First
Reading – Ecclesiasticus 24:1-2, 8-12
Responsorial
Psalm – Psalm 147:12-15, 19-20
Second
Reading – Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-18
Gospel
Acclamation – 1 Tim 3:16
The
Gospel According to John - 1:1-18
(NJB)
Listen!
There is something true in this reflection, and much
that is false. God has given us the Spirit of Wisdom, Sophia who eternally issues
from the creator like, as the divine breath that vivifies creation.
The Spirit of Wisdom is God’s own spirit, animating
all who live, all who have ever lived, and all who ever will be. God’s spirit
is not a gift that belongs to a specific people, in a specific place at a
specific time. The Spirit of Wisdom is not property that can be transmitted
like an inheritance from one generation to the next. God’s spirit does not belong
in Jacob’s tent, on Mount Sion, in Jerusalem or to the house of Israel.
There are no people on the face of the Earth, or
anywhere in the universe, whose reception of the divine spirit is privileged.
God loves all of God’s children equally.
The creator establishes the conditions for all
things to be. In God’s wisdom the cycles of life and death were established. We
honor God when we emulate God’s love for creation, through an active ministry
of healing the hurt, feeding the hungry and welcoming the exile.
Consider the failure of the psalmist who does not recognize
that God truly is the God of all people; not merely the God of Jerusalem, of
Sion, of Judah, of Israel. God does not favor one people or one person above
another.
God does not fill the belly of one child while
allowing another to starve…human beings do that.
God does not favor one army over another in time of
war...God does not favor war. Neither will God intervene in our affairs.
The turning of the seasons from spring to summer,
fall to winter do not reflect the judgement of God, the laws which govern them
were established by God, the fluctuations we experience are random, they are
wild and they are free. A good winter is not evidence of God’s grace, neither
is a bad summer evidence of God’s judgement.
Consider the teaching of the apostle:
Is god glorious?
What is glory?
God’s greatest place is in relationship to us, God’s
children, God glories in parent’s love, and delights in us when we come to
knowledge of the divine, desiring that each and every one of us come to the
fullness of it; there is hope in it.
Be mindful.
The hope you have for yourself and those you love
are meant to be extended to everyone, even those you do not love, for that is the
way.
If you think that God promised riches and glories as
the inheritance of the saints, remember this, the first will be last and the
last will be first; know that spiritual riches are not counted in gold and
silver and precious things, but in love and friendship with God.
Know this:
Good governance requires good people in the
governing chair; get to know them before you lift them up; understand who they
are before you appoint your leaders, put them through a process of discernment…choose
well, knowing that our faith is not about who Jesus was and how the world saw
him, our trust in God is based on our understanding of the creator as loving
and caring being.
Consider the Gospel reading for today; John’s is unlike the others, its authors were the farthest removed from
the life of Jesus; writing the narrative between 120 and 150 years after his
death. It is also the furthest removed from the actual ministry of Jesus,
concerning itself with the cosmic identity of Christ as the Word of God, more
than the lives of actual people.
The gospels of Mark, Luke and Matthew are commonly
referred to as the synoptic gospels. The events they narrate are closely linked
to each other and follow the same basic pattern, with some minor (though
important differences). Luke and Matthew rely largely on Mark for their
structure; Mark having been written first.
Luke came second and begins a little earlier than
Mark. Whereas Mark begins with the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan river by
John. Luke begins with the story of his birth.
Matthew, coming third in the sequence, goes even farther
back, telling us of Jesus’ descent from Abraham; while John, coming last, takes
the reader all the way back to the beginning of time.
John narrates some of the same events as the other
gospels do, but with a markedly different character, all designed to tell us
who Jesus is—God’s own self.
The historian in me objects to this treatment of the
life of Jesus, but it is what it is, and this fiction having taken hold of the
Christian Consciousness represents a historical reality all of its own.
John’s prolog tells us very little about the persons
of Jesus or John the Baptist; it is a soliloquy on what John’s community had
come to believe about God and creation itself.
Even though it was a common view in the ancient
world that our material condition was essentially corrupt; as evidenced by our
experience of pain, sickness, and death. The Christian community of John was
articulating faith in its essential goodness, as something brought into being
by God, existing within God, and sustained by God. It affirms the unity and
oneness of all creation; having been brought into being through the Divine Word
or Logos; meaning the rational will of God. By this John’s community was communicating
their faith that life itself has purpose, it is not random, it not the product
of chaotic forces; creation emerges from the goodness and light of God’s
eternal spirit, and not one thing or being exists apart from that.
The Gospel encourages us in the hope that no matter
how bad things are, darkness will not overcome the light, that the world and
humanity itself are worthy of God’s love, so much so that God becomes a human
being, lives and suffers with us, in the spirit of compassion and solidarity
with the universe that God created and all who dwell in it.
This teaching is at the same time both remarkably
esoteric, and deeply personal. While encouraging the believer to have hope, it
also reminds the reader that they must still persevere in the face of rejection
and violence.
It cautions us to be mindful of the fact that many
people do not want to hear the truth, preferring their own cozy view of the
world, their tribal and national-gods and totems, their neat philosophies and
their magical realities to the sober understanding of what it means to be a
child of God.
God’s own self was taken and killed for suggesting
that there was a different way to live than the ways common to the world.
First
Reading – Ecclesiasticus 24:1-2, 8-12
From Eternity, in the Beginning, God Created
Wisdom
Wisdom speaks her own praises, in the midst of her people she glories in
herself.
She opens her mouth in the assembly of the Most
High, she glories in herself in the
presence of the Mighty One; ‘Then the creator of all things instructed me, and
he who created me fixed a place for my tent.
He said, “Pitch your tent in Jacob, make Israel your
inheritance.”
From eternity, in the beginning, he created me, and
for eternity I shall remain.
I ministered before him in the holy tabernacle, and
thus was I established on Zion.
In the beloved city he has given me rest, and in
Jerusalem I wield my authority.
I have taken root in a privileged people, in the
Lord’s property, in his inheritance.’
Responsorial
Psalm – Psalm 147:12-15, 19-20
Praise the Lord!
Alleluia, Alleluia
It is good to sing praise to our God;
it is a joy
to sing his praises.
The Lord rebuilds Jerusalem:
he will call
back Israel from exile.
He heals broken hearts
and binds up
their wounds.
He counts all the stars;
he calls
each of them by name.
Our God is great and great is his strength,
his wisdom
is not to be measured.
The Lord supports the needy,
but crushes
the wicked to the ground.
Sing out to the Lord in thanksgiving,
sing praise
to our God on the harp.
He covers the sky with his clouds,
he makes
rain to refresh the earth.
He makes grass grow on the hills,
and plants
for the service of man.
He gives food to grazing animals,
and feeds
the young ravens that call on him.
He takes no delight in the strength of the horse,
no pleasure
in the strength of a man.
The Lord is pleased by those who honour him,
by those who
trust in his kindness.
Alleluia
God,
the Foundation of Jerusalem
Sion,
praise your God, who has sent out his word to the earth.
Praise
the Lord, Jerusalem
Alleluia, Alleluia
— Zion, praise your God.
For
he has strengthened the bars of your gates,
he has blessed your children.
He
keeps your borders in peace,
he fills you with the richest wheat.
He
sends out his command over the earth,
and swiftly runs his word.
He
sends down snow that is like wool,
frost that is like ashes.
He
sends hailstones like crumbs
— who can withstand his cold?
He
will send out his word, and all will be melted;
his spirit will breathe, and the waters will
flow.
He
proclaims his word to Jacob,
his laws and judgements to Israel.
He
has not done this for other nations:
he has not shown them his judgements.
Amen
Sion,
praise your God, who has sent out his word to the earth.
Alleluia
Second
Reading – Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-18
Before the World was Made, God Chose Us
in Christ
Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
has blessed us with all the spiritual blessings of heaven in Christ.
Before the world was made, he chose us, chose us in
Christ, to be holy and spotless, and to live through love in his presence, determining
that we should become his adopted sons, through Jesus Christ for his own kind
purposes, to make us praise the glory of his grace, his free gift to us in the
Beloved.
That will explain why I, having once heard about
your faith in the Lord Jesus, and the love that you show towards all the
saints, have never failed to remember you in my prayers and to thank God for
you. May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a
spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed, to bring you to full
knowledge of him. May he enlighten the eyes of your mind so that you can see
what hope his call holds for you, what rich glories he has promised the saints
will inherit.
Gospel
Acclamation – 1 Tim 3:16
Alleluia, alleluia!
Glory be to you, O Christ, proclaimed to the pagans.
Glory be to you, O Christ, believed in by the world.
Alleluia!
The Gospel According to John - 1:1-18
The Word was Made Flesh,
and Lived Among Us
In the beginning was the Word:
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was with God in the beginning.
Through him all things came to be, not one thing had
its being but through him.
All that came to be had life in him and that life
was the light of men, a light that shines in the dark, a light that darkness
could not overpower.
A man came, sent by God.
His name was John.
He came as a witness, as a witness to speak for the
light, so that everyone might believe through him.
He was not the light, only a witness to speak for
the light.
The Word was the true light that enlightens all men;
and he was coming into the world.
He was in the world that had its being through him, and
the world did not know him.
He came to his own domain and his own people did not
accept him.
But to all who did accept him he gave power to
become children of God, to all who believe in the name of him who was born not
out of human stock or urge of the flesh or will of man but of God himself.
The Word was made flesh, he lived among us, and we
saw his glory, the glory that is his as the only Son of the Father, full of
grace and truth.
John appears as his witness. He proclaims:
‘This is the one of whom I said:
He who comes after me ranks before me because he
existed before me.’
Indeed, from his fullness we have, all of us,
received – yes, grace in return for grace, since, though the Law was given
through Moses, grace and truth have come through Jesus Christ.
No one has ever seen God; it is the only Son, who is
nearest to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.
A Homily - The Second Sunday of
Christmas (Year C)
