OMELIE / Omelie EN

04 gen 2026

04/01/2026 - Second Sunday of Christmas - Year A

04/01/2026 - Second Sunday of Christmas - Year A

First reading Sir 24:1-4, 8-12 from Psalm 147 Second reading Eph 1:3-6, 15-18 Gospel Jn 1:1-18

We continue to celebrate the Lord's Christmas. The readings continue to dwell on this mystery that we can never fully comprehend. It is a mystery that we want to continue to celebrate in order to praise and bless the wisdom of God's love. This is precisely what the passage from the book of Sirach is about.

God says to Wisdom: “Make your dwelling in Jacob, and in Israel receive your inheritance”. It is in the people of Israel that the Word, that is, the Word of God Most High, is incarnated. God lives in our history: he is not an idea, as made up by religions discovered or invented by men. Saint John dwells on this coming of God into our history at the beginning of his Gospel.

The Word that was in the beginning, that is, the foundation of everything, was God. The words of our language cannot translate everything that the evangelist wants to tell us. By the term “Word”, he means the Word, or rather the content of the Word that God himself wants to communicate to men, to make them partakers of his life, that is, of his love. God does not only want to speak to us, but with his word he wants to pass his life onto us, that is, his ability to love.

And every time “was” is repeated, it is not to recount a past event, but a present and future event: we should translate it as “was” and will continue to be. He “was” and continues to be with God, “was” and still is, and always will be light and life. He “lived among us” and he stays with us and he will always remain with us.

The truth of the mystery that the evangelist wants to summarise for us in these first lines of his Gospel is witnessed by a man named John the Baptist. He preceded “the light”, that light that shines in the darkness and attracts the gaze and attention of all men. Those who welcome him become “children of God” by transforming their lives, lives that are part of the darkness, into a ray of “light” that many can enjoy.

The evangelist John, unlike Matthew and Luke, does not show us Jesus as a Child. In fact, today we are not dealing with a Child, but with the one who died and rose again. If we love the Child, it is because he’s risen with us. The feast that makes us sensitive and capable of all goodness does not end with the Epiphany, but continues throughout the year: Jesus, the Son of Mary, is always with us.

This is also reminded us by Saint Paul, who rejoices in the fact that Christians believe in Jesus Christ. It is this faith that brings them in the communion with one another and with him: thus their lives will never sink into darkness or discouragement or the sadness typical of those who do not know the divine meaning of their existence.

Let us give thanks for the mystery of the Incarnation: God with us, one of us, always for us. Let us rejoice and give thanks because he is the wisdom that makes us wise among teachers, makes us confident among the arrogant, makes us serene amid the confusion surrounding us, makes us joyful among sad and depressed crowds.

Let us give thanks and be ready to answer to those who ask us why we are happy, why we do not complain, why we have hope in a holy future, why we are not in awe of those who consider themselves great and successful.

We will respond that Jesus is God with us, and that his life is not a memory of the past, but a present reality: we can rely on him to look to the future without fear!