My son, my daughter, you are my beloved and my favour rests on you. This is what our loving Father in Heaven is saying to you and me today. Reminding us that through our Baptism in Christ Jesus our Lord, we have become His beloved children so loved by Him. And we are One with Him through the Holy Eucharist, body, blood, soul and divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
We are therefore called to live as a community of love. Going out to minister to all through the power of the Holy Spirit and tender loving care; bringing about healing and restoration in His Holy name.
Let Your light shine upon us Lord. Amen
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First reading
1 John 5:5-13
There are three witnesses: the Spirit and the water and the blood
Who can overcome the world?
Only the man who believes that Jesus is the Son of God:
Jesus Christ who came by water and blood,
not with water only,
but with water and blood;
with the Spirit as another witness –
since the Spirit is the truth –
so that there are three witnesses,
the Spirit, the water and the blood,
and all three of them agree.
We accept the testimony of human witnesses,
but God’s testimony is much greater,
and this is God’s testimony,
given as evidence for his Son.
Everybody who believes in the Son of God
has this testimony inside him;
and anyone who will not believe God
is making God out to be a liar,
because he has not trusted
the testimony God has given about his Son.
This is the testimony:
God has given us eternal life
and this life is in his Son;
anyone who has the Son has life,
anyone who does not have the Son does not have life.
I have written all this to you
so that you who believe in the name of the Son of God
may be sure that you have eternal life.
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Gospel
Mark 1:6-11
‘You are my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on you’
In the course of his preaching John said:
‘Someone is following me, someone who is more powerful than I am, and I am not fit to kneel down and undo the strap of his sandals. I have baptised you with water, but he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit.’
It was at this time that Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptised in the Jordan by John. No sooner had he come up out of the water than he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit, like a dove, descending on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on you.’
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