2 January 2026 (Friday) / Saints Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops, Doctors on 2 January 2026 / Saint Basil the Great and Saint Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops, Doctors Obligatory Memorial / Memorial of Saints Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops and Doctors of the Church

2 January 2026 (Friday)

Saints Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops, Doctors on 2 January 2026.

Saint Basil the Great and Saint Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops, Doctors Obligatory Memorial.

Memorial of Saints Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops and Doctors of the Church.

Readings from the Bible of the Roman Catholic Church:

First Reading: First John 2: 22-28
Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 98: 1-4
Alleluia: Hebrews 1: 1-2
Gospel: John 1: 19-28

First Reading : 1 John 2:22‐28

The man who denies that Jesus is the Christ –
he is the liar,
he is Antichrist;
and he is denying the Father as well as the Son,
because no one who has the Father can deny the Son,
and to acknowledge the Son is to have the Father as well.
Keep alive in yourselves what you were taught in the beginning:
as long as what you were taught in the beginning is alive in you,
you will live in the Son
and in the Father;
and what is promised to you by his own promise
is eternal life.
This is all that I am writing to you about the people who are trying to lead you astray.
But you have not lost the anointing that he gave you,
and you do not need anyone to teach you;
the anointing he gave teaches you everything;
you are anointed with truth, not with a lie,
and as it has taught you, so you must stay in him.
Live in Christ, then, my children,
so that if he appears, we may have full confidence,
and not turn from him in shame
at his coming.

Responsive Psalm : Psalm 97(98):1‐4

All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.
Sing a new song to the Lord
  for he has worked wonders.
His right hand and his holy arm
  have brought salvation.
All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.
The Lord has made known his salvation;
  has shown his justice to the nations.
He has remembered his truth and love
  for the house of Israel.
All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.
All the ends of the earth have seen
  the salvation of our God.
Shout to the Lord, all the earth,
  ring out your joy.
All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.

Alleluia: Hebrews 1: 1-2
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
1-2 In times, past, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets: in these last days, he has spoken to us through his Son.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel : John 1:19‐28

This is how John appeared as a witness. When the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ he not only declared, but he declared quite openly, ‘I am not the Christ.’ ‘Well then,’ they asked ‘are you Elijah?’ ‘I am not’ he said. ‘Are you the Prophet?’ He answered, ‘No.’ So they said to him, ‘Who are you? We must take back an answer to those who sent us. What have you to say about yourself?’ So John said, ‘I am, as Isaiah prophesied:
a voice that cries in the wilderness:
Make a straight way for the Lord.’
Now these men had been sent by the Pharisees, and they put this further question to him, ‘Why are you baptising if you are not the Christ, and not Elijah, and not the prophet?’ John replied, ‘I baptise with water; but there stands among you – unknown to you – the one who is coming after me; and I am not fit to undo his sandal‐strap.’ This happened at Bethany, on the far side of the Jordan, where John was baptising.

For our reflection today:

The Gospel speaks to us about John the Baptist and it describes him to us as “the voice of one crying in the desert” (cf. v. 3). The desert, an empty place where one does not communicate, and the voice, a means for speaking, seem like two contradictory images. But they are joined in the Baptist. The desert. John preaches there, near the Jordan River, near the place where his people had entered the promised land many centuries earlier (cf. Joshua 3:1-17). In so doing, it is as if he were saying: to listen to God, we must return to the place where, for 40 years, he accompanied, protected and educated his people, in the desert. That is the place of silence and essentials, where one cannot afford to dwell on useless things, but needs to concentrate on what is indispensable in order to live. And this is an ever relevant reminder: to proceed on the journey of life, we need to be stripped of the “extra”, because living well does not mean filling oneself with useless things, but being freed from the superfluous, to dig deeply within ourselves so as to hold on to what is truly important before God. Only if, through silence and prayer, we make space for Jesus, who is the Word of the Father, will we know how to free ourselves from the pollution of vain words and gossip. Silence and sobriety — in words, in the use of things, in the media and social media — these are not just fioretti [translator’s note: a common practice in Italian devotional life in which someone offers a small sacrifice, a resolution, or the proposal to do a good deed to Our Lord or Our Lady] or virtues; they are essential elements of the Christian life. (Pope Francis, Angelus, 10 December 2023)

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