In other regions Christmas Weekday
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“St. John Neumann”
Photographer and Date are UNKNOWN
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Note: Alternate Readings may be taken from the Common of Pastors
Commentary:
Reading 1: 1 John 3:11-21
Commentary on 1 Jn 3:11-21
St. John continues his narrative on righteousness and love in this passage. Note, he has not really focused on what he considers to be the central teaching of Christ: love one another. In this particular section he begins with the comparison from scripture of Cain and Abel (Genesis 4:1-16) to demonstrate that, from the beginning of human history, evil has hated good. He uses that analogy to explain why the world, which is intrinsically evil in his eyes, hates the Christian community, which is good because the members of that community love each other.
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Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 100:1b-2, 3, 4, 5
R. (2a) Let all the earth cry out to God with joy.
Commentary on Ps 100:1b-2, 3, 4, 5
Psalm 100 is a song of praise and thanksgiving. In this selection we praise God because he created us. We praise God because he continues to guide us. It affirms God’s saving grace, given to his sons and daughters through all generations.
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Gospel: John 1:43-51
Commentary on Jn 1:43-51
This selection from the Gospel of St. John continues the call of the disciples. Word of mouth now attracts Philip and he in turn invites Nathanael. The symbolism in this passage is noteworthy. 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." “Under the fig tree: a symbol of messianic peace (cf. Micah 4:4; Zechariah 3:10).”[4] So in essence, Jesus is saying that Nathanael was resting in Messianic Peace, inferring from that Nathanael had faithfully followed the Law, and had a genuine love of God.
Jesus goes further than Nathanael’s faith in the final verse, telling Nathanael that he is the Anointed One (the Christ): “…you will see the sky opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man." We note in the next entry, Nathanael is called Bartholomew.
CCC: Jn 1:43 878
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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 St. John the Baptist, then from St. Andrew, and today from St. 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 their chronological order, 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 not 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, but we continue to try.
Pax
[2] The picture is “St. John Neumann” Photographer and Date are UNKNOWN
[4] See NAB Footnote on John 1:43-51
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