Mass Readings
Liturgical Readings for : Thursday, 4th December, 2025Léachtaí Gaeilge
Next Sunday’s Readings
Thursday of the First Week of Advent
It is the upright nation, those who hear and do the will of God, that will enter the kingdom.
Saint of the Day; December 4th; St John Damascene, a Syrian monk, theologian,
priest and doctor of the church and defender of icons.
c/f short history of today’s saint can be found below today’s Readings and Reflection.
FIRST READING
A reading from the prophet Isaiah 26:1-6
Let the upright nation come in, she, trusts in you.
That day, this song will be sung in the land of Judah:
We have a strong city; to guard us he has set wall and rampart about us.
Open the gates! Let the upright nation come in,
she, the faithful one whose mind is steadfast, who keeps the peace, because she trusts in you.
Trust in the Lord for ever, for the Lord is the everlasting Rock;
he has brought low those who lived high up in the steep citadel;
he brings it down, brings it down to the ground, flings it down in the dust:
the feet of the lowly, the footsteps of the poor trample on it.
The Word of the Lord Thanks be to God.
Responsorial Psalm Ps 117: 1. 8-9. 19-21, 25-27
Response Blessed in the name of the Lord is he who comes.
or Alleluia!
It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in men:
it is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes. Response
2. Open to me the gates of holiness: I will enter and give thanks.
This is the Lord’s own gate where the just may enter
I will thank you for you have given answer and you are my saviour. Response 3. O Lord, grant us salvation; O Lord, grant success.
Blessed in the name of the Lord is he who comes.
We bless you from the house of the Lord; the Lord God is our light. Response
Gospel Acclamation Is 40:9-10
Alleluia, alleluia!
Shout with a loud voice, joyful messenger to Jerusalem.
Here the Lord is coming with power.
Alleluia!
or Is 55:6
Alleluia, alleluia!
Seek the Lord while he can still be found, call to him while he is still near.
Alleluia!
GOSPEL
The Lord be with you. And with your spirit
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew 7: 21. 24-27 Glory to you, O Lord.
The person who does the will of my Father will enter the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus said to his disciples:
‘It is not those who say to me, “Lord, Lord“, who will 
‘Therefore, everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a sensible man who built his house on rock. Rain came down, floods rose, gales blew and hurled themselves against that house, and it did not fall: it was founded on rock.
‘But everyone who listens to these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a stupid man who built his house on sand. Rain came down, floods rose, gales blew and struck that house, and it fell; and what a fall it had!’
The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
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Gospel Reflection Thursday First Week of Advent Matthew 7:21, 24-27
We know that a house is as good as its foundations. If the foundations are flimsy, the consequences for those who live in the house can be catastrophic, especially if unusual stress is placed on the building because of weather or some other disturbance of nature. The most important part of the house is that which is not immediately visible. In the gospel reading, Jesus draws on that image of the house to speak about the foundation of our lives as human beings. He declares that entrusting ourselves to him, listening to his word and trying to live by his word, will provide a foundation for our lives that will enable us to withstand the great storms of life.
We need some solid ground under us as we go through life. Jesus presents himself as that solid ground. If we build our lives on all he says and does, he will prove to be a rock, enabling us to stand firm even when the disappointments and sufferings of life leave us feeling very vulnerable. As human beings we long for security at many levels. Jesus tells us that we will find our ultimate security in him if, in the phrase of Saint Paul, we allow his word to dwell in us richly, and, then, to bear fruit in our lives.
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The Scripture Readings are taken from The Jerusalem Bible, published 1966 by Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd and used with the permission of the publishers. http://dltbooks.com/
The Scripture Reflection is made available with our thanks from Fr Martin Hogan’s book Reflections on the Weekday Readings : The Word is Near to You, on your lips and in your heart published by Messenger Publications cf www.messenger.ie/bookshop/
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Saint of the Day: Dec. 4th; St John Damascene, priest, doctor of the Church
John was born about 675 in Damascus (Syria); died near Jerusalem about 749. He was a Christian official in a Moslem government and became a monk and later presbyter at Mar Saba monastery near Jerusalem, where he was renowned as a theologian and biblical commentator. He was noted for his vigorous defence of the veneration of images against the iconoclasts, his theological writings synthesising the thought of the Greek Fathers, his poetry and his hymnody.
Patrick Duffy describes his life.
Controller of Revenues for the Caliph
Islam was already well established in Syria when John, also called Monsur, was born in Damascus in 675. His father (Sergius?) was a Christian who held the post of controller of revenues at the court of the caliph Abdul Malek in the city. Christians were free to worship as long as they paid the poll tax. John was baptised and received a classical Christian education from a monk called Cosmas, whom the Arabs had brought from Sicily as a slave and John’s father had purchased for a large sum of money. John succeeded to his father’s post and worked at it until a new caliph made his position more difficult.
Around 716 John resigned from his post, gave away all his money to his relatives and joined the monastery of Mar Saba in the wilderness between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. Here together with a close friend also named Cosmas he spent his time composing hymns which Cosmas sang and writing theological treatises. The singing disturbed the quiet life of the monastery, but the patriarch of Jerusalem John V appreciated the pair and took them out of the monastery. He appointed Cosmas a bishop and ordained John a priest. John feared the prospect of being an administrator for the rest of his life and returned to the monastery.
The Iconoclasts
Arguments of John of Damascus in favour of ikons
Firstly John explained the honour given to icons like this:
“Often, doubtless, when we have not the Lord’s passion in mind and see the image of Christ’s crucifixion, his saving passion is brought back to remembrance, and we fall down and worship not the material but that which is imaged: just as we do not worship the material of which the Gospels are made, nor the material of the Cross, but that which these typify.”
Secondly, John drew support from the writings of the early fathers like Basil the Great, who wrote, ” The honour paid to an icon is transferred to its prototype.” That is, the actual icon is only a point of departure for the expressed devotion; the recipient is in the unseen world.
Thirdly, John claimed that, with the birth of the Son of God in the flesh, the depiction of Christ in paint and wood demonstrated faith in the Incarnation. Since the unseen God had become visible, there was no blasphemy in painting visible representations of Jesus or other historical figures. To paint an icon of him was, in fact, a profession of faith, deniable only by a heretic! “I do not worship matter, I worship the God of matter, who became matter for my sake and deigned to inhabit matter, who worked out my salvation through matter,” he wrote. “I will not cease from honouring that matter which works for my salvation. I venerate it, though not as God.”
Threefold fame
John of Damascus is famous in three areas.
Firstly, he is known for his writings against the iconoclasts who opposed the veneration of images. Paradoxically, it was the Eastern Christian emperor Leo who forbade the practice, and it was because John lived in Muslim territory that his enemies could not silence him.
Secondly, he is famous for his treatise, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, a summary of the Greek Fathers (of which he became the last). It is said that this book is to Eastern schools what the Summa Theologica of Aquinas became to the West. Indeed St Thomas was influenced by him.
Thirdly, he is known as a poet, one of the two greatest of the Eastern Church, the other being Romanus the Melodist. His devotion to the Blessed Mother and his sermons on her feasts are well known. Three of his sermons deal with the bodily assumption of the Virgin Mary into heaven after her death.
Death and influence
John died in 749. He is appreciated for his quintessentially Catholic sacramental vision. Pope Leo XIII declared him a doctor of the Church in 1890.
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Memorable Saying for Today
“The one who seeks God continually will find him for God is in everything.“
~ St John Damascene ~
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