Tuesday 17 December

Gen 49:2, 8-10, Ps 71:1-4, 7-8, 17, Matthew 1:1-17

No distinctions

St Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus is remarkable for its inclusion of women. They were never included in traditional Jewish genealogies. And, apart from Mary, what women they were! Rahab a prostitute, Ruth a Moabite (a race despised by the Jews), Thamar a seductress and Bathsheba an adulteress. How dramatically St Matthew thereby indicates, right at the beginning of his Gospel, that with the coming of Jesus, God’s love, mercy and grace would become available to all; that in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit there would be no distinctions, between Jew and Gentile, between male and female, between saint and sinner.