19 December 2026 · Syro-Malabar Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Latin Rite · Syro-Malankara Rite · മലയാളം
“He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure.” John 3:34
Paul tells how God “set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace” and “was pleased to reveal his Son to me.” His Gospel is not human invention but revelation. Like Jeremiah and John the Baptist, Paul was called from the womb.
John the Baptist testifies: “The one who comes from above is above all… He whom God has sent speaks the words of God.” As Christmas approaches, the Church contemplates the One who comes from above: not a teacher among teachers, but the Son into whose hands the Father has given all things.
Theme: “The One who comes from above.”
Paul called from the womb; John's witness to the One from heaven.
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.” Jeremiah 1:5
“The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks about earthly things. The one who comes from heaven is above all.” John 3:31
Apply: Thank God for your vocation today.
“Then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.” Joel 2:28
“He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure.” John 3:34
Apply: Pray to the Holy Spirit before reading the Gospel.
“For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders.” Isaiah 9:6
“The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands.” John 3:35
Apply: Set up the crib at home this weekend.
The One from above is coming.
Let him be above all in our lives.
Take-home resolution: Prepare the crib and pray before it each evening until Christmas.
Dear friends, St Paul tells the Galatians how he received the Gospel: not from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ (Galatians 1:12). He had been a violent persecutor of the Church. Then God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me (Galatians 1:15–16).
Paul's story shows that no one is beyond God's reach. The man who dragged Christians to prison became the apostle of the nations. God's call came before Paul's merits, even before his birth, just as it came to Jeremiah, to John the Baptist and to Mary.
In the Gospel John the Baptist says of Jesus: the one who comes from above is above all; he whose origin is in heaven testifies to what he has seen and heard. The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life (John 3:31–36).
These are the words of the forerunner, who said: he must increase, but I must decrease. John knows his place. All his greatness is in pointing to the one who comes from above.
Christmas is about this one who comes from above. He is not one religious teacher among many; he is the Son, in whose hands the Father has placed all things. Believing in him is not one opinion among others; it is eternal life.
As Christmas approaches, let us ask: who comes first in my life? My plans, my image, my family, my career; or the One who comes from above? Let us decrease, so that he may increase, and let us pray for those who, like Saul, are far from Christ today. Amen.
Children, God knew you even before you were born, and He loves you very much. Thank Him for your life today!
Father, you set us apart and called us by grace. Prepare our hearts to welcome your Son who comes from above and gives the Spirit without measure. Amen.
Both readings ask where the Gospel comes from. Paul says that his Gospel did not come from any human being, but from a revelation of God's Son. John's Gospel says that the one who comes from above speaks what he has seen and heard. Our faith, then, is not a human invention. It is an answer to someone who has come to us from God.
Setting.
Others had apparently been saying that Paul had his Gospel second-hand and had trimmed it to please Gentiles. To answer them he tells his own story, one of the fullest he gives us in his letters. Paul is a Jew and is proud of it (compare Philippians 3:5). He does not present what happened as leaving a bad religion. He describes it as a prophet's call, by the God he had always served.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.” (1:12)
This is not a denial that Paul learned from the Church; see the question below. He means that his certainty that the crucified Jesus is the Son of God came from God.
“I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it.” (1:13)
Paul never forgets this (1 Corinthians 15:9). The honesty about his past is part of his preaching, because it shows what grace can do.
“But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles,” (1:15–16)
The words come from the call of the prophets: Jeremiah 1:5 and Isaiah 49:1. The whole sentence has God as its subject. Paul does the persecuting, but God does the calling.
“but I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus.” (1:17)
"Arabia" here probably means the Nabataean kingdom, east and south of Damascus. Paul does not say what he did there, and we should not claim to know.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism quotes these verses to show that Paul's vision on the road to Damascus was a revelation of Jesus as the Son of God, and that this became the heart of his preaching (CCC 442). Pope Benedict XVI, in his catechesis on St Paul, said that the change in him was not the fruit of a process of thinking or moral growth, but came from outside, from meeting Christ (in substance; General Audience, 3 September 2008).
Setting.
This passage follows John the Baptist's last witness in this Gospel: "He must increase, but I must decrease" (3:30). Commentators differ on whether vv. 31–36 are still the Baptist speaking or the evangelist reflecting on what has been said. The themes are those of the talk with Nicodemus earlier in the chapter: above and below, witness and believing, life and judgment.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks about earthly things.” (3:31)
This is said with no contempt for John. He himself pointed the way. Every other teacher speaks from below, and only this one speaks of what he has seen.
“Whoever has accepted his testimony has certified this, that God is true.” (3:33)
Faith is more than an opinion about Jesus. It is a personal act, a trust that stakes itself on God's truthfulness.
“The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands.” (3:35)
In the middle of warnings, here is the deepest thing in the passage: the love between Father and Son. What the world is offered in Christ comes out of that love.
“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but must endure God’s wrath.” (3:36)
The verb is in the present: "has" eternal life, already. In John, believing and obeying go together, because the opposite of believing here is disobeying. The verse speaks of the choice that lies before each person, and it is not a verdict on anyone.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism says that from his conception Christ's humanity was filled with the Holy Spirit, for God gives the Spirit without measure (CCC 504). St Augustine, preaching on this verse, says that the Spirit is given to each member of the Church in a measure, one gift to one and another to another, but that the Son does not receive by measure (in substance; Tractates on John 14). The Church also teaches that believing in Christ is necessary for salvation (CCC 161), and that God's grace can reach those who through no fault of their own do not know him (CCC 847).
If Paul learned nothing from anyone, why does he say that he "received" the faith from others?
Both are true. In 1 Corinthians 15:3 he says he handed on "what I in turn had received", and in 1 Corinthians 11:23 he hands on the Lord's Supper. He was baptized by Ananias (Acts 9:18), and he later went to see Peter (Galatians 1:18). What Paul says in Galatians is that no human being convinced him that Jesus is the Son of God. The content of the Church's tradition he received, and he guarded it faithfully.