Cycle A - Year II:  

25 December 2019: Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord (Mass during the day) 

(Liturgical Color: White)

Readings:

First Reading:        Isaiah 52:7-10

Second Reading:   Hebrews 1:1-6

Gospel:  Please Read  John 1:1-18

"A Child is born for us....!"

The Good News is proclaimed in the Entrance Antiphon of the Mass during the day:  "A child is born for us, and a son is given to us; his scepter of power rests upon his shoulder, and his name will be called Messenger of great counsel!"  (Is 9:5)

Rejoice and be glad, for today is the BIG DAY and we greet each other a Merry and Blessed Christmas 2019!

So let us proclaim to the whole world: "Glory to God in the highest! For this day the Almighty gives His greatest Gift to us all, the Gift of His beloved Son!"

The event of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ is the reason for all the preparations in our Advent journey, an the nine-day novena Masses or Misa de Aguinaldo.  Indeed, let us rejoice and be glad for our Messiah is born!  We are overwhelmed with joy in the hope that lights up our darkness.  

For Mass during Christmas Day, the Gospel reading is taken from the Prologue of the Gospel according to St. John.  Now the Prologue is the very first thing one sees in in opening the Gospel of John.  But in reality it was the last one to be written, because it is really the final summary of John's Gospel, only that it is place in the beginning.

St. John, in this simple introduction, summarizes for his audience everything he wanted to convey about Jesus of Nazareth.  John expresses the divinity of Christ. That means to say, Jesus was there in the very beginning (meaning, the beginning before anything else has been begun); in that time Jesus was with God and He was God; nothing was made without Him because it was all created through Him; in Him is life for all men. 

John writes about Jesus as God's creative, life-giving and light-giving word that has come to earth in human form.  For our Lord Jesus Christ is indeed truly Man while remaining truly God.

And so it is only through Jesus Christ that we can behold the glory of God.  Jesus became the partaker of our humanity so that we could also be partakers of His divinity.

, 

Let us then reflect on the significance and importance of the Christmas event in our lives.  Today we continue to proclaim anew the wonder of the Incarnation.  "The Son of God assumed a human nature in order to accomplish our salvation in it.  The Son of God... worked with human hands; he thought with a human mind.  He acted with a human will, and with a human heart He loved.  Born of the Virgin Mary, He was truly been made one of us, like us in all things except sin." (Gaudium et Spes)

As we gather together on this Christmas Day, the birth of our Lord, to celebrate the Eucharist around the Infant Child in Bethlehem, the joy is mine to wish everyone of my family and friends, my readers and followers, a Blessed and Merry Christmas 2019!

In conclusion let us pray:  Almighty God and Father of light, Your eternal Word leaped down from heaven in the silent watches of the night.  Open our hearts to receive His life and increase our vision with the rising dawn that our lives may be filled with God's glory and God's peace. Amen.

Happiest Birthday, Baby Lord Jesus!

A Blessed and Merry Christmas to everyone!

Ad Jesum per Mariam!