Dec 11 Thursday of the Second Week of Advent

 Dec 11 Thursday of the Second Week of Advent

Gospel and Thought for the Day - Vatican News https://www.vaticannews.va/en/word-of-the-day.html 

Reading of the day

A rading from the Book of Isaiah

41:13-20

I am the LORD, your God,

who grasp your right hand;

It is I who say to you, “Fear not,

I will help you.”

Fear not, O worm Jacob,

O maggot Israel;

I will help you, says the LORD;

your redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.

I will make of you a threshing sledge,

sharp, new, and double-edged,

To thresh the mountains and crush them,

to make the hills like chaff.

When you winnow them, the wind shall carry them off

and the storm shall scatter them.

But you shall rejoice in the LORD,

and glory in the Holy One of Israel.

The afflicted and the needy seek water in vain,

their tongues are parched with thirst.

I, the LORD, will answer them;

I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.

I will open up rivers on the bare heights,

and fountains in the broad valleys;

I will turn the desert into a marshland,

and the dry ground into springs of water.

I will plant in the desert the cedar,

acacia, myrtle, and olive;

I will set in the wasteland the cypress,

together with the plane tree and the pine,

That all may see and know,

observe and understand,

That the hand of the LORD has done this,

the Holy One of Israel has created it.

Gospel of the day

From the Gospel according to Matthew

11:11-15

Jesus said to the crowds:

“Amen, I say to you,

among those born of women

there has been none greater than John the Baptist;

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 suffers violence,

and the violent are taking it by force.

All the prophets and the law prophesied up to the time of John.

And if you are willing to accept it,

he is Elijah, the one who is to come.

Whoever has ears ought to hear.”

The words of the Popes

Right here is “the greatness of John, a great man, the last of that group of believers that began with Abraham, the one who preaches repentance; who does not mince words in condemning the proud, who at life’s end permits himself to doubt”. This is a beautiful programme of Christian life. (…) Let us ask “John for the grace of apostolic courage to always say things truthfully”; that of “pastoral love”. This means “to receive people with what little one can give, the first step”. God will do the rest. It is important, then, that “the great John, who is the least in the kingdom of heaven — for this he is great —, may he help us on this road in the Lord’s footsteps ”. (Pope Francis, Santa Marta, 15 December 2016)