Thursday, December 17, 2026 — Thursday of the Third Week of Advent (O Sapientia)
The book of the genealogy
Matthew 1:1-17
Readings of the day: Genesis 49:2, 8-10; Psalm 72:1-2, 3-4ab, 7-8, 17; Matthew 1:1-17.
The Gospel
Matthew opens his Gospel with the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham. Fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile in Babylon, fourteen from the exile to the Christ. The list holds kings and exiles, saints and sinners, and four women whose stories the world would rather forget: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and the wife of Uriah. At the end of the long line stands Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called the Christ.
Reflection
It is a strange way to begin the Good News: a list of names, many of them stained. But that is the point. St. Chrysostom says Matthew calls it “the book of the generation, because this is the sum of the whole dispensation, the root of all its blessings; viz. that God became man.” God does not enter history through a clean bloodline; he enters through ours, with all its failures. St. Jerome notes that “none of the holy women are taken into the Saviour’s genealogy, but rather such as Scripture has condemned, that He who came for sinners being born of sinners might so put away the sins of all.” No family is too broken, no past too heavy, for God to write his name into it. Today the Church begins the O Antiphons, crying “O Sapientia,” O Wisdom: the Wisdom who orders all things has entered our genealogy to teach us the way.
From the Fathers
“He therefore entitles it, The book of the generation, because this is the sum of the whole dispensation, the root of all its blessings; viz. that God became man; for this once effected, all other things followed of course.”
— St. John Chrysostom, Homily 2 on Matthew, in the Catena Aurea on Matthew 1:1
“It should be noted, that none of the holy women are taken into the Saviour’s genealogy, but rather such as Scripture has condemned, that He who came for sinners being born of sinners might so put away the sins of all.”
— St. Jerome, Commentary on Matthew, in the Catena Aurea on Matthew 1:3–6
Saint of the day
Saint John of Matha (1160–1213), French priest who, with Saint Felix of Valois, founded the Order of the Most Holy Trinity, the Trinitarians, in 1198 to ransom Christians held captive. Pope Innocent III approved the order the same year. John died in Rome on 17 December 1213.
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Sources: the day’s readings follow the daily lectionary (USCCB, Lectionary 193). The Gospel text is not reproduced here; read it at the link above. Patristic quotes: Catena Aurea on Matthew 1:1–17, compiled by St. Thomas Aquinas, translated by John Henry Newman (1841, public domain).