Word to the Wise
Monday, January 2, 2023 - Jan. 2
[1 John 2:22-28 and John 1:19-28]Let what you heard from the beginning remain in you. If what you heard from the beginning remains in you, then you will remain in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise he made us: eternal life. [1 John]
JANUARY 2 STS. BASIL THE GREAT AND GREGORY NAZIANZEN [bishops and doctors of the church]
The Greek verb menein (remain) is very important in the Johannine gospel and letters. It speaks to a faith commitment that is continual and "on message." The community to which the gospel and letters were addressed experienced preachers of various kinds with mixed messages about Jesus and his teachings. Some of these preachers denied the divinity of Christ and his identity as the Messiah. The letters refer to these preachers as "the antichrist."
The great church fathers we celebrate today were anxious to "remain" faithful in the face of various forms of heresy that deviated from the core message of Jesus' identity and message. In our own time, the challenge seems to me to be less a matter of Jesus' identity, but whether or not he matters at all in the face of a secular ethos that worships "the economy" and material gain.
In a letter to the General Chapter of the Dominican Order, Pope St. John Paul II wrote: We live in a time marked in its own way by a denial of the Incarnation. For the first time since Christ’s birth two thousand years ago, it is as if he no longer had a place in an ever more secularized world. Not that he is always denied explicitly: indeed many claim to admire Jesus and to value elements of his teaching. Yet he remains distant: he is not truly known, loved and obeyed, but consigned to a distant past or a distant heaven.
Perhaps a good New Year's resolution for our life of faith is to try and recognize that all of us have a role in evangelizing the world by "putting skin on" our faith so that Jesus will not be "consigned to a distant past or a distant heaven." AMEN