6 December 2026 · Syro-Malankara Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Syro-Malabar Rite · Latin Rite · മലയാളം
“And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways.” Luke 1:76
Elizabeth's time comes and she bears a son. The neighbours rejoice, because “the Lord had shown his great mercy to her”. The child whose birth seemed impossible is born, and his name is chosen not by custom but by God: “His name is John”, which means “God is gracious”.
For nine months Zechariah had been silent. When he writes “His name is John” on a tablet, obeying the angel's word, “immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak, praising God.” Doubt had closed his mouth; obedience opens it. His first words are praise, the Benedictus that the Church still prays every morning: “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them.”
The Old Testament readings show God's way with children of promise. Moses was drawn out of the water to deliver his people. Hannah, who prayed for a son, gives him back: “For this child I prayed… therefore I have lent him to the LORD” (1 Samuel 1:27–28). The psalm says: “Sons are indeed a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward.” Every child is a gift and has a mission from God.
Zechariah's song ends looking towards Christ: “By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.” John is not the light; he prepares for the Dawn. The Church in this season is called to the same task: to point beyond herself to Christ who comes.
Theme: “What then will this child become?”
Elizabeth's son is born, and a family argument about a name becomes a moment of faith. The birth of John teaches us that every child is a gift, that obedience opens our lips to praise, and that every life has a mission in God's plan.
“Sons are indeed a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward.” Psalm 127:3
“All who heard them pondered them and said, “What then will this child become?” For, indeed, the hand of the Lord was with him.” Luke 1:66
Apply: Bless your children each night with the sign of the Cross.
“For this child I prayed; and the LORD has granted me the petition that I made to him. Therefore I have lent him to the LORD.” 1 Samuel 1:27–28
“He asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And all of them were amazed. Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak, praising God.” Luke 1:63–64
Apply: Where are you silent because of disobedience? Obey, and find your voice of praise.
“You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the LORD, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.” Isaiah 62:3
“And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways.” Luke 1:76
Apply: Ask in prayer: “Lord, for whom am I to prepare your way this Christmas?”
Zechariah's song ends with light: the dawn from on high will break upon those in darkness and guide our feet into the way of peace.
May our families welcome every child as a gift, obey God's word, and prepare the way for the Lord.
Take-home resolution: Pray Zechariah's Benedictus (Luke 1:68–79) each morning this week.
Dear brothers and sisters, today we celebrate a birthday: the birth of John the Baptist. The neighbours rejoiced with Elizabeth, because God had shown her great mercy. And then came a small argument about the name. The relatives said, “Call him Zechariah, after his father.” Elizabeth said, “No; he is to be called John.”
Zechariah, still unable to speak, asked for a tablet and wrote: “His name is John.” And immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue was freed, and he began to praise God. For nine months his doubt had kept him silent. When he obeyed the word of God, he could speak again, and his first words were praise.
Our readings speak of other children of promise: Moses drawn out of the water, Samuel whom Hannah gave back to the Lord. The psalm says, “Children are a heritage from the Lord.” Dear parents, your children are not your possession; they are God's gift, and each one has a mission. Bless them, pray for them by name, and help them discover what God wants of them.
John's father sang of the coming of “the dawn from on high” to give light to those who sit in darkness. That is what we wait for in this Nombu. Like John, let us prepare the way: with a good Confession, with prayer, with kindness. And let our tongues, like Zechariah's, be freed to bless the Lord. Amen.
Children, do you know what your name means? John's name means “God is kind”. His father Zechariah could not talk for many months.
When baby John was born, Zechariah wrote on a board: “His name is John.” And suddenly he could talk again! The first thing he did was to praise God.
Tonight, ask your parents why they chose your name. And let's say together: “Thank you, God, for my name!”
Lord God, you gave Zechariah and Elizabeth a son and named him John, for you are gracious. Loose our tongues to bless you, bless the children you entrust to us, and prepare our hearts for the Dawn from on high, your Son Jesus Christ. Amen.
On the fourth Sunday of Suboro the Church gathers around a cradle in the hill country of Judea. The Evening Gospel already gives the song that follows today's story: Zechariah's Benedictus, which greets “the dawn from on high” (Luke 1:67–80). The Old Testament lessons set John among other children given by God: Moses, whom Pharaoh's daughter named because “I drew him out of the water” (Exodus 2:1–10); Samuel, asked of the Lord and given back to him (1 Samuel 1:19–28); the psalm's word, “Sons are indeed a heritage from the Lord” (Psalm 127:3); and Isaiah's promise to Zion that “you shall be called by a new name” (Isaiah 62:2). The Catholic Epistle warns us to “test the spirits” (1 John 4:1), which is John's own work of telling truth from error.
The three readings studied here share one pattern. A woman who could not have children bears a child by God's gift, and that child is given back for God's purposes: Hannah and Samuel, Sarah and Isaac in Paul's argument, Elizabeth and John. The names carry the message. Hannah means “grace”; John, from the same Hebrew root, means “the Lord has been gracious”; Zechariah means “the Lord has remembered”. Remembering, grace and giving back are the key words of this Sunday.
Setting.
The story comes at the end of the time of the Judges, when Israel had no king and the sanctuary stood at Shiloh. Elkanah has two wives. Peninnah has children; Hannah has none, and Peninnah taunts her year after year (1:2–7). At Shiloh Hannah weeps and makes a vow: if God gives her a son, she will give him back to God all his life, and no razor will touch his head (1:11). The old priest Eli at first thinks she is drunk, and then blesses her (1:12–18). Today's reading tells how the prayer was answered and the vow kept.
The child will become the prophet who anoints Israel's first kings. A nation's future begins with one woman's prayer that no one else understood.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Elkanah knew his wife Hannah, and the Lord remembered her.” (1:19)
Two actions in one sentence, the human one and the divine one. A child is the fruit of both.
“She named him Samuel, for she said, “I have asked him of the Lord.”” (1:20)
The explanation is a play on sound and not a dictionary meaning: the verb “ask” sounds closer to the name Saul. Scholars usually take Samuel to mean something like “name of God”. Hannah's point is clear: this name will remind her where he came from. Here it is the mother who names him, just as Elizabeth is the first to speak the name of John.
“For this child I prayed; and the Lord has granted me the petition that I made to him.” (1:27)
A moment of quiet joy. She stands at the very spot where she wept (v. 26) and points to the child.
“Therefore I have lent him to the Lord; as long as he lives, he is given to the Lord.”” (1:28)
“Lent” is the NRSV's way of keeping the wordplay on “ask”, but this loan is not returned: it lasts “as long as he lives”. The POC says plainly “I have consecrated him”. What she prayed for most, she gives away.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism names Hannah among the holy women of the Old Covenant through whom God, against all human expectation, shows his faithfulness to his promises, and who prepare for Mary (CCC 489). It teaches that a child is not something owed to anyone but a gift (CCC 2378), and that parents must respect and encourage the vocation of their children (CCC 2232). St John Chrysostom preached a series of sermons on Hannah, holding her up as a model of persevering prayer and of parents who give their children to God (in substance).
Setting.
Paul writes to the churches of Galatia, in what is now central Turkey, which he had founded among Gentiles. Other Christian teachers have come after him, telling them they must be circumcised and keep the Law of Moses to belong fully to God's people. Paul's whole letter says no: we are saved by faith in Christ, and the Gentiles need not become Jews first. This passage is the last of his arguments from Scripture.
The story he uses is in Genesis 16 and 21. God promised Abraham a son by his wife Sarah, who was barren. Impatient, they tried another way, through the slave woman Hagar, who bore Ishmael. Later Isaac was born to Sarah, as God had said.
This is an argument among Christians about the Gentile converts. It is not a judgment on the Jewish people or on Judaism. The same Paul writes elsewhere of his people that “the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (Romans 11:29).
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Now this is an allegory: these women are two covenants.” (4:24)
Paul compares two ways of relating to God: trying to secure our place by our own observance, and receiving it as a gift.
“But the other woman corresponds to the Jerusalem above; she is free, and she is our mother.” (4:26)
The Church's title of “mother” goes back to this verse.
“For it is written, “Rejoice, you childless one, you who bear no children,” (4:27)
This is Isaiah 54:1, spoken to Jerusalem in exile, who seemed like a barren wife. Paul reads it of the Church from the nations. Every barren mother in today's readings stands behind this verse: Sarah, Hannah, Elizabeth.
“Now you, my friends, are children of the promise, like Isaac.” (4:28)
Here is the link with the Gospel. John is a child of promise by the angel's word (Luke 1:13). Through Baptism, so are we.
““Drive out the slave and her child;” (4:30)
Sarah's words (Genesis 21:10), applied by Paul to the teaching that was enslaving the Galatians, not to any people. Genesis itself shows God hearing Hagar and her boy in the desert and caring for them (21:17–20).
How the Church reads it.
The Second Vatican Council, followed by the Catechism, gathers this verse among the images of the Church: she is “that Jerusalem which is above” and “our mother” (Lumen Gentium 6; CCC 757). On reading the Old Testament in the light of Christ, the Catechism explains typology: the types do not cancel the value of the Old Testament, which keeps its own worth as revelation (CCC 128–130). St John Chrysostom, a son of Antioch, comments that Paul here uses the word “allegory” loosely, for what is properly a type: the events really happened, and they also point beyond themselves (in substance). This care for the history is a mark of the Antiochene way of reading Scripture, to which the Malankara Church is heir.
Setting.
Luke's first chapter sets two births side by side: an angel announces John to Zechariah in the Temple (1:5–25), and Jesus to Mary at Nazareth (1:26–38). The two mothers meet (1:39–56). Now John is born, and soon Jesus will be (2:1–20). John's story is told so that we will see he prepares for Jesus and is less than him.
Zechariah and Elizabeth were both “getting on in years”, and she was barren (1:7). When the angel promised a son, Zechariah asked for proof. He was told he would be unable to speak “because you did not believe my words” (1:20). He has now been silent for the whole of the pregnancy.
Background. The Law commanded circumcision on the eighth day (Genesis 17:12; Leviticus 12:3). Luke shows the child being named at the same time, as he does again with Jesus (2:21). A family name would normally be expected.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her.” (1:58)
For people of that time, a barren woman bore a shame she herself had named (1:25). The whole community now sees the shame removed.
“But his mother said, “No; he is to be called John.”” (1:60)
Elizabeth stands firm alone against the custom and the crowd. On how she knew the name, see the question below.
“He asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And all of them were amazed.” (1:63)
The relatives make signs to him (v. 62), so he was perhaps deaf as well as mute; the Greek word in 1:22 can mean both. He does not write “let his name be”. He writes “is”. The name has already been given by God, and Zechariah only confirms it.
“Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak, praising God.” (1:64)
Having obeyed in the matter where he had doubted, he speaks. His first use of a restored voice is blessing. The Greek here is “blessing God”, and it leads directly to the Benedictus: “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel” (1:68).
“All who heard them pondered them and said, “What then will this child become?” For, indeed, the hand of the Lord was with him.” (1:66)
This is a question every parent might ask at a cradle. Luke answers it in Zechariah's song: “you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High” (1:76).
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism calls John “the Lord's immediate precursor or forerunner” (CCC 523). He is filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother's womb, and in him the Spirit concludes the speaking through the prophets (CCC 717–720). St Augustine draws out the meaning in a sermon for John's feast: John is the voice and Christ is the Word; the voice passes, and the Word remains (in substance, Sermon 293). The Catechism also connects names with vocation: God calls each one by name, and the Christian receives a name in the Church at Baptism (CCC 2156–2158).
How did Elizabeth know the name John, if Zechariah could not speak?
Luke does not say. Zechariah may have written it for her during those months, since he could write (1:63). Some commentators have also seen a prompting of the Holy Spirit, who had already filled her (1:41). Luke's interest lies elsewhere: husband and wife, separately, agree with what God has said, against everyone's expectations.
Did Hannah abandon her child?
No. A child in that culture could be nursed for up to three years (compare 2 Maccabees 7:27), so Samuel was small but no longer an infant. She saw him every year and “used to make for him a little robe” (1 Samuel 2:19). She handed him over to God's service, as parents still do in a different way when a son or daughter enters the priesthood or religious life. God then gave her more children (2:21).
Does Galatians 4 mean God has rejected the Jewish people?
No. Paul is opposing Christian teachers who wanted to impose circumcision on Gentile believers. He writes of Israel, “the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (Romans 11:29). The Church teaches that the Jews must not be presented as rejected or accursed by God (Nostra Aetate 4), and she recognizes their special relation to God (CCC 839).
Malankara readers hear the story of this Sunday in stages. The Syriac liturgical day begins in the evening, so the Evening Gospel gives Zechariah's song before the morning Gospel tells of the birth that caused it. Suboro, the season of “good news”, is a season of annunciations and births: the Sunday after this one is that of the angel's appearance to St Joseph, then comes the Sunday before Yaldo, and then Yaldo itself. John will return at Denho, standing at the Jordan. In the middle of the Twenty-Five Days' Fast, this Sunday invites families to thank God for each child by name, to pray for those who long for a child and do not have one, and to ask of every little one in the parish: what then will this child become?