December18, 2015 Friday,
3rd Week of Advent
1st Reading: Jer 23:5–8 Gospel:Mt1:18–25
This is how Jesus Christ was born. Mary his mother had been given to Joseph in marriage but before they lived together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Then Joseph, her husband, made plans to divorce her in all secrecy. He was an upright man, and in no way did he want to discredit her. While he was pondering over this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, descendant of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. She has conceived by the Holy Spirit, and now she will bear a son. You shall call him ‘Jesus’ for he will save his people from their sins.” All this happened in order to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: The virgin will conceive and bear a son, and he will be called Emmanuel which means: God-with-us. When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had told him to do and he took his wife to his home. So she gave birth to a son and he had not had marital relations with her. Joseph gave him the name of Jesus.
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE (Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated Life
Experience)
Having discussed in yesterday’s column the difference between mercy and compassion the succeeding three columns will be about mercy. When God revealed himself to Moses, he introduced himself as “a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Ex 34:6).
This was a preview to how God would intervene in the fate of doomed humanity. God intervened with an abundance of mercy so that “in the fullness of time” (Galatians 4:4), when Mother Mary’s “yes” sealed all preparations of God for his big intervention plan, he sent his Only Son to concretize his mercy towards humanity. Everything that Jesus did as a God-made-man involved mercy. The incarnation, in fact, was precisely in view of the guilt of humanity. “He forgives all your iniquity, he heals all your diseases, he redeems your life from the pit, he crowns you with steadfast love and mercy” (Ps 103:3-4).
We can glean from the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei Verbum, 4) that Jesus of Nazareth, by his words, his actions, and his entire person reveals the mercy of God. Since “Whoever sees Jesus sees the Father” (Jn 14:9), God the Father too must be “rich in mercy” (Ephesians 2:4). Jesus Christ is the face of the Father’s Mercy (Misericordiae Vultus, 1).
It is in view of Jesus’ image as “face of the Father’s mercy” that we prepare for his coming through repentance from sin. – Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM . Email:dan.delosangeles@gmail.com. Website:www.frdan.org.
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