Jn. 1: 1-18
So, it is 2020! A new year, a new start for a new decade. But what’s new in the world – we might be tempted to go down the line of saying it’s the “same old, same old”.
However, today’s Scripture reminds us that the new calendar year is still very much in the liturgical season of Christmas – we are still giving time to the mystery of God with us! To unravel that mystery or rather to live it well, being immersed in it, perhaps 2020 offers us a way in.
We associate 20/20 with perfect eyesight, clear vision and what we have in today’s readings are the distilled reflections of people of faith who pondered for years the mystery of God with us. In the Bible, seeing is a metaphor that is used repeatedly for faith, and we are constantly being invited to look and see, to discern that God is around us, in us, working through us, always present. What better way to kick off the new year than by sitting with the mind-blowing insight offered in the Prologue of John that the Word became flesh and lived among us. There can be no ‘same old, same old’, if this is true. Teilhard de Chardin summed it up this way:
The deeper I descend into myself, the more I find God at the heart of my being… the God who pursues in me the endless task of the incarnation of his Son.
The Word becoming flesh is not just a moment in history, a once-off intervention. It’s a beginning in which we share every day as we strive for 20/20 vision, to grow in the realization that God is with us and in us, becoming flesh all around us, challenging to enter into compassion for everything that exists.
You could argue that there is a prayer for 20/20 vision in today’s second reading. Perhaps we should make it our prayer for this year:
May the God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory, give you a spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed, to bring you to full knowledge of him. May he enlighten the eyes of your mind so that you can see what hope his call hold for you.”
Image by Mandy Fontana from Pixabay
Sean Goan
