writer of this Gospel.  John and Peter were known to belong to the innermost group of the Apostles, witnessing events in the life of Jesus to which the other Apostles were not privy.  Later, we seem them acting together in the Acts of the Apostles in the healing of a crippled beggar.  John takes part in the action of the Gospel but he writes of himself as “the other disciple” or “the disciple whom Jesus loved”, not using his name out of a sense of modesty.

John was a young man at the time he began to attend the preaching of St. John the Baptist, perhaps no more than fifteen or sixteen, the son of Zebedee and the younger brother of James.  His age can be estimated because he was not married when the Lord called him to be an Apostle, and we can say this because he was working with his father as a fisherman.  If he had been married, he would have had his own boat  so as better to support his family.  This also accords with tradition, which counts him as the youngest of the Apostles.  The Lord recognized his zeal and perhaps also a certain excitability, calling him and his brother James “the sons of thunder”.  St. Mark gives us reason for this by describing their desire to call down fire from heaven on a Samaritan town which forbade them entrance of their way to Jerusalem.  Perhaps this mixture of zeal, excitability, and innocence is what drew the Lord especially to him in friendship.  The love between the two men shows most in John’s presence beneath the Cross, and in the Lord’s entrusting his Mother to his care.

Following Pentecost, John remained for some years in Jerusalem.  His acquaintance with the city shows itself in the precise details he gives of it in his Gospel, details which in some cases were proven to be accurate through archaeological discoveries.  A Galilean would only know about these things if he had spent much time in Jerusalem.  In fact, his familiarity with the city and its people as well as the focus he put on the Lord’s preaching in the city in his Gospel make it plain that the Gospel was written for Judean Christians.  Although tradition tells us that John wrote his Gospel late in his life — as late as twenty years after the city fell to the Romans — it would seem that he wrote it before that time.  When he writes of the deeds Jesus performs in the city, he tells us just where he performed them or where he preached, as though to guide people to these places, which would have made no sense of these places no longer existed.  And if he had written either long after the city was destroyed or for Gentile Christians, there would have been no need for him to speak so specifically about places and times.

After writing his Gospel, he moved on to Asia Minor to spread the Gospel.  He is associated with the city of Ephesus, seemingly years after Paul had spent time there.  It was there that he wrote his three Letters.  It was on the island of Patmos, off the coast or .Asia Minor, that he experienced the visions which he set down in the book we call that of Revelation, or as the Apocalypse.  In the book he speaks of being exiled there for his preaching the word of God.  He is said to be the last of the Apostles to die, and if he were fifteen or sixteen in 30 A.D., he could have lived into the 90’s as tradition also hands down to us.  He is supposed to be the only one of the Apostles to have died naturally.

We give thanks to God for the writings and the holy example of this man and pray that we may know Christ crucified so as to know him in the glory of his Resurrection, as John did.

The Feast of St. Stephen, Friday, December 26, 2025

Matthew 10, 17-22

Jesus said to his disciples: “Beware of men, for they will hand you over to courts and scourge you in their synagogues, and you will be led before governors and kings for my sake as a witness before them and the pagans. When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say. You will be given at that moment what you are to say. For it will not be you who speak but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Brother will hand over brother to death, and the father his child; children will rise up against parents and have them put to death. You will be hated by all because of my name, but whoever endures to the end will be saved.”

Even as the churches still echo with hymns to the Baby in the manger, the Feast of St. Stephen rushes upon us.  Though the reason for the date of Stephen’s Feast has to do with the procession of his relics from Palestine to Constantinople in the 5th century, we learn that faith in the One born in Bethlehem carries a price.  

For perhaps ten years after the Resurrection of the Lord, the Jewish Christians and the Jews co-existed in an uneasy peace.  The Christians insisted that they were the true Jews who believed that the Law had been fulfilled by Jesus Christ, and so they continued to meet in synagogues and to worship in the Temple in Jerusalem.  It was not long however before the increase in the number of the Christians and in their confidence led to theological clashes with the Jewish leaders.  This resulted in the stoning of St. Stephen, the most outspoken among the Christian leaders, and following this, persecution of the members of the Church throughout Judea and Galilee.  The words of Jesus in today’s Gospel reading provide us with a glimpse of what that first persecution looked like: “They will hand you over to courts and scourge you in their synagogues . . . Brother will hand over brother to death, and the father his child; children will rise up against parents and have them put to death. You will be hated by all because of my name.”  The Lord did not hide the future from anyone who cared to listen.  He told his disciples on more than one occasion that believing in him would likely cost them their lives.  It is revealing to us of the hold he had on the people of the time that they continued to believe and to follow him and, indeed to die for him.  It is in prayer that we can experience his hold on us today.

The Lord tells us that persecution and loss comes upon believers as a matter of course.  We must expect it and fortify ourselves for it by prayer, fasting, and alms-giving. We do this for him.  As long as he is before our eyes, we will be safe, no matter what happens.  We may be “hated by all” because of his name, but if we “endure to the end”, we will be saved.

The Solemnity of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, December 25, 2025

The Gospel Reading for the Mass at Dawn, Luke 2:15–20

When the angels went away from them to heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go, then, to Bethlehem to see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” So they went in haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known the message that had been told them about this child. All who heard it were amazed by what had been told them by the shepherds. And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart. Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as it had been told to them.

The evening had begun much like every other evening.  The shepherds, rough fellows in their smelly clothes, had rounded up their flocks into a circle that was easy to watch, and they ate some of their store of bread and drank from their small store of wine.  Weary from the day, they spoke little.  Before it grew too dark, they played simple games.  Two or three of them readied themselves to keep the first watch of the night.  They would stay up and keep an eye out for wolves, thieves, and the small but deadly lions that roamed about at that time.  Each watch went as long as four or five hours and, at if they were lucky, it would be a monotonous shift.  The chill in the air would help them stay awake.

And then came the Angel, shining so brightly that the features of his face could hardly be made out.  His brilliance woke the shepherds who were sleeping, and all shaded their eyes and stood up.  He spoke of a Savior born in nearby Bethlehem, and that the sign of this was a woman who had given birth and laid her Child in a manger.  Then all around them appeared blazing multitudes of angels who sang of God’s glory and of peace to the earth.  And as suddenly as they appeared, they were gone, for God’s heralds do not linger after they convey his message.  Lighting their lamps, some of the shepherds trudged off across the field to see this wondrous Child: “The shepherds said to one another, “Let us go, then, to Bethlehem to see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.”  

“So they went in haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger.”  The Greek means something more like, “they went, earnestly desiring”.  “They found” more precisely means that they “discovered through searching”.  It would have proven a long and uncertain trek, especially at night.  The Greek text hints at their difficulties in finding the Child.  But when they found him and his parents, there was no mistaking the truth of the Angel’s words.  “When they saw this, they made known the message that had been told them about this child.”  The phrase translated here as “they made known” also means “they knew”, and so the shepherds understood the message of the angel and they told what they had heard to Mary and Joseph.

“All who heard it were amazed by what had been told them by the shepherds.”  The phrase “all who heard” seems to contradict the image most of us have of the Nativity, that only Mary, Joseph, and Jesus were present.  But as we also read that Jesus was born outside the town because “there was no room for them in the inn”, we can suppose that the couple had hunted for a place to stay within the town.  Their plight would have attracted sympathy, and one of the townsfolk may have suggested they take refuge in one of the small caves outside the town walls.  Some of the women of the place may have gone with them, one carrying a jar of water and another ready to act as midwife.  For anyone but Mary and Joseph, this birth was a purely human situation, novel only for the urgent need of the couple.  The arrival of the shepherds changed that.  All present wondered exceedingly at what the shepherds told them.  The newborn Infant appeared no different from any other except, laid in a trough, he seemed a little pathetic.  And yet the shepherds had seen and heard angels speaking of this Child as the Savior.

“And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.”  The word translated here as “kept” means “was keeping safe”, “was keeping in mind”.  The verb is in the imperfect tense, meaning that her action was not limited to this single occasion, but that she pondered through time.  The imperfect tense signifies a continuous action in the past.  Long after the Birth of her Son, she was turning over all these words, as the Greek says, in her mind.  Let us consider, for a moment, what Mary would have known and not known beforehand of this Birth: she knew that her Child was the Son of God; she knew, through the Prophet Micah, that he would be born in Bethlehem.  She did not know that she would give birth in a cave.  She did not know that her Son’s arrival would be announced by angels to shepherds.  What was God doing, allowing his Son to be born in poverty?  Why would he announce this to shepherds?  

“Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as it had been told to them.”  We do not know what became of these shepherds.  We are not told that shepherds were among Christ’s followers.  But when the Lord began to preach and to tell parables, he spoke much of shepherds.  Indeed, he called himself “the Good Shepherd” who would lay down his life for his sheep.  

I hope everyone has a Holy Christmas!  I will remember all who read these reflections in my Mass tomorrow morning!

Wednesday in the Fourth Week of Advent, December 24, 2025

Luke 1, 67-79 

Zechariah his father, filled with the Holy Spirit, prophesied, saying: “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel; for he has come to his people and set them free. He has raised up for us a mighty Savior, born of the house of his servant David. Through his prophets he promised of old that he would save us from our enemies, from the hands of all who hate us. He promised to show mercy to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant. This was the oath he swore to our father Abraham: to set us free from the hand of our enemies, free to worship him without fear, holy and righteous in his sight all the days of our life. You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way, to give his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins. In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

The last words Zechariah had said before becoming mute were spoken in the Temple to the Angel Gabriel: “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years” (Luke 1, 18).  His words expressed doubt and even disbelief.  He curled himself into a defensive position before the Angel and prepared himself to make a refusal.  This behavior is remarkable in a priest, a son of Aaron, who meditated on the Law and knew well the stories of miraculous conceptions, and so it was fitting that he be struck deaf and dumb: he had stalled before the word of the Lord and so he should not hear it; and he would not give answer to the message of the Lord and so he should lose his ability to speak.  But Gabriel did not strike him deaf and dumb.  Rather, Zechariah incurred the natural consequences of his actions.

But Zechariah did not go back to his home embittered.  He pondered the last words of the Angel to him: “I am Gabriel, who stand in the presence of God; and I was sent to speak to you, and to bring you this good news. 20 And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things come to pass, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time” (Luke 1, 19-20).  He entered the difficult world of silence in which he struggled to make his slightest needs or thoughts known, and from this experience he realized that he had become a sign.  What had happened to him as a result of his faithlessness had come upon Israel long before.  Since it would not hear the Prophets, it lost its ability to hear.  Since it praised foreign gods, it lost its ability to speak.

Over the months of his silence, he repented.  More than that, he grew eager to fulfill the commandments God had given to him through the Angel.  Over the months he began to understand what his son would mean for Israel.  As he, Zechariah, had become a sign, so his son would be a sign — a sign not of Israel’s lack of faith and of the broken covenant, but a sign of a new dawn, a herald of the new Covenant God would make with man through the Savior he would send.  And after nine months of silence, he was granted the opportunity to act, to repair his disbelief with firm belief in the face of pressure to conform to the old ways.  And after writing, “His name is John” on the wax tablet, and regained his ability to hear and to speak.  And the first words he spoke were the praise of God.  No hesitancy restrains him now, no questions linger.  He speaks of God and his plan for the salvation of his people: “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel; for he has come to his people and set them free. He has raised up for us a mighty Savior, born of the house of his servant David.”  Before he even speaks of his own son, John, he speaks of the coming Messiah, whom he knew now would be born of the Virgin Mary, his wife’s kinswoman who had departed a few days before.  When he does speak of his son, it is to prophesy of his place in God’s plan: “You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way.”  A proud father, yet he sees all in the context of the Savior, the son of David, and in all of his canticle, he speaks only a line or two of his son, the servant of the Redeemer.

In the baptismal ritual, the priest touches the mouth and the ears of the Child whom he has baptized and says, “May the Lord open your ears and your lips that you may hear his word and proclaim his praise.”  May we use our own ears and lips for the purpose for which God gave them to us, in listening intently to the word of God and uttering his praise.

December 22 in the Fourth Week of Advent, 2025

Luke 1, 57-66

When the time arrived for Elizabeth to have her child she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy toward her, and they rejoiced with her. When they came on the eighth day to circumcise the child, they were going to call him Zechariah after his father, but his mother said in reply, “No. He will be called John.” But they answered her, “There is no one among your relatives who has this name.” So they made signs, asking his father what he wished him to be called. He asked for a tablet and wrote, “John is his name,” and all were amazed. Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue freed, and he spoke blessing God. Then fear came upon all their neighbors, and all these matters were discussed throughout the hill country of Judea. All who heard these things took them to heart, saying, “What, then, will this child be? For surely the hand of the Lord was with him.”

The Virgin Mary departed from her relative Elizabeth’s town after staying with her for three months, departing probably soon after Elizabeth gave birth. It is possible that Joseph arrived to help her make the trip.  Losing the company of Mary and her unborn Child would have been hard for Elizabeth, but now Elizabeth had her own child to take care of..

It is not clear if Elizabeth had made her pregnancy known to her friends and neighbors after the Virgin Mary came to her.  Mary herself learned of it only through the revelation of the Angel Gabriel.  Yet it is hard to imagine that Zechariah’s fellow priests did not ask about her or that the servants had not talked to other servants.  The pregnancy might have been hidden for the first six months, especially since no one would have suspected it, but probably not for the last three.  Mary’s arrival might have been put down by observers as due to some infirmity Elizabeth was suffering (she was already an older woman), but by the time she gave birth, the whole town must have known, and surely the people there would have heard the labor cries.  

At the end of those cries, there was a baby.  Like all new babies, a sign of innocence and hope, but this one more than any other that had yet been born.  The mysterious circumstances around his conception, both Zechariah’s loss of hearing and speech in the Temple as well as the age of the parents, hung over it.  In addition, Elizabeth’s behavior after the conception aroused curiosity and concern.  The signs of some heavenly action seemed everywhere, but no one could say definitely what they meant.  The mystery and the strange behavior came to a head when Elizabeth insisted that the child be named John at the time of his circumcision, against the wishes of her well-meaning relatives.  Zechariah made this decision firm by writing on a clay tablet that the child’s name was John.  The crowd was astounded because, deaf and mute, Zechariah should not have been able to understand what everyone was arguing over.  His action silenced the crowd, and with that he began to speak for the first time in nine months.  Inspired by the Holy Spirit, with deep emotion, he explained what it all meant.

“What, then, will this child be? For surely the hand of the Lord was with him.”  Zechariah told the people assembled for John’s circumcision that his son would “be called the prophet of the Most High, for [he] will go before the Lord to prepare his way, to give his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins” (Luke 1, 76).  No father had ever spoken of his newborn son in this way.  He would “go before the Lord” to “prepare” his way invoking Malachi 3, 1; and that he would do this by preaching repentance, invoking Malachi 3, 24.  The people understood these verses very specifically as pertaining to the arrival of the Prophet Elijah, who would precede the Messiah.  But the fact that, all the signs aside, the birth seemed very much like any other birth in the obscure little town town where they lived.  When Elijah did come, he would come down from heaven, just as the Messiah would.  This was their thinking, though nothing in the Scriptures told them this.  And so, while they still wondered about what had happened, they went on with their lives.

We, to whom Christ has come in baptism and to whom he continues to come st Holy Mass, must not live as though this had not happened and was continuing to happen, but through virtuous lives we should proclaim that the Lord came, continues to come, and will come again.