＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊

Isaiah 41:13-20

 For I, Yahweh, your God,

Take hold of your right hand and say to you: “Fear not, I am your assistance.”  Fear not, Jacob, poor worm, and you, people of Israel, so frail. I am your redeemer, says Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel, your helper.

 I will make you a thresher, new and with sharp double teeth: you will thresh hills and mountains, crushing them and reducing them to chaff. You will winnow them, the wind will carry them off and the storm will scatter them. But you will rejoice in Yahweh and glory in the Holy One of Israel. 

The poor and the afflicted seek water, and find none. Their tongues are parched with thirst. But I, Yahweh, will hear them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.  I will open up streams over the barren heights and let the rivers flow through all the valleys; I will turn the desert into lakes and brooks and the thirsty earth into a land of springs.

 I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia, the myrtle and the olive; I will plant in the wasteland fir, cypress and pine  that all may see and know, consider and  understand, that the hand of Yahweh has done this, that the Holy One of Israel has created it.

 

Ps 145:1 & 9, 10-11, 12-13ab

The Lord is gracious and merciful; slow to anger, and of great kindness.

 

＊＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊＊

Matthew 11:11-15

 I tell you this: no one greater than John the Baptist has come forward among the sons of women, and yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven is something to be conquered and the unyielding seize it.

 Up to the time of John, there was only prophesy: all the prophets and the Law; and if you believe me, John is this Elijah, whose coming was predicted. Let anyone with ears listen!

 

Gospel Reflection：

John the Baptist is a figure we reckon with in the season of Advent. He is the one who calls “Prepare ye the way of the Lord!” He was the one who prepared Israel for the first coming of the Lord. His greatness precisely was in getting Israel prepared for the first coming.

Did he succeed? Or did he faill! Always the prophet can only announce or alert people to forthcoming danger or blessing. It is always up to the hearers to either respond to the call or turn a deaf ear.

John the Baptist did not live long enough to witness the fulfillment of the promise of Yahweh. He had, however, the privilege of experiencing the fruit of salvation that Christ would bring about by his death and resurrection” in utero”or from the womb for when the pregnant Madonna (Mary) visited his mother Elizabeth, he received the Spirit and jumped for joy!

That is why truly there is “no one greater than John the Baptist” among the sons of Women. Yet still “the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he!” Who can this least be? He who become a disciple of Jesus is greater than John. We can be the ones! But we have hearers and doers of the Word, like Mary.