17 December 2026 · Latin Rite
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“An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Matthew 1:1
Today the final stretch of Advent begins. The readings now follow the calendar date, and the Church sings the great “O Antiphons”. Today's: “O Wisdom, who came from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from end to end and ordering all things mightily and sweetly: come and teach us the way of prudence” (cf. Wisdom 8:1). Jacob blesses Judah: “The scepter shall not depart from Judah… until tribute comes to him; and the obedience of the peoples is his.”
Matthew opens with a genealogy: forty-two generations in three groups of fourteen, from Abraham to David to the exile to Christ. It contains saints and sinners, kings and nobodies, and, unusually, four women (Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and the wife of Uriah), some foreigners, some with complicated stories. God's plan runs through real, messy family history. Then the pattern breaks: “Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born.” Jesus enters our family tree as a true man and true Son of God.
Theme: “O Wisdom, come!”
The O Antiphons begin; God keeps his promise to Judah; Jesus enters a real family tree.
“She reaches mightily from one end of the earth to the other, and she orders all things well.” Wisdom 8:1
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1
Apply: Pray today's O Antiphon morning and evening.
“The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and the obedience of the peoples is his.” Genesis 49:10
“An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Matthew 1:1
Apply: Thank God for a promise he kept in your life.
“I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Genesis 12:3
“And Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah. So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations.” Matthew 1:16–17
Apply: Pray for your ancestors by name.
God writes salvation through real families.
O Wisdom, come and teach us!
Take-home resolution: Pray one O Antiphon each day until 23 December.
Dear friends, from today the Church enters the last week before Christmas. At Evening Prayer she begins to sing the great O Antiphons. Tonight's is: O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from end to end and ordering all things mightily and sweetly: come and teach us the way of prudence.
In the first reading the dying Jacob blesses his sons and says of Judah: the sceptre shall not depart from Judah, until tribute comes to him; and the obedience of the peoples is his (Genesis 49:10). From the tribe of Judah would come David, and from David the Messiah.
The Gospel gives us the genealogy of Jesus: Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, and so on through forty-two generations to Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah (Matthew 1:1–16).
We may be tempted to skip this long list of names. But it is full of meaning. It includes great saints like Abraham and David, and great sinners too. It includes four women, some of them foreigners, and one whose story involved adultery. God's plan passed through all of them.
This tells us that God can write salvation through crooked lines. Our family history may have its own sins, wounds and shames. God is not ashamed to enter it. Jesus took a real human family tree, with all its brokenness, to heal it from within.
Today, let us thank God for our ancestors who handed on the faith, and pray for those in our family line who need healing and mercy. And let us pray with the Church: O Wisdom, come and teach us the way of prudence. Amen.
Children, Jesus had grandparents and great-grandparents, just like you. Pray today for your whole family!
O Wisdom, who came forth from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from end to end and ordering all things mightily and sweetly: come and teach us the way of prudence. Bless my family and all its history. Amen.
From today until Christmas Eve the Mass readings change their tone: Advent now prepares directly for the birth of Christ. The Church begins at the roots. On his deathbed Jacob promises that the scepter shall not depart from Judah, and Matthew opens his Gospel with the family tree in which that promise runs on, through saints and sinners, to Jesus the Messiah, “the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Psalm 72 sings of the king in whose time justice shall flourish.
Setting.
Genesis is ending. Jacob, also called Israel, is dying in Egypt and gathers his twelve sons to tell them what will happen “in days to come” (49:1). The poem is called his blessing, though the first three sons, Reuben, Simeon and Levi, hear hard words (49:3–7). Judah, the fourth, is next, and he receives the leadership. Later history is read in this poem: David and his royal line came from the tribe of Judah.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Judah, your brothers shall praise you” (49:8)
A play on words. Judah (Yehudah) sounds like the verb “to praise” (yādâ), as Leah said at his birth: “This time I will praise the Lord” (29:35).
“The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and the obedience of the peoples is his.” (49:10)
A note on the text. The Hebrew phrase is obscure and has been read in several ways. It could be “until Shiloh comes”, which the Hebrew letters most directly suggest; “until tribute comes to him”, as the NRSV has it, by a small change in reading; or “until he comes to whom it belongs”, close to the Malayalam POC's “its heir”. The Latin Vulgate has “until he comes who is to be sent”. Many ancient readers felt that the verse looks forward to a ruler still to come.
How the Church reads it.
Ancient Jewish interpreters read this verse of the king to come; the Aramaic Targum Onkelos names the Messiah here. Christians read it of Jesus, who “was descended from Judah” (Hebrews 7:14). St Justin Martyr used it in his First Apology to show that the Messiah had been foretold (in substance). The last words of the verse are wider than Israel: “the obedience of the peoples”. The Church hears that fulfilled when Jesus is confessed among the nations.
Setting.
Matthew wrote for a Church deeply rooted in Israel's Scriptures, and his first page is a list of names. To a modern reader it seems dull; to his first readers it was a claim. Family trees established who a person was and what he could inherit. This one says that Jesus is the heir of the promises made to Abraham (Genesis 12:3) and to David (2 Samuel 7:12–16).
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” (1:1)
Two names, two promises. David stands for the kingdom, Abraham for the blessing of all nations. Matthew ends where he begins: “make disciples of all nations” (28:19).
“and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar” (1:3)
Genealogies usually name only fathers. Matthew names four women before Mary: Tamar (v. 3), Rahab and Ruth (v. 5), and “the wife of Uriah” (v. 6). Rahab was of Jericho, Ruth of Moab, and Uriah a Hittite; each of their stories is irregular or painful. God's plan passes through foreigners and through wounded histories.
“and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah.” (1:16)
The pattern “A the father of B” breaks here. In Greek “of whom” is feminine, and refers to Mary alone. Joseph is the legal link to David, and Mary is the mother. Tomorrow's Gospel explains why.
How the Church reads it.
St Leo the Great, in a letter used in the Office of Readings today, says that to call the Lord true man would be of no value to us unless we believe he comes from the line of ancestors the Gospel sets out (in substance). The list guards the truth of the Incarnation: God entered a real family. The Catechism notes that Joseph was called so that Jesus should be born “into the messianic lineage of David” (CCC 437). The women point ahead too: the mission of many holy women prepared for Mary's, and God chooses those considered weak to show his faithfulness (CCC 489).
Why do Matthew and Luke give different genealogies of Jesus?
Luke 3:23–38 has a different list between David and Joseph. Neither Gospel explains this. An early explanation, by Julius Africanus and preserved by Eusebius, appeals to levirate marriage; others suggest that one list is legal and the other natural. No solution is certain. Both Gospels agree on what matters: Jesus belongs to David's line, and his conception is the work of God.
From 17 December the Roman Rite sings the “O Antiphons”, one each evening at the Magnificat of Vespers and also used before the Gospel at Mass. Today's is O Sapientia, “O Wisdom”. Each one calls on Christ by an Old Testament title and ends with “Come”.