Conforming (phase 2), God So Loved the World - The Birth of Jesus (step 9), session 5

In the beginning

This session uses my favorite Gospel from the different masses of the feast of Christmas.  The vigil mass calls for St. Matthew's account of the genealogy of Jesus and the events from St. Joseph's perspective. The midnight mass reading is the only one to use St. Luke's account of the angels and the shepherds and no room in the inn, and is the Gospel that our parish uses at every. Christmas. mass. for the last ten years, because "everybody wants to hear this one," I guess. The mass at dawn is supposed to use the aftermath of the shepherds' visit, still from St. Luke.

For me, the Gospel designated for the mass during the day is the one that best captures the magnitude and context of the events of which all the others are mere details.

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. - Jn 1, 1-5

It is as if God himself has delivered these words back to me today, when I have so desperately needed them to overcome my own darkness!

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came for testimony, to bear witness to the light, that all might believe through him.  He was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light.  The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not. He came to his own home, and his own people received him not. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. - Jn 1, 6-13

This is the very point of the only-begotten, eternal son of God becoming a son of Adam: that we might be granted our place as children of God!

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.

(John bore witness to him, and cried, "This was he of whom I said, `He who comes after me ranks before me, for he was before me.'") And from his fullness have we all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known. - Jn 1, 14-18

I love this gospel reading, and my determination to read it on my own on Christmas day faded away in the decompression of our dear grandchildren being gone and the decision to spend the evening with friends. I am so glad that I have now been brought back to a chance to reflect on it a bit (even if it does mean that I'm about two weeks behind where I should be in the Exercises).