19 December 2025 (Friday) / Advent Weekday / Friday of the Third Week of Advent

19 December 2025 (Friday)

Advent Weekday / Friday of the Third Week of Advent.

Readings from the Bible of the Roman Catholic Church: 

First Reading: Judges 13: 2-7, 24-25
Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 71: 3-6 16-17
Gospel: Luke 1: 5-25

First Reading : Judges 13:2‐7,24‐25

There was a man of Zorah of the tribe of Dan, called Manoah. His wife was barren, she had borne no children. The angel of the Lord appeared to this woman and said to her, ‘You are barren and have had no child. But from now on take great care. Take no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean. For you will conceive and bear a son. No razor is to touch his head, for the boy shall be God’s nazirite from his mother’s womb. It is he who will begin to rescue Israel from the power of the Philistines.’ Then the woman went and told her husband, ‘A man of God has just come to me; his presence was like the presence of the angel of God, he was so majestic. I did not ask him where he came from, and he did not reveal his name to me. But he said to me, “You will conceive and bear a son. From now on, take no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean. For the boy shall be God’s nazirite from his mother’s womb to his dying day.”’ The woman gave birth to a son and called him Samson. The child grew, and the Lord blessed him; and the spirit of the Lord began to move him.

Responsive Psalm : Psalm 70(71):3‐6,16‐17

My lips are filled with your praise, with your glory all the day long.
Be a rock where I can take refuge,
  a mighty stronghold to save me;
  for you are my rock, my stronghold.
Free me from the hand of the wicked.
My lips are filled with your praise, with your glory all the day long.
It is you, O Lord, who are my hope,
  my trust, O Lord, since my youth.
On you I have leaned from my birth,
  from my mother’s womb you have been my help.
My lips are filled with your praise, with your glory all the day long.
I will declare the Lord’s mighty deeds
  proclaiming your justice, yours alone.
O God, you have taught me from my youth
  and I proclaim your wonders still.
My lips are filled with your praise, with your glory all the day long.

Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
O Root of Jesse’s stem, sign of God’s love for all his people: come to save us without delay!
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel : Luke 1:5‐25

In the days of King Herod of Judaea there lived a priest called Zechariah who belonged to the Abijah section of the priesthood, and he had a wife, Elizabeth by name, who was a descendant of Aaron. Both were worthy in the sight of God, and scrupulously observed all the commandments and observances of the Lord. But they were childless: Elizabeth was barren and they were both getting on in years.
  Now it was the turn of Zechariah’s section to serve, and he was exercising his priestly office before God when it fell to him by lot, as the ritual custom was, to enter the Lord’s sanctuary and burn incense there. And at the hour of incense the whole congregation was outside, praying.
  Then there appeared to him the angel of the Lord, standing on the right of the altar of incense. The sight disturbed Zechariah and he was overcome with fear. But the angel said to him, ‘Zechariah, do not be afraid, your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth is to bear you a son and you must name him John. He will be your joy and delight and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord; he must drink no wine, no strong drink. Even from his mother’s womb he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, and he will bring back many of the sons of Israel to the Lord their God. With the spirit and power of Elijah, he will go before him to turn the hearts of fathers towards their children and the disobedient back to the wisdom that the virtuous have, preparing for the Lord a people fit for him.’
  Zechariah said to the angel, ‘How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is getting on in years.’ The angel replied, ‘I am Gabriel who stand in God’s presence, and I have been sent to speak to you and bring you this good news. Listen! Since you have not believed my words, which will come true at their appointed time, you will be silenced and have no power of speech until this has happened.’ Meanwhile the people were waiting for Zechariah and were surprised that he stayed in the sanctuary so long. When he came out he could not speak to them, and they realised that he had received a vision in the sanctuary. But he could only make signs to them, and remained dumb.
  When his time of service came to an end he returned home. Some time later his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she kept to herself. ‘The Lord has done this for me’ she said ‘now that it has pleased him to take away the humiliation I suffered among men.’

For our reflection today:

In order to truly be “mother”, the Church must “let herself be startled by the newness of God”, who through the Holy Spirit is able to “make all things new”. Otherwise she risks becoming barren, afflicted by Pelagianism, selfishness, power, by the desire to “take over consciences” or becoming an “entrepreneur”. Pope Francis pointed out this temptation during the Mass at Santa Marta celebrated on Friday.

Francis’ reflection was inspired by the day’s Readings: the births of Samson and John the Baptist announced by angels, as told in the Book of Judges (13:2-7, 24-25a) and the Gospel according to Luke (1:5-25). “Today, the word that the Church makes us reflect on, prior to Christmas, the most important word today, is ‘barren’”, the Pontiff explained. The liturgy, in fact, “presents to us these two barren women who had no children, they weren’t able to have any”. The Pope recalled that “in the people of Israel, barrenness was borne with difficulty: one could probably say that the inability to give life was considered almost a curse, because not having children prevented the fulfillment of the Lord’s commandment to fill the earth with new lives”.

Yet, he noted, “there are many barren women in the Bible, and always for important reasons”. Starting with “Sarah, our mother: barren” but “the Lord performs a miracle”. And “the mother of Samuel was barren too”: and in this situation as well, “the Lord performs a miracle”. And again, “the daughter of Jephthah went to the mountain bewailing her virginity, because she was not able to have children before she died”.

Thus, Francis explained, “barrenness was a bad, bad thing”. And today, the Church “shows us this symbol of barrenness, just before the birth of Jesus, through a woman unable to have a child”. This “is the sign of a humanity unable to take one more step: so many barren women were old, their wombs were no longer fertile”. And “the Church wants us to reflect on this barren humanity”, on the humanity that “had reached the point where it could no longer go on”. Recalling that “the law of Moses provided for the offspring of a dead man, because it was so important to have descendants, to give life”, the Pope remarked that “these barren women receive a miracle, they receive the grace of the Lord and they are able to conceive”.

“From barrenness”, the Pontiff continued, “the Lord is capable of reopening a new lineage, a new life: this is today’s message”. Therefore, “when humanity is exhausted, it can no longer go onward, grace comes and the Son comes, and salvation comes”. And in this way, "that exhausted creation makes way for the new creation, and thus we can call it a ‘re-creation"Therefore, the truly “marvelous miracle of creation leaves room for an even more marvelous miracle: re-creation, as the prayer says today: ‘You, Lord, who marvelously created the world, and more marvelously recreated it’”.

Thus, it is precisely “this ‘second’ creation when the earth is exhausted, and today’s message: we await the ‘master’, capable of recreating all things, of making things new”. And hence “we await the newness of God”. This, after all, is Christmas: “the newness of God who remakes creation, all things, in a more marvelous way”. The Pontiff then emphasized that “it’s curious” that “in both texts, both that of Manoah’s wife and that of Elizabeth, in order to explain how He will do this, how this will come about, the Holy Spirit is spoken of: ‘the Spirit of the Lord stirred him’, it says”. And “this ‘re-creation’ is possible only with the Spirit of God”. What then is the message? “Let us open ourselves to the Spirit of God. We can’t do it alone. It is He who is able to do things”.

The issue of barrenness, the Pope said, “also makes me think of our Mother Church, of the many kinds of barrenness that afflict our Mother Church when, due to the importance of hope in the Commandments, that Pelagianism that we all carry in our bones, she becomes barren: she believes she is able to give birth”, but can’t. Instead, “the Church is a mother and becomes a mother only when she opens herself to the newness of God, to the power of the Spirit”. It is “when she says to herself: ‘I do everything, but I’m done, I can’t give any more’” and then the Spirit comes.

Francis then asked to pray “for our Mother Church, for so much barrenness in the People of God: the barrenness of selfishness, of power”. For “the Church is barren when she believes she can do it all, that she can take over the consciences of the people, going the way of the Pharisees, of the Sadducees, on the path of hypocrisy”. This is why we need to pray. And to do so in a way that this Christmas also renders “our Church open to the gift of God”, able to let herself be “startled by the Holy Spirit”: a Church “which has children, a Mother Church”.

However, the Pope indicated, “I have thought so many times that the Church, in some places, is more an entrepreneur than a mother”. Therefore, he concluded, “looking at this history of the barrenness of the People of God, and the many stories in the history of the Church that have made the Church barren, let us ask the Lord, today, looking at the Nativity scene, for the grace of fruitfulness for the Church”. The grace that “the Church may be a mother, first of all, like Mary: a mother! (Pope Francis - The time of re-creation, Friday, 19 December 2014).

Jonathan Fabian Ginunggil,
Most High Servant,
Jesus, Mary, Joseph Ministry of Love (Blessed  and Saints and the Nine Choirs of Angels)