7 December 2026 · Syro-Malankara Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Latin Rite · Syro-Malabar Rite · മലയാളം
“I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!” John 16:33
From prison Paul tells Timothy not to be ashamed of the testimony about the Lord, and gives his own reason: “I know the one in whom I have put my trust.” Christ has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. Timothy's task is to “guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.” St Ambrose did just that in Milan: he guarded the faith against error and handed it on, among others to a restless young teacher named Augustine.
On the night before he died Jesus speaks plainly to his disciples: the Father himself loves you. They will soon be scattered and leave him alone, “yet I am not alone because the Father is with me.” Then a word for every anxious heart: “In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!” The peace of Christ is not the absence of trouble; it is his victory present in the middle of it.
Theme: “Take courage; I have conquered the world.”
Faith guarded and peace given.
“The Lord GOD helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame;” Isaiah 50:7
“But I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust,” 2 Timothy 1:12
Apply: Make the sign of the cross in public today.
“Keep hold of instruction; do not let go; guard her, for she is your life.” Proverbs 4:13
“Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.” 2 Timothy 1:14
Apply: Teach one prayer or truth of faith to a child.
“I hereby command you: Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9
“I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!” John 16:33
Apply: Hand one fear to Jesus in prayer.
We know whom we have believed.
His victory is our peace.
Take-home resolution: Pray each night of the fast: Jesus, I trust in you.
Dear friends, St Paul writes to Timothy from prison: do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace (2 Timothy 1:8–9).
Paul is chained, yet not ashamed: I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him (2 Timothy 1:12). Faith is trusting a Person, not just believing ideas.
In the Gospel, at the Last Supper, Jesus says: the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each one to his home, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world! (John 16:32–33).
Jesus does not promise his disciples an easy life. He promises his presence and his victory. Many Christians today face hardship for their faith, in parts of India and the world. Many face quieter pressures: mockery at college, unfair treatment at work, loneliness abroad.
Take courage. These are among the last words Jesus spoke before his Passion. The Child we await at Yaldo is the One who has conquered the world.
During this fast, let us not be ashamed of the Gospel. Let us make the sign of the cross before meals in public, speak of our faith when asked, and pray for persecuted Christians. And let us say with Paul: I know the one in whom I have put my trust. Amen.
Children, Jesus says: take courage, I am stronger than everything bad. Do not be afraid to say you love Jesus!
Lord Jesus, you have conquered the world. Give us your peace in every trouble, courage to witness without shame, and, through the prayers of St Ambrose, the grace to guard and hand on the faith. Amen.
On the memorial of St Ambrose, Paul writes from prison to tell Timothy not to be ashamed and to guard what has been entrusted to him. Jesus, on the night before his death, tells disciples who are about to run away that he has conquered the world. Courage in both readings comes from knowing whom we have trusted, not from any strength of our own.
Setting.
This letter presents Paul in chains and near the end of his life: “the time of my departure has come” (4:6). Timothy seems young and easily discouraged, which is why Paul has just reminded him that “God did not give us a spirit of cowardice” (1:7). What will happen to the Gospel when the apostle is gone? The passage answers: it is God's work, and it has been entrusted to faithful hands.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace.” (1:9)
This grace was given “before the ages began”. Before Timothy was afraid, and before the first prison, God had already acted.
“who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” (1:10)
“Abolished”: made powerless. Death still comes, but it no longer has the last word. A prisoner writing with death ahead of him is the one who says so.
“But I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him.” (1:12)
Not “I know what” but “I know the one”: faith is first of all trust in a person. The Greek says “my deposit”, which can mean what Paul has entrusted to God (NRSV) or what God has entrusted to Paul (the way the POC takes it).
“Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.” (1:14)
Keeping the faith is not only a human effort. The Spirit is the true guardian, and Timothy works with him.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism says that the apostles entrusted the “sacred deposit” of the faith, contained in Scripture and Tradition, to the whole Church, and cites this passage (CCC 84). St Ambrose, Bishop of Milan from 374, is an example of such guarding. He held firm against the Arian party, even when pressed by the imperial court, and at Easter in 387 he baptized Augustine, who would hand the faith on to many generations.
Setting.
These are the last words of the Farewell Discourse (John 13–16), spoken at the table on the night before the Passion. After this comes only the prayer of Jesus to the Father (John 17), and then the arrest. The disciples think that at last they understand. Jesus knows that within hours they will scatter.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.” (16:27)
This is the “plain speech” about the Father. Jesus does not stand between us and an unwilling God. The Father himself loves.
“The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each one to his home, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me.” (16:32)
He says this without any bitterness, naming the coming failure so that it will not destroy them afterward. The cry of Psalm 22 from the Cross (Mark 15:34) must be read together with this confidence: that psalm itself ends in trust.
“I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!”” (16:33)
“In me” and “in the world” are the two places where a disciple lives at once. Peace does not mean that the trouble is gone; it means that the trouble has been defeated.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism quotes v. 33 when it teaches about the virtue of fortitude, which enables us to conquer fear, even fear of death (CCC 1808). On prayer “in my name” (v. 26), it teaches that faith in the Son brings the disciples into the knowledge of the Father (CCC 2614). When St Ambrose faced pressure in Milan, he and his people kept watch in the church; St Augustine records that it was then that hymns and psalms began to be sung there after the manner of the Eastern regions (in substance, Confessions, Book 9).
Jesus says “I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf” (16:26). Doesn't he intercede for us?
He does: he “always lives to make intercession” (Hebrews 7:25). In John 16 he is not denying this. He is saying that the disciples are not kept at a distance from the Father, as though only Jesus could speak to him. United with the Son, they themselves can go to the Father, who already loves them.
St Ambrose (died 397) belongs to the Latin West, yet he read and drew on the Greek Fathers of the East. He is a reminder that East and West share one inheritance of faith. As a bishop who stood firm and also taught the newly baptized about the sacraments, he speaks to a Malankara Church in the middle of its fast: guard what you have received, and hand it on to the next generation in your homes and Sunday schools.