Misa de Gallo (B – White)
ANTIPHON
Christ our King is coming, he is the Lamb foretold by John.
INTRODUCTION:
The Gospel recounts the annunciation to Joseph, whom God chooses to be the legal father of Jesus and the guardian of the Holy Family. We admire Joseph for his attentiveness and docility to the voice of God. After receiving the angel’s message, Joseph does everything the Lord wants him to do. Joseph takes Mary and the Child under his care.
FIRST READING (Jeremiah 23:5-8)
Jeremiah prophesies the birth of a king, a descendant of David, which will usher in new hope and new life for the people. This “Son of David ” is the coming Messiah. The Gospel presents Jesus as the Davidic Messiah through Joseph who is a descendant of David.
BEHOLD, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will raise up a righteous shoot to David; as king he shall reign and govern wisely, he shall do what is just and right in the land. In his days Judah shall be saved, Israel shall dwell in security. This is the name they give him: “The LORD our justice.”
Therefore, the days will come, says the LORD, when they shall no longer say, “As the LORD lives, who brought the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt”; but rather, “As the LORD lives, who brought the descendants of the house of Israel up from the land of the north” – and from all the lands to which I banished them; they shall again live on their own land.
RESPONSORIAL PSALM (Psalm 72)
R — Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace forever.
1 . O God, with your judgment endow the king,
and with your justice, the king’s son;
he shall govern your people with justice
and your afflicted ones with judgment. (R)
2. For he shall rescue the poor when he cries out,
and the afflicted when he has no one to help him.
He shall have pity for the lowly and the poor;
the lives of the poor he shall save. (R)
3. Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel,
who alone does wondrous deeds.
And blessed forever be his glorious name;
may the whole earth be filled with his glory. (R)
ALLELUIA
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
O Leader of the House of Israel, giver of the Law to Moses on Sinai: come to rescue us with your mighty power!
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
GOSPEL: (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 be with child and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means “God is with us.” When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home. He had no relations with her until she bore a son, and he named him Jesus.
REFLECTION:
What has Jeremiah to do with Christmas? Branded as a prophet of doom, Jeremiah is even accused today of condemning the use of Christmas trees (quoting Jer 10:1-5). Jeremiah received the divine appointment to be a prophet even before he was born; no wonder his name literally means The Lord has appointed him.” The pre-natal mission, however, is something of which you and I would not be envious. God sent him to ”uproot and to tear down, to destroy and to demolish” kingdoms and only afterwards to build and to plant.” He had to denounce his fellow prophets, the priests, the princes, the kings-as well as animals, trees, and crops-and to announce the destruction of their most sacred city, Jerusalem, and of its most sacred place of worship, the Temple-signifying the end of the kingdom of David. His prophetic ministry was one of the longest (40 years) but all of it was spent in anguish, during the most tumultuous period of Judah’s history. Assyrian power was collapsing and the Babylonians had taken the reins of empire. The kingdom of Judah itself was beset with economic and political problems. In a short period of time, Judah had six different rulers. Jeremiah himself was snubbed, rejected, jailed, tortured, persecuted, and sentenced to die. The mission must have weighed a heavy toll on his spirit that, in extremely strong words, Jeremiah complained to God. He accused God of deceiving him, cursed the day of his birth, and contemplated on ending his own life.
Check any image of Jeremiah available online and take a look at how artists have portrayed our prophet. Michelangelo, for instance, painted him as seated, an unlikely posture of a prophet who is supposed to be a man of action. Jeremiah’s fingers cover his mouth, his head is hanging, his hair disheveled, eyes sunk deep, gaze downcast, shoulders drooping, beard unkempt, and fingers pointing downwards. “Pasan Ko ang Daigdig” (The World Is on My Shoulders) could have been a fitting title for this anguish-filled painting that decorates the Sistine Chapel. Jeremiah is someone you wouldn’t want for a guest at your Noche Buena.
There comes a time when our life is like Jeremiah’s-or even worse. Unlike Jeremiah, however, we are afraid to complain to God. We are ashamed to protest or say, ”Why are you doing this to me, Lord? You’re so mean and unjust!” (cf. Jer 20:7). Yet the prophet could be telling us now, It’s okay not to be okay” (as the title of one book says). Take note that during the prophet’s woes and bitter jeremiads, he had seen a ray of hope: ”Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will raise up a righteous shoot to David” (First Reading). The prophecy must have come like a whispering hope” making one’s heart ”in its sorrow rejoice!”
When the evangelist Matthew wrote his own version of the Christmas story, he must have in mind also the fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy (today’s Gospel Reading). For Matthew, the central figure in his story is Saint Joseph whom he describes as a ”righteous man” and a ”son of David.” Although Matthew’s fulfillment quotation is from the prophet Isaiah (a Virgin bearing a Son and whose name will be ”Emmanuel”), a subplot is Jeremiah’s oracle of the coming of a ”righteous shoot of David.” Matthew likewise tells us that Joseph shall name his child JESUS, because he will save his people from their sins.” The evangelist must be making a ”throwback” to another of Jeremiah’s oracles of hope, a sequel of the first one. In that prophecy, God shall someday make a ”new covenant” with his people, one that is to be written in the heart and that he will forgive their iniquity and will no longer remember their sin (cf. Jer 33:33-34).
Christmas is not of course the time to dwell only on our sins and woes. It is and must be a ”hope time” – a time to strengthen your hope. ”Tis the season of hope,” as many say. If the basis of ancient Israel’s hope was the prophetic word, ours is the Word-Made-Flesh. Our hope is anchored on a person called Jesus, who became like us and who enjoyed the wonderful gift to be a human being just like us. Maybe we can pray like this on Christmas Day: Lord, thank you for becoming human just like me, just like my friend, just like the person seated beside me, just like my enemy.”
COMMUNION ANTIPHON (Matthew 1:23)
His name will be called Emmanuel, which means God-with-us.
The Mass Readings and Reflections by Fr. Randolf C. Flores, SVD is taken from the December 18, 2017 edition of Sambuhay Missalette, printed in the Philippines by St. Paul’s Media Pastoral Ministry. The views and opinions in this post are those of the authors and does not necessarily reflect those of the blog site.
The Catholic Gospel Digest 