The Word every day: 22-28 December, 2024
Commentary on the Readings of the Day by Father Giordano Favillini
Sunday 22/12
Luke 1: 41B-42
Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and cried out with a loud voice: ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb’.
Mary is blessed by God more than any other creature, which is why all generations of believers acclaim her, and through her we receive special blessings and graces on account of this blessing she has received.
Monday 23/12
Luke 1: 57-58
Elizabeth gave birth to a son. The neighbours and relatives heard that the Lord had manifested his great mercy in her, and they rejoiced with her. When the Lord manifests His great mercy, converting, healing, enlightening, it is a great feast for all creation, we need His mercy as much as the desert needs the rain.
Tuesday 24/12
Luke 1:78
Through the tenderness and mercy of our God, a sun will visit us, rising from on high, to shine on those who stand in darkness and in the shadow of death. Jesus is like a sun that rises after a stormy and cold night, he is the manifestation of the Father’s tenderness that is reflected in the newborn of Bethlehem, and with tenderness he invites us to recreate ourselves and to feed on him who became bread for us.
Wednesday 25/12
Luke 2:7
Mary gave birth to her first-born son, wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the dwelling place. The newly born Jesus is placed in a manger because his mission will be to be bread come down from heaven to feed humanity. Today, Jesus is bread, multiplied, so that those who believe in Him can taste God’s tenderness, be nourished to receive the strength for the existential journey to be made in this sometimes tiring, difficult and merciless world.
Thursday 26/12
Matthew 26:22
Jesus said: ‘You will be hated by all because of my name, but he who endures to the end will be saved’.
Welcoming this Child Jesus born for us inevitably leads us to clash with darkness, unjust systems, institutionalised lies, deception, but those who remain faithful to him will always enjoy a joy and peace that the world does not know.
Friday 27/12
John 20:4
They both ran together, Peter and John, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and reached the tomb first.
Peter and John represent the institution and the charism, the one who arrives first is the one who is driven by love, but there is also a need for the institution in order for this to remain alive and pass through all generations of believers.
Saturday 28/12
Matthew 2:16
Herod was enraged and sent to kill all the children in Bethlehem and its territory who were two years old and under.
Faced with the manifestation of God’s love and mercy, the man who absolutizes himself, who feels himself the master of his own destiny and that of others, kills, destroys, because not understanding the logic of love that Jesus brought into the world, he does such things.