The Gospel of December 16, 2025

Tuesday of the 3rd Week of Advent

First Reading

Messianic salvation is promised to all peoples.

From the book of the prophet Zephaniah
Zep 3:1-2.9-13

Thus says the Lord:
Woe to the rebellious and defiled city,
to the oppressing city!
She did not listen to the voice,
she did not accept correction.
She did not trust in the Lord,
she did not draw near to her God.
“For then I will restore to the peoples a pure speech,
that all may call upon the name of the Lord
and serve him with one accord.
From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia
my worshipers,
the daughter of my dispersed ones,
shall bring my offering.
“On that day you shall not be put to shame
because of all the deeds by which you have rebelled against me;
for then I will remove from your midst
your proudly exultant ones,
and you shall no longer be haughty
in my holy mountain.
For I will leave in the midst of you
a people humble and poor.”
They shall take refuge in the name of the Lord,
the remnant of Israel;
they shall do no iniquity
and speak no lies,
nor shall there be found in their mouth
a deceitful tongue.
For they shall graze and lie down,
and none shall make them afraid.

The Word of God.

Responsorial Psalm

From Psalm 33 (34)

R. The poor man cried, and the Lord heard him.

I will bless the Lord at all times;
his praise shall continually be in my mouth.
My soul makes its boast in the Lord;
let the humble hear and be glad. R.

Look to him, and be radiant;
let your faces not be ashamed.
This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him
and saved him out of all his troubles. R.

The face of the Lord is against those who do evil,
to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.
When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears
and delivers them out of all their troubles. R.

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted
and saves the crushed in spirit.
The Lord redeems the life of his servants;
none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned. R.

Gospel Acclamation

Alleluia, alleluia.

Come, Lord, do not delay:
forgive the sins of your people.

Alleluia.

The Gospel of the day December 16, 2025

John came and the sinners believed him.

From the Gospel according to Matthew
Mt 21:28-32

At that time, Jesus said to the chief priests and the elders of the people: “What do you think? A man had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.’ He answered, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he changed his mind and went. And he went to the second and said the same thing. And he answered, ‘I go, sir,’ but did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.”
Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward repent and believe him.”

The Word of the Lord.

Saint Bernard (1091-1153)

Cistercian monk and Doctor of the Church

Sermon 5 “de diversis”, 4-5; PL 183, 556 (transl. cb@evangelizo)

God’s will is life

The first degree of contemplation, my dearest ones, is that we unceasingly consider what the Lord wills, what pleases him and is agreeable to him. In so many things, we all offend him; our lack of simplicity clashes with his will, and this prevents us from uniting ourselves to him, from attaching ourselves to him. Let us humble ourselves under the mighty hand of the Most High God and hasten to expose all our misery before his mercy and say: “Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved” (Jer 17:14), and again: “Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I have sinned against you” (Ps 41:5). When the eye of the heart is purified by this kind of thought, we no longer live with a heart full of bitterness but in the delights found in the Spirit of God. We no longer just consider what God’s will is for us, but what this will is in itself. Now God wills life, and absolutely nothing is more useful or more advantageous than conforming oneself to his will. This is why the care we take to preserve our life, let us also take, as much as possible, not to stray in any way from the path that leads there.

THE WORDS OF THE POPES

With his preaching on the Kingdom of God, Jesus opposes a religiosity that does not involve human life, that does not challenge the conscience and its responsibility before good and evil. He also demonstrates this with the parable of the two sons, which is presented in Matthew’s Gospel (cf. 21:28-32). To the father’s invitation to go and work in the vineyard, the first son impulsively answers “no, I will not go,” but then he repents and goes; the second son, on the other hand, who immediately answers “yes, yes, dad,” in reality does not do it, he does not go. Obedience does not consist in saying “yes” or “no,” but always in acting, in cultivating the vineyard, in realizing the Kingdom of God, in doing good. With this simple example, Jesus wants to overcome a religion understood only as an external and habitual practice, which does not affect people’s lives and attitudes, a superficial religiosity, only “ritualistic,” in the bad sense of the word. (Pope Francis – Angelus, 27 September 2020)