Daily Reading for Friday, January 3rd, 2014

God needs us to testify for him. Because not all of us are believers of miracles and magic and the mystery that faith is all about. There are the doubters, the skeptical, the apathetic. Too much pain has made them resort to believe in other things that do not require much. Love, according to God, requires "so much" for those who want the easy way. We who has experienced his mercy, his compassion and never ending patience are here to proclaim who is he "has passed ahead of me because he existed before me". He who gives meaning to our existence, he who has given us freedom and secure place with him in heaven. We have experienced his love and we are called to share it with others so they, too, will experience it. How can we share God's love when we are too busy to pay attention to the little details around us every day? How can we share God's love when we are too preoccupied with our own concerns and the things that make us happy and feeling fulfilled? How can we share God's love when we are too eager to secure first our own needs and we feel annoyed when others come to us for help? How can we share God's love when we are too busy feeling too sorry for our self? Too many times I feel exempted from being there for others, especially when I too much in pain about my own misgivings. But thinking about how much God has done for me continually reminds me of my own little capacity to pay it forward. 

Reading 1, First John 2:29--3:6

29 If you know that he is upright you must recognise that everyone whose life is upright is a child of his.

1 You must see what great love the Father has lavished on us by letting us be called God's children -- which is what we are! The reason why the world does not acknowledge us is that it did not acknowledge him.

2 My dear friends, we are already God's children, but what we shall be in the future has not yet been revealed. We are well aware that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he really is.

3 Whoever treasures this hope of him purifies himself, to be as pure as he is.

4 Whoever sins, acts wickedly, because all sin is wickedness.

5 Now you are well aware that he has appeared in order to take sins away, and that in him there is no sin.

6 No one who remains in him sins, and whoever sins has neither seen him nor recognised him.

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Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 98:1, 3-4, 5-6

1 [Psalm] Sing a new song to Yahweh, for he has performed wonders, his saving power is in his right hand and his holy arm.

3 mindful of his faithful love and his constancy to the House of Israel. The whole wide world has seen the saving power of our God.

4 Acclaim Yahweh, all the earth, burst into shouts of joy!

5 Play to Yahweh on the harp, to the sound of instruments;

6 to the sound of trumpet and horn, acclaim the presence of the King.

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Gospel, John 1:29-34

29 The next day, he saw Jesus coming towards him and said, 'Look, there is the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.

30 It was of him that I said, "Behind me comes one who has passed ahead of me because he existed before me."

31 I did not know him myself, and yet my purpose in coming to baptise with water was so that he might be revealed to Israel.'

32 And John declared, 'I saw the Spirit come down on him like a dove from heaven and rest on him.

33 I did not know him myself, but he who sent me to baptise with water had said to me, "The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and rest is the one who is to baptise with the Holy Spirit."

34 I have seen and I testify that he is the Chosen One of God.'