PRELIMINARY NOTE: For eight years now, with God’s grace, I have been writing and recording meditations on the reading or the Gospel of the day, and a rich treasure has been gathered and is always available to listeners (en.elijamission.net). A meditation is available for almost every day of the year.
The Word of God is and will remain an inexhaustible treasure for us. When, at the beginning of the year, I was reflecting on how to continue the meditations, the idea came to me to go systematically through the four gospels and some of the epistles. This is not an entirely new idea, as I did something similar many years ago, but only orally. Now, by doing it in writing, it will be possible to translate the meditations into several languages.
Since the Gospel passage planned for today’s liturgy, 5 January, is the Prologue of St John, it was not difficult to decide where to begin: we will begin with the Gospel of St John. These biblical meditations will be of similar length as usual. Occasionally I will refer to current issues if they help us to better understand and update the passage we are meditating on. As always, I commend myself to your prayers, asking the Lord to continue the work He has begun and to fill it with His light.
Jn 1:1-5
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
Our holy faith has been given to us by God. It is not based on philosophical speculation, nor is it merely an inner intuition. It was God Himself Who revealed it to us.
In the person of His Son, God came into the world to make Himself known to men, so that they might understand what He is really like. In Jesus, the Word of God Who became man for us, we encounter the glory of the Father, even if we do not yet see it in all the splendour of knowledge that we can only attain in eternity, when we have completed our pilgrimage through this world.
Let us hold fast to this truth, without which the words of St John the Evangelist would be meaningless: Jesus is not one of the sons of the gods; nor is He an ‘avatar’, who, according to esoteric ideas, is the incarnation of a deity to advance man in his spiritual development; nor is He merely a prophet, as the Koran considers Him to be.
No, Jesus is God Himself, the Second Person of the Godhead. Therefore, not only does He bear witness to the Light, but He is the Light that comes into this world. We can only understand this if we receive the light of faith from the One Who is the Light Himself. “In you is the fountain of life, and in your light we see light” (Ps 36:9).
In the traditional rite, the priest reads the Prologue of St John at the end of each Mass.
But why is it so important to hold on to this truth and to emphasise what should be self-evident in our Catholic faith?
It turns out that these words are at the heart of our faith. If Jesus were not the Word of God, that is, if He were not divine in nature, then not only would we have fallen into an illusion, but Christianity would be put on the same level as other religions and worldviews and would lose its light. If we were to relativise or lose faith in the divinity of Christ, then these words would be true: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it”. The darkness would have swallowed up the light and the way that our Father offers us to salvation would be blocked.
That is why it is so important – and unfortunately the Prologue of St. John is no longer recited daily in the Novus Ordo – to repeat and hold fast to this profession of faith in the divinity of Christ, because the darkness is working hard to darken the light. The prince of darkness wants to extinguish the testimony of faith and, through the Antichrist, put himself in the place of God. From this point of view, the daily repetition of the Prologue of St. John is a weapon against any attempt to relativise the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and the evangelising mission of the Church. In this way we can defend the faith and protect it from false doctrine.
The Word of the Lord is true life. Through Jesus we have access to divine life. This life can heal our wounds, enlighten our minds and strengthen our wills. We can never thank our Father enough for sending us His Son!