Memorial of Saint John Neumann, bishop
Biographical Information about St. John Neumann
Reading for Friday before Epiphany
Commentary:
Reading 1 1 Jn 3:11-21
St. John continues his narrative on righteousness and love in this passage today. Note he has not really focused on what he considers to be the central teach of Christ – love one another. In this particular section he begins with the comparison from scripture of Cain and Abel (Genesis 4:1-16). He brings that analogy to why the world, in his eyes intrinsically evil, hates the Christian community, who are good because they love each other.
Responsorial Psalm Ps 100:1b-2, 3, 4, 5
R. Let all the earth cry out to God with joy.
We have the beginning of Ps. 100, a song of praise. In this section we praise God because He created us. We praise God because he continues to guide us.
Gospel Jn 1:43-51
This selection from the Gospel of John continues our story from yesterday. Word of mouth now attracts first Philip and he in turn invites Nathanael. The symbolism in this passage is noteworthy. First when Jesus describes Nathanael as “A true Israelite. There is no duplicity in him: Jacob was the first to bear the name "Israel" (Genesis 32:29), but Jacob was a man of duplicity (Genesis 27:35-36).”
Jesus tells Nathanael “"Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree." From the footnotes to the NAB we find “Under the fig tree: a symbol of messianic peace (cf Micah 4:4; Zechariah 3:10).” So in essence, Jesus is saying that Nathanael was resting in Messianic Peace inferring from that that he had faithfully followed the Law and had a genuine love of God.
Jesus goes further than Nathanael’s faith in the final verse telling him that he, Jesus is the Anointed One. “…you will see the sky opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man."
Reflection:
We take note that for the past three days scripture has been hammering virtually the same message at us. From our reading of the First Letter of St. John we have been hearing; …love one another …love one another, …love one another. From the Psalms, first Ps. 98 and today Ps. 100 we hear; …Sing Praise to God, …Sing Praise to God, …Sing Praise to God. And from St. John’s Gospel we hear first from John the Baptist, then from Andrew, and today from Philip; …Jesus is the Messiah …Jesus is the Messiah …Jesus is the Messiah.
Now let’s put it all together and we have; Love one another because in this way we bring praise to God and announce by our actions we believe Jesus is the Messiah. Wait, there is another way to assemble them. If we go by date written, the message comes out this way; Sing praise to God, because he gave us Jesus the Messiah who commands us to love one another.
No matter which way we put the message together it comes down to a simple cause and effect formula; If we believe in our hearts that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that he came into the world, as we have been told since the beginning of Advent, to bring salvation to all peoples and peace to the world, and if his message to us during his life on earth was to love one another, then we must do the same and rejoice in our good fortune. As John says in his letter, if we don’t love one another then we must now believe that Jesus is our salvation because we have not followed his teaching.
For most of us this is probably a scary thought because it is so hard to follow that teaching universally, but we continue to try.
Pax
Biographical Information about St. John Neumann
Reading for Friday before Epiphany
Commentary:
Reading 1 1 Jn 3:11-21
St. John continues his narrative on righteousness and love in this passage today. Note he has not really focused on what he considers to be the central teach of Christ – love one another. In this particular section he begins with the comparison from scripture of Cain and Abel (Genesis 4:1-16). He brings that analogy to why the world, in his eyes intrinsically evil, hates the Christian community, who are good because they love each other.
Responsorial Psalm Ps 100:1b-2, 3, 4, 5
R. Let all the earth cry out to God with joy.
We have the beginning of Ps. 100, a song of praise. In this section we praise God because He created us. We praise God because he continues to guide us.
Gospel Jn 1:43-51
This selection from the Gospel of John continues our story from yesterday. Word of mouth now attracts first Philip and he in turn invites Nathanael. The symbolism in this passage is noteworthy. First when Jesus describes Nathanael as “A true Israelite. There is no duplicity in him: Jacob was the first to bear the name "Israel" (Genesis 32:29), but Jacob was a man of duplicity (Genesis 27:35-36).”
Jesus tells Nathanael “"Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree." From the footnotes to the NAB we find “Under the fig tree: a symbol of messianic peace (cf Micah 4:4; Zechariah 3:10).” So in essence, Jesus is saying that Nathanael was resting in Messianic Peace inferring from that that he had faithfully followed the Law and had a genuine love of God.
Jesus goes further than Nathanael’s faith in the final verse telling him that he, Jesus is the Anointed One. “…you will see the sky opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man."
Reflection:
We take note that for the past three days scripture has been hammering virtually the same message at us. From our reading of the First Letter of St. John we have been hearing; …love one another …love one another, …love one another. From the Psalms, first Ps. 98 and today Ps. 100 we hear; …Sing Praise to God, …Sing Praise to God, …Sing Praise to God. And from St. John’s Gospel we hear first from John the Baptist, then from Andrew, and today from Philip; …Jesus is the Messiah …Jesus is the Messiah …Jesus is the Messiah.
Now let’s put it all together and we have; Love one another because in this way we bring praise to God and announce by our actions we believe Jesus is the Messiah. Wait, there is another way to assemble them. If we go by date written, the message comes out this way; Sing praise to God, because he gave us Jesus the Messiah who commands us to love one another.
No matter which way we put the message together it comes down to a simple cause and effect formula; If we believe in our hearts that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that he came into the world, as we have been told since the beginning of Advent, to bring salvation to all peoples and peace to the world, and if his message to us during his life on earth was to love one another, then we must do the same and rejoice in our good fortune. As John says in his letter, if we don’t love one another then we must now believe that Jesus is our salvation because we have not followed his teaching.
For most of us this is probably a scary thought because it is so hard to follow that teaching universally, but we continue to try.
Pax
No comments:
Post a Comment