23 December/Thursday
Mal 3,1-4,23-24/Psa 25:4-5ab,8-10,14/Luke 1:57-66
By Most Rev. Emmanuel Kofi Fianu, SVD
First Reading Malachi 3:1-4,23-24
Before my day comes, I will send you Elijah my prophet
The Lord God says this: Look, I am going to send my messenger to prepare a way before me. And the Lord you are seeking will suddenly enter his Temple; and the angel of the covenant whom you are longing for, yes, he is coming, says the Lord of Hosts. Who will be able to resist the day of his coming? Who will remain standing when he appears? For he is like the refiner’s fire and the fullers’ alkali. He will take his seat as refiner and purifier; he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and then they will make the offering to the Lord as it should be made. The offering of Judah and Jerusalem will then be welcomed by the Lord as in former days, as in the years of old.
Know that I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before my day comes, that great and terrible day. He shall turn the hearts of fathers towards their children and the hearts of children towards their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a curse.
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 24(25):4-5,8-9,10,14
Stand erect, hold your heads high, because your liberation is near at hand.
Lord, make me know your ways.
Lord, teach me your paths.
Make me walk in your truth, and teach me:
for you are God my saviour.
The Lord is good and upright.
He shows the path to those who stray,
He guides the humble in the right path,
He teaches his way to the poor.
His ways are faithfulness and love
for those who keep his covenant and law.
The Lord’s friendship is for those who revere him;
to them he reveals his covenant.
Gospel Acclamation
Alleluia, alleluia!
King of the peoples
and cornerstone of the Church,
come and save man,
whom you made from the dust of the earth.
Alleluia!
Gospel Luke 1:57-66
'His name is John'
The time came for Elizabeth to have her child, and she gave birth to a son; and when her neighbours and relations heard that the Lord had shown her so great a kindness, they shared her joy.
Now on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child; they were going to call him Zechariah after his father, but his mother spoke up. ‘No,’ she said ‘he is to be called John.’ They said to her, ‘But no one in your family has that name’, and made signs to his father to find out what he wanted him called. The father asked for a writing-tablet and wrote, ‘His name is John.’ And they were all astonished. At that instant his power of speech returned and he spoke and praised God. All their neighbours were filled with awe and the whole affair was talked about throughout the hill country of Judaea. All those who heard of it treasured it in their hearts. ‘What will this child turn out to be?’ they wondered. And indeed the hand of the Lord was with him.
Reflection
The Gospel Reading speaks about the circumcision and naming of John the Baptist. Circumcision among the Jews marked the incorporation of a male child into the covenant relationship between God and his people, Israel. It was also the ceremony that established an obligation to live under the demands of the law. It is for these two reasons that only those Jews who were circumcised on the eighth day could consider themselves unblemished Jews. It was therefore important that John the Baptist was circumcised with the relatives and neighbours in attendance as witnesses to the act.
The story also speaks of the naming of the child on the same day. There is little evidence that this was the practice because in the time of the Patriarchs, the naming took place at birth. Naming of children at the moment of circumcision is a late Jewish practice. We also note that while there is precedence for a son to be named after the father, the more common practice was to name the male child after the grandfather. If those present at the naming ceremony wanted the child to be named after his father, it was probably because of the affliction of Zechariah. The objection of Elizabeth did not go down well with the audience. In their objection, they sought the support of Zechariah only to realise that the name he wrote down on the tablet was the same as the one the wife had proposed.
The convergence of the decisions of Elizabeth and Zechariah showed that only a name outside the range of all that people would expect would mark a decisive discontinuity in human affairs with the advent of John the Baptist. The net cut that his birth was to introduce in human history is already manifested in the ceremony narrated in the story. As the precursor of Jesus, John the Baptist’s life was to be a sign of the new era of salvation in Jesus Christ. John the Baptist did not have to proclaim it by word of mouth. The many signs from his conception to his circumcision and naming are enough to inform the person who knows how to read the signs of the time. We pray that we may not lose sight of all that John the Baptist is telling us about Jesus so that we may be ready to welcome him when he comes.
