03/01/2010 - 02 Christmas Season - Year C
Ist Reading Sir 24,1-4.8-12 Psalm 147 IInd Reading Eph 1,3-6.15-18 Gospel Jn 1,1-18
At the beginning of the prayer, Jesus recognize how much the Father has done for
him, like the significance given to his life. What was the mission entrusted to
him: to give eternal life to those who God had entrusted him with. We see that Jesus
before asking something, proclaims that he is already the subject of the Father's
love, and praise him for that. He received the possibility to give eternal life
to humanity: gift and mission, gift of divine capacity and the mission to pass on
eternal life to those who were given to him. Who was given to Jesus? And for what
reason? He used this expression on other occasions: it seems that with it he wants
to indicate his disciples. It's to them that he is to "give eternal life".
We have already said something with regards eternal life, but Jesus himself explains
the contents of this word: "This is eternal life: to know you, the only true
God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ". The fullness of a perfect life,
divine life, is a life able of perfect love and joy, that is, to know the Father
and to know his Messiah. We know many things and think that we know many persons.
To know seems to be a easy thing: enough to know of what something is made off,
its properties, its weight, its color, how strong or soft, its dimensions, what
happens if it falls, or if it is eatable, what happens. To know something we commit
our observation, memory and intelligence. All this is not enough to know a person.
To know a person one needs to know the situations in which that person lived, the
pain and sufferings that he or she went through. If one has not gone through the
same situations and the same experiences, one cannot say that he knows a person,
or one can say it in a small way. We would know the man at the store from where
we pick our needs: his wife knows him too but in a different way. We would know
the child who greets us in the morning, but his teacher would know him more than
us, and his mother can say that she both one and the other would not know him at
all! To know Jesus means to have carried the cross in his footsteps, to have loved
and forgiven with him and like him, have prayed as he has prayed, has loved with
his same intensity to do the Father's will. And what to think of knowing God, the
true one God?
The Book of Sirach exhalts the Wisdom of God: it is presented as if a person among
men, amongst them act, shines, illuminate. It fixes its place in Jacob, that is,
in the midst of the chosen people of God so that, in return, these bring it to the
world. One understands that all this is a prophetic way of presenting the Son of
God who became flesh, and who came to the world with a newness to men of a different
and blessed word. St. John, in the Gospel, uses the term that was translated as
"Verbum" to express this same Wisdom made voice for our ears. The 'Verbum'
is the Word of God, that Word who wants to pass on to us the love and the joy of
God himself. The 'Verbum' was made flesh, tells us st. John. The 'Verbum' became
visible to us, so that we can approach him, meet him, listen to him, contemplate
and give our obedience, and trust ourselves to him to guide us and change us. "We
have contemplated his glory", continues John, "the glory of the only Son
who comes from the Father, full of grace and truth".
The mystery we are celebrating, that is described with these words, is the mystery
of the glory of God and of the glory of the 'Verbum'. We hear Jesus who speaks of
the glory when his hour for Calvary was near. That shall be the place and the moment
in which God's love will be shown in its full truth. A faithful love, merciful,
and total. The Son is "full of grace and truth", adorned with the gracious
love of the Father who reveals in all its depth the being of God. Because of this
he is also presented as light, a light that shines in the darkness. All is dark
around us: who know why its all over the world? Not knowing this makes our days
like steps in the dark. The 'Verbum Dei' is light: the love by which God comes to
us, says what is the significance of our being here and of our work in this world.
We are here to give and take God himself, to give him without reserve to this world,
because the sin has taken it away from God, and show the wisdom of his love by our
living in obedience.
The mystery of the coming of the Son of God is the mystery that wants to recover
man, to bring him out of the abyss of evil and sufferings in which his egoism and
his disobedience have made him fall. Whole nations are still immersed in this suffering
and they cannot see a beam of light of hope and of a new and serene life. This comes
with knowing the 'Verbum' made flesh, Jesus and a relationship with him. St. Paul
does not stop praying that this knowledge deepens in the hearts and minds of the
Christians: they are to pass it on to the whole world. It will be for them an occasion
of suffering and hard time, but in return, they will be filled with joy and peace,
because they see that their life is precious for the whole world. The Wisdom of
God is truly blessed and worthy to be admired! We, who are guided by it, continue,
full of trust, to render a loving service to all the world: that in this coming
new year, we succeed to give Jesus to one of the many person we meet!