9 December 2025 (Tuesday) / Advent Weekday/ Saint Juan Diego, Hermit / Tuesday of the Second Week of Advent

9 December 2025 (Tuesday)

Advent Weekday/ Saint Juan Diego, Hermit.

Tuesday of the Second Week of Advent.

Readings from the Bible of the Roman Catholic Church:

First Reading: Isaiah 40: 1-11
Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 96: 1-2, 3 and 10-13
Gospel: Matthew 18: 12-14

First Reading: Isaiah 40: 1-11

1 Be comforted, be comforted, my people, saith your God.
2 Speak ye to the heart of Jerusalem, and call to her: for her evil is come to an end, her iniquity is forgiven: she hath received of the hand of the Lord double for all her sins.
3 The voice of one crying in the desert: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the wilderness the paths of our God.
4 Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough ways plain.
5 And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh together shall see, that the mouth of the Lord hath spoken.
6 The voice of one, saying: Cry. And I said: What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of the held.
7 The grass is withered, and the dower is fallen, because the spirit of the Lord hath blown upon it. Indeed the people is grass:
8 The grass is withered, and the flower is fallen: but the word of our Lord endureth for ever.
9 Get thee up upon a high mountain, thou that bringest good tidings to Sion: lift up thy voice with strength, thou that bringest good tidings to Jerusalem: lift it up, fear not. Say to the cities of Juda: Behold your God:
10 Behold the Lord God shall come with strength, and his arm shall rule: Behold his reward is with him and his work is before him.
11 He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather together the lambs with his arm, and shall take them up in his bosom, and he himself shall carry them that are with young.

Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 96: 1-2, 3 and 10-13

R. (Isaiah 40:10) The Lord our God comes with power.

1 Sing ye to the Lord a new canticle: sing to the Lord, all the earth.
2 Sing ye to the Lord and bless his name: shew forth his salvation from day to day.

R. The Lord our God comes with power.

3 Declare his glory among the Gentiles: his wonders among all people.
10 Say ye among the Gentiles, the Lord hath reigned. he will judge the people with justice.

R. The Lord our God comes with power.

11 Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad, let the sea be moved, and the fulness thereof:
12 The fields and all things that are in them shall be joyful. Then shall all the trees of the woods rejoice.

R. The Lord our God comes with power.

13 Before the face of the Lord, because he cometh: because he cometh to judge the earth. He shall judge the world with justice, and the people with his truth.

R. The Lord our God comes with power.

Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
The day of the Lord is near; Behold, he comes to save us.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel: Matthew 18: 12-14

12 What think you? If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them should go astray: doth he not leave the ninety-nine in the mountains, and go to seek that which is gone astray?
13 And if it so be that he find it: Amen I say to you, he rejoiceth more for that, than for the ninety-nine that went not astray.
14 Even so it is not the will of your Father, who is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.

For our reflection today:

The human race – every one of us – is the sheep lost in the desert which no longer knows the way. The Son of God will not let this happen; he cannot abandon humanity in so wretched a condition. He leaps to his feet and abandons the glory of heaven, in order to go in search of the sheep and pursue it, all the way to the Cross. He takes it upon his shoulders and carries our humanity; he carries us all – he is the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. The pastor must be inspired by Christ’s holy zeal: for him it is not a matter of indifference that so many people are living in the desert. And there are so many kinds of desert. There is the desert of poverty, the desert of hunger and thirst, the desert of abandonment, of loneliness, of destroyed love. There is the desert of God’s darkness, the emptiness of souls no longer aware of their dignity or the goal of human life. The external deserts in the world are growing, because the internal deserts have become so vast. The Church as a whole and all her Pastors, like Christ, must set out to lead people out of the desert, towards the place of life, towards friendship with the Son of God, towards the One who gives us life, and life in abundance. (Pope Benedict XVI, Mass for the beginning of the Petrine Ministry, 24 April 2005)

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