19 December 2026 · Latin Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Syro-Malankara Rite · Syro-Malabar Rite · മലയാളം
“But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John.”” Luke 1:13
Today's O Antiphon: “O Root of Jesse, who stand as a sign for the peoples, before whom kings shall keep silence and whom the nations shall seek: come and deliver us, and delay no longer” (cf. Isaiah 11:10). Two barren couples receive good news. An angel tells Manoah's wife she will bear a son, Samson, a nazirite consecrated to God from the womb. In the Temple, the angel Gabriel tells the old priest Zechariah that Elizabeth will bear a son, John, “filled with the Holy Spirit” even before his birth, who will go before the Lord “with the spirit and power of Elijah”.
Zechariah doubts and becomes mute until the promise is fulfilled. His silence is not only punishment; it is a time of waiting, of interior listening, that will burst into the Benedictus at John's birth. Elizabeth rejoices: “This is what the Lord has done for me… he looked favourably on me and took away the disgrace I have endured.” In the last days of Advent, God turns barrenness into life, silence into song.
Theme: “Your prayer has been heard.”
God turns barrenness into life, consecrates from the womb, and turns silence into song.
“And the angel of the LORD appeared to the woman and said to her, “Although you are barren, having borne no children, you shall conceive and bear a son.”” Judges 13:3
“But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John.”” Luke 1:13
Apply: Pray for couples longing for children.
“For you shall conceive and bear a son. No razor is to come on his head, for the boy shall be a nazirite to God from birth. It is he who shall begin to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines.” Judges 13:5
“For he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He must never drink wine or strong drink; even before his birth he will be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Luke 1:15
Apply: Pray for the protection of unborn life.
“For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O LORD, from my youth. Upon you I have leaned from my birth; it was you who took me from my mother's womb. My praise is continually of you.” Psalm 71:5–6
“This is what the Lord has done for me when he looked favorably on me and took away the disgrace I have endured among my people.” Luke 1:25
Apply: Keep fifteen minutes of silence today.
God hears long prayers.
In silence we prepare our song for Christmas.
Take-home resolution: Make a silent half-hour before the crib on Christmas Eve.
Dear friends, today's O Antiphon prays: O Root of Jesse, standing as a sign for the peoples, before whom kings shall keep silent: come to deliver us and delay no longer.
In the first reading the wife of Manoah is barren. An angel appears and tells her she will bear a son, Samson, who will be a Nazirite, consecrated to God from birth, and he will begin to save Israel (Judges 13:2–5). God brings life where there was none.
In the Gospel the angel Gabriel appears to the old priest Zechariah in the Temple: your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John. He will turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God (Luke 1:13–16).
But Zechariah doubts: how will I know that this is so? For I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years (Luke 1:18). Because he did not believe, he becomes mute until the child is born.
Zechariah had prayed for years. When the answer finally came, he could not believe it. How often we pray without really expecting God to answer! Elizabeth, on the other hand, says: this is what the Lord has done for me; he has taken away my disgrace (Luke 1:25).
As Christmas draws near, let us renew our faith in prayer. God hears. His timing is not ours, but he hears. Let us keep praying for what we long for, and when God answers, in his way, let us believe and give thanks. Amen.
Children, Zechariah prayed for a long time, and God answered. Keep praying, even if the answer takes time!
O Root of Jesse, sign for the peoples, come and deliver us, and delay no longer. Hear my long prayers as you heard Zechariah's, turn my barren places into life, and turn my silence into praise. Amen.
Two barren women, two angels, two sons set apart before their birth. The reading from Judges and the Gospel of Luke are told almost in the same words, and the Church places them side by side on purpose. God begins his great deliverances where human hope has run out. Samson will “begin to deliver” Israel; John will prepare a people for the Lord himself. Psalm 71 is the prayer of one who has relied on God “from my mother's womb”.
Setting.
The Book of Judges tells a repeated story: Israel does evil, falls under an enemy, cries out, and God raises up a deliverer. Chapter 13 opens with Israel forty years under the Philistines (13:1), and this time no cry is recorded. God acts first. The scene is a small home of the tribe of Dan, in Zorah, in the foothills west of Jerusalem.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
““Although you are barren, having borne no children, you shall conceive and bear a son.” (13:3)
The form of the announcement is a fixed one in Scripture: appearance, promise, name or mission. The same form returns today in Luke, and tomorrow for Mary.
“It is he who shall begin to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines.” (13:5)
Only “begin”. Samson's life, read on in chapters 14 to 16, is a strange mixture of strength and failure, and the Philistines are still there at the end. Israel's real deliverance lies ahead. The Letter to the Hebrews still numbers him among those of faith (Hebrews 11:32).
“The woman bore a son, and named him Samson. The boy grew, and the Lord blessed him.” (13:24)
A quiet sentence very like the ones Luke uses of John and of Jesus (Luke 1:80; 2:40).
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism sees in such women the preparation for Mary: against all human expectation God chooses those who were considered powerless and weak to show his faithfulness (CCC 489). Samson is thus a figure in the old sense: he points beyond himself. His consecration from the womb and his partial deliverance prepare us to hear of one who will be greater.
Setting.
After a short preface (1:1–4), Luke begins his Gospel in the temple in Jerusalem, and he will end it there (24:53). “Herod” is Herod the Great, who died about 4 BC. David's arrangement divided the priests into twenty-four orders, each serving in turn; Abijah's was the eighth (1 Chronicles 24:10). There were many priests, so the task of offering incense was given by lot, and later Jewish tradition suggests that a priest might have it only once in his life. So this is the greatest hour of Zechariah's life, and God meets him in it.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John.” (1:13)
They may have stopped praying for a child long ago. God has not forgotten. An old prayer can be answered at a time when no one is expecting it.
“With the spirit and power of Elijah he will go before him” (1:17)
“Him” here is the Lord God of v. 16. John goes before God. By the end of the story, the one who comes after John is Jesus. Luke is saying something tremendous about who Jesus is, with no fuss at all.
““How will I know that this is so? For I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years.”” (1:18)
Abraham asked something similar (Genesis 15:8). But the angel takes it as unbelief (v. 20), and the priest who should have blessed the waiting people (Numbers 6:22–27) comes out unable to speak.
““This is what the Lord has done for me when he looked favorably on me and took away the disgrace I have endured among my people.”” (1:25)
Elizabeth, who is given no angel, is the first in this Gospel to praise God for what he has done. Childlessness in her world was felt as a public shame, and she names it, and names its end.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism says that John was filled with the Holy Spirit “even from his mother's womb” (CCC 717), that he is Elijah who must come (CCC 718) and that he is the Lord's immediate forerunner (CCC 523). The Church keeps his birthday as a solemnity on 24 June, a rare honour: besides the Lord, only Mary and John have their earthly birth kept in the Roman calendar.
Why was Zechariah punished for his question and Mary not for hers?
The words are close, but Luke marks a difference. Zechariah asks for proof, “How will I know?”, and the angel names it unbelief (1:20). Mary asks how it will come about, “How can this be?”, and then gives her consent (1:34, 38). Fathers such as St Ambrose see this difference (in substance). And Zechariah's silence ends in praise: when his tongue is released, his first words are a blessing (1:64).
Today's O Antiphon is O Radix Jesse, “O Root of Jesse”, from Isaiah 11:1, 10. It fits a day of barren women: a root seems dead, and God brings life from it.