Daily Readings - 31/12/2026
THURSDAY. SEVENTH DAY WITHIN THE OCTAVE OF THE NATIVITY
First Reading : 1 Jn 2, 18-21
Fourth condition: be on guard against the enemies of Christ
2:18 Children, these are the last days; you were told that an Antichrist must come, and now several antichrists have already appeared; we know from this that these are the last days.
2:19 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.
2:20 But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and have all received the knowledge.
2:21 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.
Psalm : Ps 95
R. Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice.
Psalm for daily use
95:1 Come, let us praise Yahweh joyfully, acclaiming the Rock of our safety;
95:2 let us come into his presence with thanksgiving, acclaiming him with music.
95:3 For Yahweh is a great God, a greater King than all other gods;
95:4 from depths of earth to mountain top everything comes under his rule;
95:5 the sea belongs to him, he made it, so does the land, he shaped this too.
95:6 Come in, let us bow, prostrate ourselves, and kneel in front of Yahweh our maker,
95:7 for this is our God, and we are the people he pastures, the flock that he guides. If only you would listen to him today,
95:8 ‘Do not harden your hearts as at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness,[*a]
95:9 when your ancestors challenged me, tested me, although they had seen what I could do.
95:10 ‘For forty years that generation repelled me, until I said: How unreliable these people who refuse to grasp my ways!
95:11 And so, in anger, I swore that not one would reach the place of rest I had for them.’
Gospel : Jn 1, 1-18
PROLOGUE
1:1 In the beginning was the Word: and the Word was with God and the Word was God.
1:2 He was with God in the beginning.
1:3 Through him all things came to be, not one thing had its being but through him.
1:4 All that came to be had life in him and that life was the light of men,
1:5 a light that shines in the dark, a light that darkness could not overpower[*a].
1:6 A man came, sent by God. His name was John.
1:7 He came as a witness, as a witness to speak for the light, so that everyone might believe through him.
1:8 He was not the light, only a witness to speak for the light.
1:9 The Word was the true light that enlightens all men; and he was coming into the world.
1:10 He was in the world that had its being through him, and the world did not know him.
1:11 He came to his own domain and his own people did not accept him.
1:12 But to all who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to all who believe in the name of him
1:13 who was born not out of human stock or urge of the flesh or will of man but of God himself.
1:14 The Word was made flesh, he lived among us[*b], and we saw his glory, the glory that is his as the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.
1:15 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’.
1:16 Indeed, from his fulness we have, all of us, received – yes, grace in return for grace,
1:17 since, though the Law was given through Moses, grace and truth have come through Jesus Christ.
1:18 No one has ever seen God; it is the only Son, who is nearest to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.