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Christmas Season
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Readings for Daily Mass in the Season of Christmas
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To the Church, Christmas is not just a day. It is a season beginning, not ending, on Christmas Eve. From then until the Feast of Epiphany – celebrated in the United States on the Sunday following January 1 – our gospel passages are from the early life of Jesus. We will hear of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple (Luke 2:22-40), the Flight to Egypt (Matthew 2:13-18), and John the Baptist’s predictions (John 1:19-28). After Epiphany, the gospel passages of the Christmas season are about the early “manifestations” of Jesus in his public ministry, including his early preaching (Matthew 4:12-17, 23-25 and Luke 4:12-22), his feeding of the five thousand (Mark 6:34-44), his walking on water (Mark 6:45-52), and his healing of a leper (Luke 5:12-16). The season of Christmas ends on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, usually celebrated on the Sunday after Epiphany in the United States. (If Epiphany falls on January 7 or 8, the Baptism of the Lord is celebrated on the day after Epiphany.)
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Since the Christmas season is an extended celebration of the Incarnation, it is appropriate that the first readings come from 1 John. Despite the claims of the early Christian tradition, many biblical scholars do not believe that the First Letter of John was written by the Apostle John. Perhaps it was written by the community of believers who followed John, often called “the Johannine community.” In rhapsodically repetitious prose, 1 John confronts a heresy that denies Jesus’ humanity. The Johannine community argues for a very incarnational, or embodied, spirituality. It is through our experiences lived through our bodies and senses that we have come to know God. It is through those same bodies, especially by expressing love for one another, that we work out our salvation. As 1 John 4:7 says, “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God.”
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