Thursday, 4 December 2025 Thursday of the First Week of Advent

Send us Fan MailThursday, 4 December 2025Thursday of the First Week of AdventAntiphons and Readings on p. 41 of the Daily Missal.Entrance Antiphon.You, O Lord, are close, and all your ways are truth. From of old, I have known of your decrees, for you are eternal.First Reading: Isaiah 26:1-6A reading from the Book of Isaiah.In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah: “We have a strong city;he sets up salvation as walls and bulwarks. Open the gates, that the righteous nation which keeps faith may enter in. You keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock. For he has brought low the inhabitants of the height, the lofty city. He lays it low, lays it low to the ground, casts it to the dust. The foot tramples it, the feet of the poor, the steps of the needy.”The Word of the Lord.Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 118:1 & 8-9.19-21.25-27 (R. 26a)R/. Blest is he who comes in the name of the Lord.Give praise to the Lord, for he is good;his mercy endures forever.It is better to take refuge in the Lordthan to trust in man;it is better to take refuge in the Lordthan to trust in princes.Open to me the gates of justice:I will enter and thank the Lord.This is the Lord’s own gate,where the just enter.I will thank you, for you have answered,and you are my saviour.O Lord, grant salvation;O Lord, grant success.Blest is he who comesin the name of the Lord.We bless you from the house of the Lord;the Lord is God and has given us light.R/. Blest is he who comes in the name of the Lord.Alleluia. Alleluia.Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near.Alleluia.Gospel: Matthew 7:21.24-27A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew.At that time: Jesus said to his disciples, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock, and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand, and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”The Gospel of the Lord.Communion Antiphon.Let us live justly and devoutly in this age, as we await the blessed hope and the coming of the glory of our great God.