1. Look up at the man whose name is Branch: he is coming to reign, and to speak of peace with all nations.

2. His might will spread to the ends of the earth; and this shall mean peace.

3. The Lord has given him might and praise and the kingdom, so that all peoples and tribes and tongues may serve him.

Eph. 4, 15 – 16

If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow completely into Christ, who is the head by whom the whole Body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength, for each individual part to work according to its function. So the body grows until it has built itself up in love.

Grace to you, and peace, from him who is, and who was, and who is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne; and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. To him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and has made us kings and priests to God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

One day, on the Lord’s day, I was in the Spirit and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet. And I turned to see the voice that spoke with me, and being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks; and in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the breast with a golden girdle.

His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; and his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. He had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword: and his face was as the sun shines at noon.

When I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. Yet he laid his right hand upon me, saying to me: "Fear not; I am he, the first and the last: I am he who lives; who was dead and behold, I am now alive for evermore, Amen, and have the keys of hell and of death.

"Whosoever overcomes, and keeps my works to the end, to him will I give power over the nations, even as I received of my Father; and I will also give him the morning star. And I will not blot out his name from the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels. Him that overcomes will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out; and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.

"Behold, I stand at the door, and knock. If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame and sat with my Father in his throne."

In his Encyclical of December 1925, Pope PiusXI denounced the modern heresy of laicism which refuses to recognize the rights of God and His Christ over persons and peoples and organizes the lives of individuals, families and of society itself, as though God did not exist. This laicism ruins society because instead of the love of God and one’s neighbour, it substitutes pride and egoism. It begets jealousy between individuals, hatred between classes and rivalry between nations.

The word denies Christ because it ignores His royal prerogatives. It must be instructed on this subject. So this feast was instituted to be a public, social and official declaration of the royal rights of Jesus, as God the Creator, as the Word Incarnate and as Redeemer. This feast makes these rights to be known and recognized, in a way most suitable to man and to society, by the sublimest acts of religion – particularly by Holy Mass. In fact, the end of the Holy Sacrifice is the acknowledgment of God’s complete dominion over us and our complete dependence on Him. This act is accomplished not only on Calvary, but also through the royal priesthood of Jesus which never ceases in His heavenly kingdom. The great reality of Christianity is not a corpse hanging from a cross, but the risen Chmst reigning in all the glory of His triumph in the midst of His elect who are His conquest.

This feast is celebrated at the end of the liturgical year, on the last Sunday before Advent, as the consummation of all the mysteries by which Jesus has established His royal powers and become King of kings and the crown of al1 saints, until He shall be the crown of all those on earth whom He saves, especially by the Mass.

It is principally by the Eucharist, which is both a sacrifice and a sacrament, that Christ, now in glory, assures the results of the victorious sacrifice of Calvary, by taking possession of souls through the application of the merits of His Passion and thereby unites them as members to their head. For it is the aim of the Eucharist, says the Catechism of the Council of Trent, to form one sole mystic body of all the faithful and so to draw them in the cult which Christ, as priest and victim, rendered on the cross and now renders on the stone altar of our churches and on the golden altar in heaven as Son of God.

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Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

The divine power of God has given to us all things that belong to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that has called us to glory and virtue. Whereby are given to us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

Whereupon, giving all diligence, add to your faith, virtue; to virtue, knowledge; to knowledge, temperance; to temperance, patience; to patience, godliness; to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, charity. For if these things be in you and there abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But whosoever lacks these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and has forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.

Wherefore, brethren, give rather more diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if you do these things, you shall never fall. For so an entrance shall be ministered to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

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Beloved, wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though you know them, and be established in the present truth. Indeed, I think it suitable, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by reminding you; knowing that shortly I must shed my body, even as our Lord Jesus Christ has shown me. Moreover, I will endeavour that you may be able after my decease to keep on remembering these things.

For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.

We have also a more sure word of prophecy, whereto you do well that you take heed, as to a light that shines in a dark place until the dawn of day and the morning star arise in your hearts: knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

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Beloved, there were also false prophets among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make business of you: their judgment now of a long time lingers not, and their damnation slumbers not.

For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved to judgment; and if He spared not the old world, but saved Noah, the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; and if turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes, He condemned them to being burnt to ashes, making them an example to those that after should live ungodly, and only delivered Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: for that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds; the Lord therefore knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust to the day of judgment to be punished.

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Beloved, the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust to the day of judgment to be punished: but chiefly them that mainly those who walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanliness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.

Whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not railing accusation against them before the Lord. But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption; and shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you; having eyes full of adultery, and who cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: a heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children: who have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam, the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness, but was rebuked for his iniquity: the dumb ass speaking with man’s voice did forbid the madness of the prophet.

These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever. For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much lewdness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.

For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. But it is happened to them according to the true proverb, ‘The dog turns back to his own vomit^’ and ‘The sow that was washed turns back to her defilement in the mud.’

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Beloved, I now write to you this second epistle. In both of them I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour: knowing this first, that in the last days there shall come mockers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, ‘Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.’

For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished. But by the same word, the heavens and the earth, which are now, are kept in store, reserved to fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is long-suffering towards us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burnt up.

Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what kind of persons you should be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and longing for the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein righteousness dwells.

Wherefore, beloved, seeing that you look for such things, be diligent that you may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless. And account that the long-suffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given to him has written to you; as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable work, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own destruction.

You therefore, beloved, seeing you know these things before, beware lest you also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness. But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.

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Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called. May mercy be to you, and peace and love be multiplied.

Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write to you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write to you, and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered to the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

I will therefore put you in remembrance, though you once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. And the angels who kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness to the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities. These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withers, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.

But, beloved, remember you the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; how they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts. These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit. But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. And of some have compassion, making a difference: and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.

Now to him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you as faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, oo the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

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