Liturgical Readings for : Friday, 5th January, 2024
01-05 before Epiphany
Optional memorial of St Charles of St Andrew, Priest
Whole nations are called to worship the Lord
FIRST READING
A reading from the first letter of St John 3:11-21
We have passed out of death and into life, and of this we can be sure because we love our brothers.
This is the message as you heard it from the beginning: that we are to love one another;
not to be like Cain, who belonged to the Evil One and cut his brother’s throat;
cut his brother’s throat simply for this reason, that his own life was evil and his brother lived a good life.
You must not be surprised, brothers, when the world hates you;
we have passed out of death and into life, and of this we can be sure because we love our brothers.
If you refuse to love, you must remain dead;
to hate your brother is to be a murderer,
and murderers, as you know, do not have eternal life in them.
This has taught us love – that he gave up his life for us;
and we, too, ought to give up our lives for our brothers.
If a man who was rich enough in this world’s goods
saw that one of his brothers was in need, but closed his heart to him, how could the love of God be living in him?
My children, our love is not to be just words or mere talk, but something real and active;
only by this can we be certain that we are children of the truth and be able to quieten our conscience in his presence, whatever accusations it may raise against us, because God is greater than our conscience and he knows everything.
My dear people, if we cannot be condemned by our own conscience, we need not be afraid in God’s presence.
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Responsorial Psalm Ps 99
Response Cry out with joy to the Lord, all the earth.
1. Cry out with joy to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness.
Come before him, singing for joy. Response
2. Know that he, the Lord, is God. He made us, we belong to him,
we are his people, the sheep of his flock. Response
3. Go within his gates, giving thanks. Enter his courts with songs of praise.
Give thanks to him and bless his name. Response
4 Indeed, how good is the Lord, eternal his merciful love.
He is faithful from age to age. Response
Gospel Acclamation Heb 1:1-2
Alleluia, alleluia!
At various times in the past and in various different ways,
God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets;
but in our own time, the last days, he has spoken to us through his Son.
Alleluia!
Or
Alleluia, alleluia!
A hallowed day has dawned upon us. Come, you nations, worship the Lord,
for today a great light has shone down upon the earth.
Alleluia!
GOSPEL
The Lord be with you. And with your spirit
A reading from the holy Gospel according to John 1:43-51 Glory to you, O Lord
You are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel.
After Jesus had decided to leave for Galilee, he met Philip and said,
‘Follow me‘.
Philip came from the same town, Bethsaida, as Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him,
‘We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, the one about whom the prophets wrote:
He is Jesus son of Joseph, from Nazareth’.
‘From Nazareth?’ said Nathanael ‘Can anything good come from that place?’
‘Come and see’ replied Philip.
When Jesus saw Nathanael coming he said of him,
‘There is an Israelite who deserves the name, incapable of deceit’.
‘How do you know me?‘ said Nathanael
‘Before Philip came to call you,’ said Jesus ‘I saw you under the fig tree.’
Nathanael answered,
‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel’.
Jesus replied,
‘You believe that just because I said: I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that.’ And then he added;
‘I tell you most solemnly, you will see heaven laid open and, above the Son of Man,
the angels of God ascending and descending’.
The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
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Gospel Reflection 5th Jan, before Epiphany John 1:43-51
Dublin people often have a prejudice about Cork people. It is sometimes expressed in the saying, ‘The only good thing to come out of Cork is the road to Dublin’. That is city prejudice, but there can be small town prejudice too, and we see something of that in today’s gospel reading. We learn from the final chapter of John’s gospel that Nathanael was from Cana in Galilee, which is not too far from Nazareth. When Philip finds Nathanael to tell him that he had found the long awaited Messiah, Jesus son of Joseph, from Nazareth, Nathanael replies, ‘From Nazareth? Can anything good come from that place?’ Perhaps he would have said that the only good thing to come out of Nazareth was the road to Cana. It has to be said that Nazareth was a small village, off the beaten track, with no claim to fame; it isn’t mentioned even once in the Jewish Scriptures. Yet, something, someone, wonderful came out of Nazareth. This very ordinary place was the home of God’s only Son, the Word who was with God in the beginning and who was flesh in Nazareth. Having met Jesus for himself, Nathanael began to see that there was much more to Jesus than he could ever have imagined, ‘You are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel’. Even that insight was only the beginning of Nathanael’s journey of discovery. Jesus promises him, ‘You will see greater things… You will see heaven laid open and, above the Son of Man, the angels of God ascending and descending’. Nathanael will eventually come to appreciate that Jesus was the one through whom heaven was coming to earth; this man from this very ordinary village, Nazareth, was God in human form. We can all be tempted to ask a version of Nathanael’s question, ‘Can anything good come out of this place, this situation in my life, this person… out of me?’ The gospel reading is reminding us that the ordinary is often charged with the presence of God. Something good, something of God, can come out of any of us, even when we seem to ourselves to have little to offer.
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The Scripture Readings are taken from The Jerusalem Bible, published 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd.
