{"id":1130,"date":"2015-12-27T13:46:57","date_gmt":"2015-12-27T13:46:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sjcmetheology.wpengine.com\/?p=1130"},"modified":"2015-12-27T13:46:57","modified_gmt":"2015-12-27T13:46:57","slug":"the-light-shines-in-the-darkness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/the-light-shines-in-the-darkness\/","title":{"rendered":"The Light Shines in the Darkness"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2026and the darkness has not overcome it (John 1:5).\u00a0 Amen!\u00a0 Today is the feast of the Holy Family<\/a> as well as St. John the Apostle<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Not surprisingly, today\u2019s readings focus on family images, starting with Sirach\u2019s exhortation to honor fathers and Hannah\u2019s dedication of Samuel to Yahweh, through the Psalmist\u2019s invocation of blessing upon those doing God\u2019s will. St. Paul calls husbands and wives to serve Christ by serving each other.\u00a0 Luke\u2019s Gospel (2:41-52) retells an intimate, but nonetheless revealing, story of Jesus\u2019 childhood.\u00a0 Accompanying Mary and Joseph to Jerusalem for Passover, Jesus then stays behind to join the rabbinical discussions in the Temple.\u00a0 When his parents, understandably distraught, locate him three days later, they find the rabbis astonished by the twelve-year-old\u2019s answers.\u00a0 Joseph and Mary sweep this aside and implore:\u00a0 why have you done this to us?\u00a0 Jesus\u2019 response and the story\u2019s conclusion remain a wellspring of theological and spiritual reflection:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u201cWhy were you looking for me?
\nDid you not know that I must be in my Father\u2019s house?\u201d
\nBut they did not understand what he said to them.
\nHe went down with them and came to Nazareth,
\nand was obedient to them;
\nand his mother kept all these things in her heart.
\nAnd Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and favor
\nbefore God and man.\u201d<\/p>\n

This Gospel passage provides the basis for the fifth, concluding decade of the Rosary\u2019s Joyous Mysteries.\u00a0 Jesus\u2019 answer sets the stage for the subsequent Sorrowful, Luminous, and Glorious Mysteries, wherein the Incarnation achieves our salvation, precisely by going through our very human life, even death.\u00a0 So, even here in the depths of December\u2019s darkness, an oblique reference to Golgotha appears, itself the culmination of the Temple\u2019s own work.<\/p>\n

Indeed, as the New Year approaches in what are some of the darkest days of the year (in terms of daylight itself), St. John\u2019s gospel, especially its Prologue (1:1-18), speaks to us ever anew.\u00a0 In the beginning the Word exists with, and is, God. Through the Word comes light and life, and that Word itself came into the world.\u00a0 The world does not recognize the occasion\u2019s momentousness, but those who do, receive grace upon grace.\u00a0 The passage concludes with the astonishing claim that nobody has seen God, but the Son, the Incarnate Word, has revealed Him.\u00a0 So, again, echoing St. Luke\u2019s passage, amid the darkness of this world, St. John reassures us that great events are underway.<\/p>\n

Family life, we know, is much more mundane. Tellingly, Luke informs us Mary kept in her heart all those stories of Jesus\u2019 childhood.\u00a0 St. John Paul II overlooked neither this detail nor the story\u2019s broader point that this, after all, concerns a family.\u00a0 In the Holy Family, St. John Paul saw<\/a> a \u201chouse\u201d\u2014a place where we all live\u2014and where we should always be found.\u00a0 The family, precisely in its inescapable reality and rootedness, provides the everyday location for encountering God\u2019s plan for each of us.<\/p>\n

When considered, that is a frightful proposition:\u00a0 the earthly and the heavenly united\u2026in your family.\u00a0 Perhaps it is thus no surprise that scholars usually prefer to distinguish clearly between the earthly Synoptic Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke and the lofty, heavenly Gospel by John.\u00a0 It is true that real differences exist between the Gospels. Further, Christians of all sorts choose favorites.\u00a0 William C. Placher<\/a>, whose deceptively clear writing masked profound theological reflection, insisted Mark alone came closest to revealing Jesus\u2019 message.\u00a0 Liberation-minded theologians often prefer Luke for his inclusive vision of the Gospel.\u00a0 Some of Jesus\u2019 best known parables appear only in Luke:\u00a0 the Prodigal Son, the Good Samaritan.\u00a0 John\u2019s Gospel, as the Prologue indicates, starts not with lowly Nazareth and Bethlehem, but with the very origins of existence itself.\u00a0 That is quite a difference, but the Church, cognizant of it, nonetheless left it unresolved in the Scriptural canon.<\/p>\n

Theologically we would do well to read the Bible with the Church. \u00a0\u00a0When challenged by a Scripturally-informed student, one liberation theologian at a prominent Midwestern Catholic institution once blurted out that \u201cJohn is so much <<expletive>>!\u201d\u00a0 Scripture\u2019s diversity can lead to high or low Christologies<\/a>, over-emphasizing either Christ\u2019s divinity or humanity. John\u2019s Gospel, with its lofty language, casts Jesus as heaven-sent and th\"Apse<\/a>us not much concerned with earthly concerns like the poor.\u00a0 That is a real concern, but Scripture reiterates thoroughly the preferential option for the poor.\u00a0 On the other hand, St. John\u2014his Gospel and his own story\u2014likewise has enjoyed widespread Christian devotion.\u00a0 The disciple Jesus loved, John with Mary does not abandon Jesus at the Cross.\u00a0 He then accompanies Peter to the empty tomb, and in old age he received the visions recounted in the Book of Revelation.\u00a0 His gospel\u2019s Prologue is still read at the conclusion of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass<\/a>.\u00a0 And in Rome, Constantine dedicated to St. John, not \"Facade<\/a>St. Peter, the first Church he built.\u00a0 The Lateran Basilica<\/a> stands on what used to be Rome\u2019s outskirts, just inside the Aurelian walls.\u00a0 In other words, where the Roman people themselves lived.\u00a0 And there, among those ancient homes and families, arose the church dedicated to the saint whose writings illuminate Christ\u2019s presence in our own families.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Guest blogger Jeffrey Marlett<\/strong> blogs at Spiritual Diabetes<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2026and the darkness has not overcome it (John 1:5).\u00a0 Amen!\u00a0 Today is the feast of the Holy Family as well as St. John the Apostle.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Not surprisingly, today\u2019s readings focus on family images, starting with Sirach\u2019s exhortation to honor fathers and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1],"tags":[132],"class_list":["post-1130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","category-uncategorized","tag-holy-family"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}