The Gospel of November 30, 2025

First Sunday of Advent

First Reading

The Lord unites all peoples in the eternal peace of His Kingdom.

From the book of the prophet Isaiah
Is 2:1-5

The vision of Isaiah son of Amoz concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
In days to come,
the mountain of the Lord’s temple
shall be established as the highest of the mountains;
it shall be exalted above the hills,
and all nations shall stream to it.
Many peoples shall come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the temple of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations,
and shall arbitrate for many peoples;
they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more.
O house of Jacob, come,
let us walk in the light of the Lord.

The Word of the Lord.

Responsorial Psalm

From Ps 121 (122)

R. Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.

I rejoiced when they said to me,
“Let us go to the house of the Lord.”
Our feet are standing
within your gates, O Jerusalem. R.

To it the tribes go up,
the tribes of the Lord,
as was decreed for Israel,
to give thanks to the name of the Lord.
There the thrones for judgment were set up,
the thrones of the house of David. R.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
“May they prosper who love you.
Peace be within your walls,
and security within your towers.” R.

For the sake of my relatives and friends,
I will say, “Peace be within you.”
For the sake of the house of the Lord our God,
I will seek your good. R.

Second Reading

Our salvation is nearer.

From the Letter of Saint Paul to the Romans
Rom 13:11-14a

Brothers and sisters:
You know what time it is, how it is now the moment
for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer
to us now than when we became believers;
the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay
aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.
Let us live honorably as in the day,
not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness,
not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Word of the Lord.

Gospel Acclamation

Alleluia, alleluia.

Show us, O Lord, your mercy
and grant us your salvation. (Ps 84:8)

Alleluia.

The Gospel of the Day, November 30, 2025

Be watchful, to be ready for his arrival.

From the Gospel according to Matthew
Mt 24:37-44

At that time, Jesus said to his disciples:
“As were the days of Noah, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and the other left.
Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”

The Gospel of the Lord.

The Creed is said.

Saint John Cassian (c. 360-435)

founder of a monastery in Marseille

“O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me” (Ps 70:2)

“O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me!” (Ps 70:2) This verse must be our constant prayer: in adversity, to be delivered from it; in prosperity, to be kept in it and preserved from pride. Yes, let it be the continuous occupation of your heart! At work, in your different services, while travelling, never cease repeating it. Whether you eat or sleep, at all times, meditate on it. It will become a formula of salvation that will not only protect you from the devil’s attacks, but also purify you from every vice and every earthly impurity, and thus raise you up to the contemplation of heavenly and invisible realities, to that ineffable fervor of prayer that few know by experience. May sleep close your eyes on these words, so that by dint of repeating them you may acquire the habit of repeating them even in your sleep. May they be the first thing that presents itself to your spirit upon waking, before any other thought. Say them kneeling, as you get out of bed, and let them accompany you in every action, never leaving you. You will meditate on them according to the precept of Moses, “when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (Dt 6:7), falling asleep and rising. You will write them on your lips, engrave them on the walls of your house and in the sanctuary of your heart: so that they accompany you as a single refrain, when you prostrate yourself to pray, and when you then rise, to follow the ordinary course of life, as your constant prayer. Yes, let the soul always retain this word, so that, by dint of constantly repeating and meditating on it, it may acquire the firmness to refuse and cast far from itself riches and all sorts of thoughts, and concentrated on the poverty of this simple verse, may arrive with easy ascent at the evangelical beatitude.

THE WORDS OF THE POPES

Today begins Advent, the liturgical season that prepares us for Christmas, inviting us to raise our gaze and open our hearts to welcome Jesus. In Advent we not only live the expectation of Christmas; we are also invited to awaken the expectation of the glorious return of Christ – when at the end of time he will return – preparing ourselves for the final encounter with Him with coherent and courageous choices. We remember Christmas, we await the glorious return of Christ, and also our personal encounter: the day on which the Lord will call us. In these four weeks we are called to move away from a resigned and habitual way of living, and to move forward by nurturing hopes, nurturing dreams for a new future. (…) This time is opportune to open our hearts, to ask ourselves concrete questions about how and for whom we spend our life. (Pope Francis – Angelus, December 2, 2018)