23 décembre 2025 – fra

Ml 3, 1-4.23-24 ; Lc 1, 57-66

H O M É L I E

          Saint Luc, dans son Évangile, établit un parallélisme rigoureux entre Jean-Baptiste et Jésus. Aussi bien au sujet d’Élizabeth que de Marie il dit : « Quand arriva le moment d’enfanter, elle mit au monde un fils ». Dans le cas de Jean, ce sont les voisins qui viennent se réjouir avec la mère et l’enfant ; dans le cas de Jésus, ce sont d’abord les bergers puis les mages. Zacharie, tout comme Joseph, a un rôle un peu effacé. De Jean, comme de Jésus, on se demande « ce que sera cet enfant ». Les deux ont une longue préparation – Jean au désert, Jésus à Nazareth – avant une vie publique assez brève.

23 December 2025

Mal 3:1-4, 23-24; Lk 1:57-66

Homily

In his Gospel, Saint Luke establishes a rigorous parallel between John the Baptist and Jesus. He says of both Elizabeth and Mary: "When the time came for her to give birth, she bore a son". In the case of John, it was the neighbors who came to rejoice with the mother and child; in the case of Jesus, it was first the shepherds and then the Magi. Zechariah, like Joseph, has a somewhat understated role. With John, as with Jesus, we wonder ‘ what this child will be like ’. Both had a long preparation - John in the desert, Jesus in Nazareth - before a fairly short public life.

December 24, 2025                       Christmas Eve, morning

2S 7,1-5.8b-12.14a.16; Lc 1,67-79

                                                      H O M I L Y

   Almost 40 years ago, in 1987, in Rome, Pope John Paul II received the visit of the Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I from Constantinople. Like the visit between Paul VI and Athenagoras in Jerusalem, some twenty years before, it was the encounter between two great and warm human beings. At the moment of departure, they stood for about ten minutes near the car that would bring Dimitrios to the airport, like two friends who cannot let go of each other, and Patriarch Dimi­trios' last words were: " we have found in you a man, and we will be the messenger of your humility". In his official speech, he had said that he had come to share with Rome their respective spiritual traditions and riches. Now, at the end, he says: "we have met a man"; and I think it was the most beautiful thing he could say.

22 December 2025

1 Sam 1:24-38; Luke 1:46-56

 Homily

          In these last weeks of Advent, the liturgical lectionary often draws parallels between characters from the Old Testament and others from the New Testament. A few days ago, we saw the parallel between Jesus, who inaugurated the New Covenant, and John the Baptist, the last representative of the Old Covenant and, in a way, the bridge between the two Covenants.