5 January 2026 (Monday) / Saint John Neumann, Bishop on Monday after Epiphany Sunday / Memorial of Saint John Neumann, Bishop

5 January 2026 (Monday)

Saint John Neumann, Bishop on Monday after Epiphany Sunday.

Memorial of Saint John Neumann, Bishop.

Readings from the Bible of the Roman Catholic Church:

First Reading: First John 3: 22 – 4: 6
Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 2: 7-8, 10-11
Alleluia: Matthew 4: 23
Gospel: Matthew 4: 12-17, 23-25

First Reading : 1 John 3:22‐4:6

Whatever we ask God,
we shall receive,
because we keep his commandments
and live the kind of life that he wants.
His commandments are these:
that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ
and that we love one another
as he told us to.
Whoever keeps his commandments
lives in God and God lives in him.
We know that he lives in us
by the Spirit that he has given us.
It is not every spirit, my dear people, that you can trust;
test them, to see if they come from God,
there are many false prophets, now, in the world.
You can tell the spirits that come from God by this:
every spirit which acknowledges that Jesus the Christ has come in the flesh
is from God;
but any spirit which will not say this of Jesus
is not from God,
but is the spirit of Antichrist,
whose coming you were warned about.
Well, now he is here, in the world.
Children,
you have already overcome these false prophets,
because you are from God and you have in you
one who is greater than anyone in this world;
as for them, they are of the world,
and so they speak the language of the world
and the world listens to them.
But we are children of God,
and those who know God listen to us;
those who are not of God refuse to listen to us.
This is how we can tell
the spirit of truth from the spirit of falsehood.

Responsive Psalm : Psalm 2:7‐8,10‐11

I will give you the nations for your heritage.
The Lord said to me: ‘You are my Son.
  It is I who have begotten you this day.
Ask and I shall bequeath you the nations,
  put the ends of the earth in your possession.’
I will give you the nations for your heritage.
Now, O kings, understand,
  take warning, rulers of the earth;
serve the Lord with awe
  and trembling, pay him your homage.
I will give you the nations for your heritage.

Alleluia: Matthew 4: 23
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
23 Jesus proclaimed the Gospel of the Kingdom and cured every disease among the people.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel : Matthew 4:12‐17,23‐25

Hearing that John had been arrested, Jesus went back to Galilee, and leaving Nazareth he went and settled in Capernaum, a lakeside town on the borders of Zebulun and Naphtali. In this way the prophecy of Isaiah was to be fulfilled:
‘Land of Zebulun! Land of Naphtali! Way of the sea on the far side of Jordan, Galilee of the nations! The people that lived in darkness has seen a great light; on those who dwell in the land and shadow of death a light has dawned.’
From that moment Jesus began his preaching with the message, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand.’ He went round the whole of Galilee teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Good News of the kingdom and curing all kinds of diseases and sickness among the people. His fame spread throughout Syria, and those who were suffering from diseases and painful complaints of one kind or another, the possessed, epileptics, the paralysed, were all brought to him, and he cured them. Large crowds followed him, coming from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judaea and Transjordania.

For our reflection today:

Now this nearness of God to his people is one of the ways he has done things since the beginning, even of the Old Testament. He said to his people: “Imagine: what nation has its gods so near to it as I am near to you?” (cf. Dt 4:7). And this nearness became flesh in Jesus. This is a joyful message: God came to visit us in person, by becoming man. He did not embrace our human condition out of duty, no, but out of love. For love, he took on our human nature, for one embraces what one loves. God took our human nature because he loves us and desires freely to give us the salvation that, alone and unaided, we cannot hope to attain. He wants to stay with us and give us the beauty of life, peace of heart, the joy of being forgiven and feeling loved. (Pope Francis, Homily, Mass  in the Sunday of the Word of God, 26 January 2020)

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