Mass Readings
Liturgical Readings for : Wednesday, 31st December, 2025Léachtaí Gaeilge
Next Sunday’s Readings
31-12 – Saturday, Seventh and last Day in the Octave of Christmas –
New Years Eve is a opportune time to reflect on the swift moving nature of time thank God
for what went well with us this last year, repent for our failures of lost opportunities and move on with hope for 2026
Saint of the Day, Dec 31; St Sylvester, elected bishop of Rome in 314, died 335.
c/f short history of today’s saint can be found below today’s Readings and Reflection.
FIRST READING
A reading from the first letter of St John 2:18-21
You have been anointed by the Holy One and have all received the knowledge.
Those rivals of Christ came out of our own number, but they had never really belonged;
if they had belonged, they would have stayed with us; but they left us to prove that not one of them ever belonged to us.
But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and have all received the knowledge.
It is not because you do not know the truth that I am writing to you but rather because you know it already and know that no lie can come from the truth.
The Word of the Lord Thanks be to God.
Responsorial Psalm Ps 95:2-2, 11-13, R/v11
Response Let the heavens rejoice and earth be glad.
1. O sing a new song to the Lord, sing to the Lord all the earth.
O sing to the Lord, bless his name. Proclaim his help day by day. Response
2. Let the heavens rejoice and earth be glad, let the sea and all within it thunder praise,
let the land and all it bears rejoice, all the trees of the wood shout for joy
at the presence of the Lord for he comes, he comes to rule the earth. Response
3. With justice he will rule the world,
he will judge the peoples with his truth. Response
Gospel Acclamation
Alleluia, alleluia!
A hallowed day has dawned upon us.
Come, you nations, worship the Lord, for today a great light has shone down upon the earth.
Alleluia!
Or
Alleluia, alleluia!
The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.
To all who received him he gave power to become children of God.
Alleluia!
GOSPEL
The Lord be with you. And with your spirit
A reading from the holy Gospel according to John 1-18 Glory to you, O Lord.
The Word was made flesh.
In the beginning was the Word: and the Word was with God and the Word was God.
He was with God in the beginning.
Through him all things came to be, not one thing had its being but through him. All that came to be had life in him and that life was
the light of men, a light that shines in the dark, a light that darkness could not overpower.
A man came, sent by God. His name was John.
He came as a witness, as a witness to speak for the light,
so that everyone might believe through him.
He was not the light, only a witness to speak for the light.
The Word was the true light that enlightens all men;
and he was coming into the world.
He was in the world that had its being through him, and the world did not know him. He came to his own domain and his own people did not accept him.
But to all who did accept him he gave power to become children of God,
to all who believe in the name of him who was born not out of human stock or urge of the flesh or will of man but of God himself.
The Word was made flesh, he lived among us, and we saw his glory, the glory that is his as the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.
John appears as his witness. He proclaims:
‘This is the one of whom I said: He who comes after me ranks before me because he existed before me’. Indeed, from his fulness we have, all of us, received – yes, grace in return for grace, since, though the Law was given through Moses, grace and truth have come through Jesus Christ.
No one has ever seen God; it is the only Son, who is nearest to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.
The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
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Gospel Reflection 31 Dec, Seventh and last Day in the Octave of Christmas John 1:1–18
The opening words of John’s gospel, which we have just heard, are unlike the opening words of any of the other three gospels. Whereas the other gospels begin on earth, this gospel begins in heaven, ‘In the beginning was the Word: the Word was with God and the Word was God’. However, it doesn’t stay in heaven. It goes on to make that profound statement, ‘The Word was made flesh, he lived among us’. The evangelist is telling us that the Word who was with God before creation and who was God became a human being, who had a name and an address, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus was God’s perfect Word to us. All that God wanted to say and was able to say in human language God said through Jesus, the only Son of God the Father. We are constantly immersed in a sea of words.
Words come at us all the time, whether through the radio, television, phones, watches, Elexa or Google, Meta or X whether in the form of the printed word, or, more frequently nowadays in the social media, or whatever AI in form reaches us, or what other people say to us. There are so many words coming at us that we have to discern which ones are worth paying attention to and which are not. However, there is one word that is worthy of our full attention, and that is the ‘Word that God‘ spoke and continues to speak to us through Jesus, his Son, the Word of God become flesh, become a human being.
In the language of the gospel reading, there is a fullness about this word which sets it apart from all other words. This word is full of grace and truth, full of God’s gracious love and fidelity. The Word become flesh wishes to pour out this fullness on all of us, all who are open to receive from it. The author of this passage confidently declares, ‘from his fullness, all of us, have received’.
We are all invited to belong among those who continue to receive from the fullness of God’s life and love present in Jesus, God’s beloved Son and our risen Lord. This coming year we commit ourselves anew to receiving all that God wants to give us through his Son, who declares in the course of John’s gospel, I have come that they may have life and have it to the full’.
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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 , c/f www.messenger.ie/bookshop/
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Saint of the day: Dec 31; St Sylvester I, pope
Sylvester I, pope. Elected bishop of Rome in 314 and died there on this day in 335. Honoured as the bishop of Rome in the important years when the Christian Church was first tolerated and then legally recognised in the Roman empire. It was during this time that the emperor Constantine called councils at Arles and Nicaea to combat heresy and that ecclesiastical basilicas were built in Rome and throughout the empire.
Patrick Duffy writes his story.
A figurehead during the reign of Constantine I
Sylvester was chosen pope in succession to Pope Miltiades (311-314). His pontificate coincided with the reign of the first Christian emperor, Constantine. But he himself does not appear to have been outstanding in any way. Indeed he seems more a figurehead whom Constantine used to achieve his own purpose of bringing unity to his empire. Constantine saw Christianity, which even during the persecutions had become a prestige religion, as a means to achieve this.
Laterano is the Cathedral of Rome and was founded by Constantine as the Basilica of the Saviour during the papacy of St Sylvester
Basilicas built in Rome
It was during the pontificate of Sylvester that Constantine gave over to the Church the Domus Faustae (the Lateran palace) and that new churches were built – the basilica and baptistery of the Lateran, the basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme (formerly the Sessorian palace) and the original basilica of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican.
Council of Nicea (325)
Although the First Council of Nicaea defining the divinity of Jesus in 325 took place during Sylvester’s reign, he himself played no part in its proceedings. It was the emperor Constantine who convened and presided over it. The main Church people involved were Osius of Cordoba, Athanasius of Alexandria, Eustathius of Antioch and Macarius of Jerusalem against the priest Arius, whom the council condemned.
The so-called ‘Donation’ of Constantine
The text claims this was Constantine’s gift to Sylvester for instructing him in the Christian faith, baptizing him and miraculously curing him of leprosy. The poet Dante Alighieri in his Divine Comedy lamented it as the root of papal worldliness. In fact, according to the contemporary account of the historian Eusebius of Caesarea, Constantine was only baptised on his deathbed by the bishop of that city, another Eusebius.
Forgery
It was not until the mid 15th-century, with the revival of classical scholarship and textual criticism, that the Church realised that the document could not possibly be genuine and that it was proved to have been a forgery drafted in Rome in the middle of the eighth century. It was probably because of The Donation of Constantine that Sylvester in the Middle Ages had taken on the appearance of a great pope.
Constantine’s interference in Church affairs
In a ceremony on 11th May 330 Constantine set up Constantinople at the ancient port of Byzantium and gave up his interest in the other part of the empire and in this way seemed to have confirmed the medieval myth of his “donation” of the West to the bishop of Rome. He had Arius taken back into the church and when Athanasius objected, Constantine convened a council composed only of Arian bishops at Tyre in 335, had Athanasius deposed as Patriarch of Alexandria and sent into exile.
His death and liturgical feast
Sylvester was unable to intervene and died on 31st December 335. He was buried in the Catacomb of Priscilla.
This is the last day of the calendar year. In German-speaking countries and in others close to them, New Year’s Eve is known as Silvesterabend.
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Memorable Sayings for Today
‘Live everyday like it is your last.’ One day you will be right
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********A Final message to workers and our readers of the last 22 years or so***********
Thanks especially to all our contributors, writers, especially to
*’An Sagart’ Publisers for the Irish versions of the Liturgical texts,
*our own technical and office staff and of course to you for staying with us for some if not all of these years.
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*to our daily Scripture commentator Fr Martin Hogan, of the Dublin Archdiocese*‘
and to our founders Rev Alan Mc Guckian, now archbishop of Down and Connor and Mr Tony Bolger, our CEO.
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On behalf of .net
Thank you, one and all.
May the Lord bless us all in the years that lie ahead
* Final bit of advice*
‘Don’t be afraid of what could go wrong tomorrow, think rather of what is going right today.’
Always remember : Our God’s name is not ‘I was’, or ‘I will be’ but ”I am’ .
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