Fourth Sunday of Advent
Epistle.
1 Corinthians iv. 1, 6.
Brethren: Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ, and the dispensers of the mysteries of God. Here now it is required amongst the dispensers that a man be found faithful. But to me it is a very small thing to be judged by you, or by man’s day: but neither do I judge my own self. For I am not conscious to myself of any thing: yet I am not hereby justified; but he that judgeth me is the Lord. Therefore judge not before the time till the Lord come; who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsel of hearts: and then shall every man have praise from God.
Gospel.
Luke iii. 1, 6.
Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar (Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod Tetrarch of Galilee, and Philip his brother Tetrarch of Iturea and the country of Trachonitis, and Lysanias Tetrarch of Abilana, under the high priests Annas and Caiphas) the word of the Lord came to John, the son of Zachary, in the desert. And he came into all the country about the Jordan, preaching the baptism of penance for the remission of sins, as it was written in the book of the words of Isaias the prophet: “A voice of one crying in the wilderness: prepare ye the way of the Lord: make straight his paths: every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways plain:” and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. Credo.