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| “St. John Neumann” Photographer and Date are UNKNOWN |
Note: Alternate Readings may be taken from the Common of
Pastors
Readings and Commentary:[3]
Reading 1:
1 John 3:11-21
Beloved:
This is the message you have heard from the beginning:
we should love one another,
unlike Cain who belonged to the Evil One
and slaughtered his brother.
Why did he slaughter him?
Because his own works were evil,
and those of his brother righteous.
Do not be amazed, then, brothers and sisters, if the world hates
you.
We know that we have passed from death to life
because we love our brothers.
Whoever does not love remains in death.
Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer,
and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him.
The way we came to know love
was that he laid down his life for us;
so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
If someone who has worldly means
sees a brother in need and refuses him compassion,
how can the love of God remain in him?
Children, let us love not in word or speech
but in deed and truth.
Now this is how we shall know that we belong to the truth
and reassure our hearts before him
in whatever our hearts condemn,
for God is greater than our hearts and knows everything.
Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us,
we have confidence in God.
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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.
Sing joyfully to the Lord, all
you lands;
serve the Lord with gladness;
come before him with joyful song.
R.
Let all the earth cry out to God with joy.
Know that the Lord is God;
he made us, his we are;
his people, the flock he tends.
R.
Let all the earth cry out to God with joy.
Enter his gates with
thanksgiving,
his courts with praise;
Give thanks to him; bless his
name.
R.
Let all the earth cry out to God with joy.
The Lord is good: the Lord, whose
kindness endures forever,
and his faithfulness, to all
generations.
R.
Let all the earth cry out to God with joy.
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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
Jesus decided to go to Galilee, and he found Philip.
And Jesus said to him, “Follow me.”
Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the town of Andrew and Peter.
Philip found Nathanael and told him,
“We have found the one about whom Moses wrote in the law,
and also the prophets, Jesus, son of Joseph, from Nazareth.”
But Nathanael said to him,
“Can anything good come from Nazareth?”
Philip said to him, “Come and see.”
Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him,
“Here is a true child of Israel.
There is no duplicity in him.”
Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?”
Jesus answered and said to him,
“Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree.”
Nathanael answered him,
“Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.”
Jesus answered and said to him,
“Do you believe
because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree?
You will see greater things than this.”
And he said to him, “Amen, amen, I say to you,
you will see the sky opened and the angels of God
ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
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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.
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." “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
[3]
The readings are taken from the New American Bible with the exception of the
Psalm and its response which were developed by the International Committee for
English in Liturgy (ICEL). This re-publication is not authorized by USCCB and
is for private use only.
[4] See NAB Footnote on John 1:43-51
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