Many of us through Advent had struggled to break away from habitual sin and temptation. Some realised that in order to do so in this extraordinary times, that they needed to journey on with a community and so either rejoined one or joined one striving to be faithful to Christ. Many of us went to great lengths to go for the Sacrament of reconciliation so as to prepare room in our hearts for our Saviour this Christmas. Having Him ‘reborn’ again in our hearts many had even decided to surrender the tradition of the past: that is of drunken revelry to welcome the new year. And so we all received the Blessings at the start of the year mentioned in the first reading of the Solemnity of Mary mother of God.
Today we are reminded to hold fast to our anointing received at our baptism where we became God our Father’s children. Having been fully united with Him through our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ we are called to be Holy as our Heavenly Father is Holy. And so having entered into the new year, St John in the first reading reminds us to stay awake and alert, “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.”
O Holy Spirit, great counsellor and guide, One with the Father the Son; take us by the hand and lead us on in this new year. Amen
First reading
1 John 2:22-28 ·
The anointing he gave you teaches you everything
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.
Gospel
John 1:19-28
‘One is coming after me who existed before me’
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.
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