{"id":9146,"date":"2026-01-02T14:36:42","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T13:36:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/predication.net\/?p=9146"},"modified":"2026-01-02T14:36:44","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T13:36:44","slug":"second-sunday-after-christmas-a-john-11-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/predication.net\/?p=9146","title":{"rendered":"Second Sunday after Christmas A John 1,1-18"},"content":{"rendered":"

Regular churchgoers may have noticed that today’s Gospel has been heard three times recently. The first time they listened to the Gospel was during Christmas, followed by New Year’s Eve, and today. The Church has us read this Gospel three times in a row because it contains a wonderful truth about the Word of God, essential to our lives. Let us try to reflect together on this truth of our faith. We know from experience that every word we utter as humans originates in our thoughts. That is why we say that our words are born from our thoughts. And with this statement, let us turn to our heavenly Father. God is eternal. He exists from eternity. And from eternity He thinks about Himself. When He feels about Himself, He imagines Himself. His idea of \u200b\u200bhimself is perfect. It is so perfect that it is alive and breathing. He is the second Divine Person, the Son of God. This second Divine Person is called the Word with a capital S by the Evangelist John to indicate that just as the human word is born from human thought, so the Son of God is born from the thought of God the Father.<\/span><\/p>\n

And now we can go one step further in silent reflection. In today’s Gospel, the Evangelist John writes that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. This means that the Son of God became a man to dwell among us. And this is the most essential truth of today’s Gospel for our lives. Therefore, it is right when we ask, “Why did the Son of God become man?” John answers us with these words: “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). This means that the Son of God became man so that we could become children of God, happy here on earth and blessed in eternity. But this wonderful truth must not remain just information for us, as when someone tells us how people spend their vacations in Mallorca, Spain. This information may be intriguing, but its content is distant and unreal to us. But let us imagine that we actually managed to get to Mallorca and spend our vacation on a beautiful, sunny beach. That would no longer be information for us, but an authentic experience. Do we feel the difference between information and experience at this moment?<\/span><\/p>\n

It follows that we must not remain just with information about the Word of God made flesh. This information is to be transformed into an experience for us. But how can this happen? Saint John Chrysostom gives us the answer. He says: Fill your heart with a desire for God.” Desire is the deepest act of the soul. Desire for God is a much more beautiful act than love for God, gratitude, piety, his praise, or worship of God. We should put the desire for God into our prayer, into our devotion, into our work, into our deeds, into our free moments, into our rest, and into our suffering. Here we can take as an example the Old Testament psalmist who prays as follows: As the deer longs for the water brook, so my soul longs for you, O God. And this desire for God will lead us to a fervent personal experience of the Son of God among us.<\/span><\/p>\n

The famous writer Leo Tolstoy writes about a peasant named Ilya who, through hard work and skill, had amassed great wealth. After many years of hard work, he amassed an immense fortune: he owned many horses and cows and several thousand sheep. He became a large landowner. But when he grew old, one misfortune after another befell him. His elder son lost his life in battle, his younger son became addicted to alcohol, his sheep became sick so that he had not a single one left, a gang of robbers robbed him of his horses, another took his cows, so that when Ilya was 70 years old, he was no longer a large landowner but a poor man without property, living his simple life. And when his younger son drove him out of the house, he and his wife had to seek a living with strangers. A kind-hearted peasant took them in to work in his stable. They earned their bread and lived in a room next to the stable.<\/span><\/p>\n

Once, a relative of a peasant came to visit him and asked who the people living in the barn were. The peasant said, \u201cThey were once the richest people in the whole region, and now they live with me as servants and work in the stable.\u201d The relative was intrigued by the case and went to them, asking, \u201cHow could you have fallen from such happiness to such poverty?\u201d Ilya answered him: \u201cMy wife tells us best about our happiness and misfortune.\u201d And she told him this: \u201cFor fifty years, my husband and I have been looking for happiness, but we have only found it now. When we were accumulating wealth through hard work, we had significant worries about our servants and maids, calves and foals, and cattle and wolves; we were afraid of robbers, so we had no time to devote ourselves to each other and talk peacefully.<\/span><\/p>\n

We were nervous, and we cursed each other; we were angry with each other, and the worst thing is that we never had time to pray to God. For us, God did not exist. Now my husband and I peacefully do our work in the stable, and then we have enough time for ourselves, we talk and love each other. Instead of heavy material worries, our hearts are filled with a desire for God, and now we experience immense joy when we pray fervently together and when we go to church. Only now do we understand that God became man to dwell among us and make us content. Only now are we satisfied. Do we feel how important this question is for us? After all, it is these days that we wish each other a happy New Year. Therefore, let us draw deep into our souls the truth of today’s Gospel, that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Let us remind ourselves of it every day by praying the “Angel of the Lord” prayer, so that in the new year we may experience much joy and happiness from this truth. ,<\/span><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Regular churchgoers may have noticed that today’s Gospel has been heard three times recently. The first time they listened to the Gospel was during Christmas, followed by New Year’s Eve, and today. 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