Saints Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops, Doctors, on 2 January - 2025

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

A hallowed day has dawned upon us.
Come, you nations, worship the Lord,
for today a great light has shone down upon the earth.

1 JOHN 2:22-28

My Soul's Beloved,

From the time of the Apostles and Church Fathers the Church successfully fought any and all heresies and steadfastly defended the Truth as revealed by One who is Truth. Sadly, even at the time when John, the beloved is writing, he warns against those who will eventually distort the Truth with half-truths, and most especially in the last 1500 years the Word of God has been taken out of context, and misconstrued deliberately and effectively, propagating bold-faced lies. An intermittent string of false preachers has drawn many ill-formed and half-formed in the faith, away from the Truth to suit their conniving and prideful purposes and perhaps even to their eternal damnation.

St. John speaks bluntly and boldly saying that anyone who denies that You O Lord are the Christ is a liar and Antichrist and these too abound in our world. Many Antichrists are already roaming freely in the world prowling demons, who steal, plunder, murder, and destroy ignorant, lazy, lukewarm, foolish souls.

The Church keeps alive in her treasury what she has been taught from the first when the Word became Flesh and lived among us in grace and truth and she has never veered from the Way that leads to Eternal Life with God. This is not true for many who since 1500 years have taught and preached either a watered-down Truth or tenets of faith that are filled with error and lies that put their soul at eternal risk and benefit Satan.  

Keep alive in yourselves what you were taught in the beginning:
as long as what you were taught in the beginning is alive in you,
you will live in the Son
and in the Father;
and what is promised to you by his own promise
is eternal life.
This is all that I am writing to you about the people who are trying to lead you astray.
But you have not lost the anointing that he gave you,
and you do not need anyone to teach you;
the anointing he gave teaches you everything;
you are anointed with truth, not with a lie,
and as it has taught you, so you must stay in him.
Live in Christ, then, my children,
so that if he appears, we may have full confidence,
and not turn from him in shame
at his coming.

PSALM 97(98):1-4

All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.

Sing a new song to the Lord
for he has worked wonders.
His right hand and his holy arm
have brought salvation.

The Lord has made known his salvation;

has shown his justice to the nations.
He has remembered his truth and love
for the house of Israel.

All the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation of our God.
Shout to the Lord, all the earth,
ring out your joy.

All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.

JOHN 1:19-28

My Soul's Beloved,

Even before the beginning of Your public ministry, there was opposition to Your precursor, John the Baptist. Enemies of Truth prefer the status quo which guarantees their stranglehold on power, and authority, as they lord it over everyone else. John the Baptist however, did not allow the adulation of those who came to hear him preach a message of repentance to forget who he was and why he was sent by God. He could so easily have usurped the place he was preparing for the Christ, and yet when asked,

‘Who are you?’ he not only declared, but he declared quite openly, ‘I am not the Christ.’ ‘Well then,’ they asked ‘are you Elijah?’ ‘I am not’ he said. ‘Are you the Prophet?’ He answered, ‘No.’ 

When they continued to press him as to who he was he responded in humility, that he was neither the Christ, nor the Prophet, nor was he Elijah, but was sent by God to prepare the way for the Lord, the Son of God.

So John said, ‘I am, as Isaiah prophesied:

a voice that cries in the wilderness:
Make a straight way for the Lord.’

'One is coming after me who existed before me'

Until the enemies of Truth imprisoned him and put him to death, John the Baptist remained steadfast in calling the people to repentance. 

We have had the enemies of Truth in the past, continue to have them in the present, and will most certainly have them in the future. They, unlike John the Baptist, suffer from delusions of grandeur and claim for themselves the power that belongs to God alone and they deceive many to believe in them and follow them to their perdition.

Once again, Lord, thank You for establishing Your Church, building it on a firm rock-solid foundation, and assuring her that You will remain with her until You return and the gates of hell will never prevail against her. Grant O Lord that all may come to her and be preserved in her from every evil until You come again in glory.