Mass Readings
Liturgical Readings for : Wednesday, 10th December, 2025Léachtaí Gaeilge
Next Sunday’s Readings
Wednesday of the Second Week of Advent
We should never feel weary, losing trust in the Lord who has promised rest for the weary and overburdened.
Optional memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Loreto.
(Mary conceived Jesus the Head of the Church and accepted us as her extended family)
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 40:25-31
The Lord almighty gives strength to the wearied.
‘To whom could you liken me and who could be my equal?‘ says the Holy One. Lift your eyes and look.
Who made these stars if not he who drills them like an army, calling each one by name? So mighty is his power, so great his strength, that not one fails to answer.
How can you say, Jacob, how can you insist, Israel,
‘My destiny is hidden from the Lord, my rights are ignored by my God’?
Did you not know? Had you not heard?
The Lord is an everlasting God, he created the boundaries of the earth. He does not grow tired or weary, his understanding is beyond fathoming.
He gives strength to the wearied, he strengthens the powerless.
Young men may grow tired and weary, youths may stumble, but those who hope in the Lord renew their strength, they put out wings like eagles. They run and do not grow weary, walk and never tire.
The Word of the Lord Thanks be to God.
Responsorial Psalm Ps 102: 1-4, 8. 10. R/v 1
Response My soul, give thanks to the Lord.
1. My soul, give thanks to the Lord, all my being, bless his holy name.
My soul, give thanks to the Lord and never forget all his blessings. Response
2. It is he who forgives all your guilt, who heals every one of your ills,
who redeems your life from the grave, who crowns you with love and compassion. Response
3. The Lord is compassion and love, slow to anger and rich in mercy.
He does not treat us according to our sins nor repay us according to our faults. Response
Gospel Acclamation Ps 84:8
Alleluia, alleluia!
Behold our Lord will come with power and will enlighten the eyes of his servants.
Alleluia!
Or
Alleluia, alleluia!
Look the Lord will come to save his people. Blessed those ready to meet him.
Alleluia!
GOSPEL
The Lord be with you. And with your spirit
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew 11:28-30 Glory to you, O Lord
Come to me, all you who labour.
Jesus exclaimed,
‘Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest.
Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.’
The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
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Gospel Reflection Wednesday, Second Week of Advent Matthew 11:28-30
We can all grow tired and weary, especially as we get older. We sense that our physical energy levels are not what they were. We may feel the need for a nap in the afternoon. According to the first reading, even ‘young men may grow tired and weary, youths may stumble’.
The weariness in question there is not so much a physical weariness but a weariness of spirit. We can suffer from a weariness of spirit at any age. We struggle to get up and go, to invest ourselves in the task at hand, to give of ourselves to others. Physically we may be strong, but there is a lethargy about us. It is often part of the human condition. That first reading suggests it is not part of God’s condition, ‘He does not grow tired or weary’. The Lord is always actively engaged with us. He is always coming towards us. We pray the simple prayer during Advent, ‘Come, Lord Jesus’, a prayer that recognizes that the Lord is always on the way towards us. The Lord never retreats into himself in a kind of weariness of spirit. He is always fully alive, vibrant and dynamic.
In the gospel reading, he invites us to come to him in our weariness of spirit and draw life from his presence to us, ‘Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest’. The word ‘rest’ suggests not so much inactivity but revival and renewal, as in one of the lines of the Psalm, ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’, ‘Near restful waters he leads me to revive my drooping spirit’. Each day, in prayer, we can turn to the Lord in our weariness of spirit and open ourselves to his reviving presence. When we turn to the Lord in hopeful trust, the promise at the end of today’s first reading can come to pass for us, ‘Those who hope in the Lord renew their strength; they put out wings like the eagles’.
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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 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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Optional Feast of the Day: December 10th; Our Lady of Loreto
Pope Francis approved that the optional memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Loreto should be inscribed in the Roman Calendar for today, and celebrated every year for the celebration of the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours.
Tradition
According to tradition, the Holy House of Loreto was carried by angels from Nazareth to the Italian hillside town of Loreto the night of Dec. 9-10 in 1294 after making a three-year stop in Croatia.
Tradition holds that the small house, made of three stone walls, is the place where Mary was born, where she was visited by an angel and conceived Jesus through the Holy Spirit, and where the Holy Family later lived.(c/f final paragraph on this page)
The decree said the shrine in Loreto “recalls the mystery of the Incarnation” and helps visitors “meditate both on the words of the angel announcing the Good News and on the words of the Virgin in response to the divine call.” And it has been able to “illustrate powerfully the evangelical virtues of the Holy Family,” Millions of pilgrims flock to Loreto each year to venerate the tiny cottage. It is Italy’s most important and popular Marian shrine. It was one of the shrines St. John Paul II visited the most.
Basilica della Santa Casa (see image above right ) in Loreto is the Marian shrine which enshrines the little house in which the Blessed Virgin Mary is believed to have lived. Over the past several centuries, people from all parts of the world have travelled to this shrine to pray and seek Our Lady’s help. Thousands of miracles attributed to Our Lady have been recorded at Loreto. Many persons who have been canonized, beatified or made venerable by the Church including many popes have visited the Holy House. St. Therese of Lisieux made a momentous pilgrimage before entering the Carmelites, to which she alludes at length in her autobiography. St. Alphonsus Liguori, St. Frances Cabrini, Card. St John Neumann, and St. Francis de Sales, to name but a few, have visited the Holy House.
History
The tradition and history of the Holy House goes back to Apostolic times. From the earliest days of Christianity, the little house and the grotto which formed one side of the Holy House have been a place of worship and pilgrimage. Shortly after the year 313, Constantine the Great had a large Basilica built over the Holy House of Nazareth. The Holy House and the grotto formed part of the crypt of the new church. About the year 1090, the Saracens invaded the Holy Land, plundering and destroying many of the shrines sacred to Christians. One of these was the Basilica in Nazareth, but the Holy House and grotto in the crypt were left intact.
When St. Francis of Assisi visited the Holy Land (1219-1220) he prayed at the Holy House. Over and over again the Holy House escaped destruction. In 1291 the crusaders were completely driven out of the Holy Land and it was at this point in history that the Holy House disappeared from Palestine and made its appearance in what is now known as present day Croatia, where a most important shrine was erected, Our Lady of Trsat ( in Italian it is pronounced ‘Tersátto‘.
Custodians of the shrine have said the stones of the house were removed from the Holy Land and carried by ship by a member of the Angeli family. The family name is also the Italian word for “angels,” thus being the probable reason for the more popular notion of winged angels flying the house to Italy.
(Despite the possibility that the house came by way of a ship, Our Lady of Loreto is still the patron saint of aviation and air travel.)
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Memorable Sayings for Today
I believe in a God bigger than my doubts and fears.
…Anonymous
The most incredible thing about miracles is that they happen.
G.K.Chesterton
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