Meditation: 1 John 2:3-11

5th Day within the Octave of the Nativity of the Lord

Whoever loves his brother remains in the light. (1 John 2:10)

It’s four days after Christmas, and the warm feelings we associate with the holidays are beginning to fade. So what now? What difference will Jesus’ coming to live among us make in our lives? How will it help us to love each other and remain “in the light” (1 John 2:8)?

For one thing, because Jesus became one of us, we now know what love looks like in real-life situations. On every page of the Gospels, he has shown us that love is about making concrete decisions to put other people’s interests before our own. He showed this by dining with people no one else wanted to associate with (Luke 19:1-10). Or feeding people who were hungry (John 6:1-15). Or asking someone suffering in silence to articulate what he needs (Luke 18:35-43). Or forgiving someone who has sinned grievously (John 8:1-11).

If this list makes it sound as if Jesus has set the bar too high for you, don’t worry. Jesus knows your strengths and weaknesses, and he is ready to help you. You don’t have to figure out how to love on your own. Jesus’ own love, his creativity, and his compassion can become your love, creativity, and compassion. Slowly. Gradually. Over time and through trial and error.

Do you want to become more loving toward the people around you? The best way to do this is just . . . to do it. Take one step closer to the ideal that Jesus has set, and ask him to bless you for it. Every step you take brings you more fully into “the light” that John wrote about (1 John 2:8). Every time you turn away from indifference or resentment and perform an unexpected act of kindness or generosity, the darkness diminishes a little bit more, and Jesus’ own light and love fill you a little bit more.

Today, think of one person in your life whom you find challenging to love. Picture Jesus sitting with that person with his arm around their shoulder. Linger there until you can feel the love that flows between them. Let it soften your heart and move you to take the next step toward loving them yourself.

“Lord, I am so grateful for your love! Come and help me to show that love to the people around me.”

Psalm 96:1-3, 5-6
Luke 2:22-35

Daily Gospel Commentary

"Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace"

After my first Mass over the tomb of St Peter I felt the hands of Holy Father Pius X laid on my head in a blessing full of good augury for me and for the priestly life I was just entering upon; and after more than half a century (fifty-seven years precisely) here are my own hands extended in a blessing for the Catholics, and not only the Catholics, of the whole world, in a gesture of universal fatherhood. I am successor to this Pius X who has been proclaimed a saint, and I am still living in the same priestly service as he, his predecessors and his successors, all placed like St Peter at the head of the whole Church of Christ, one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic.

These are all sacred words, which have a loftier meaning than that of any unimaginable self-glorification of my own, and they leave me still the depths of my own nothingness, though I am raised to the sublime height of a ministry which towers far above the loftiest human dignity. When on 28 October, 1958, the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church chose me to assume the supreme responsibility of ruling the universal flock of Jesus Christ, at seventy-seven years of age, everyone was convinced that I would be a provisional and transitional Pope. Yet here I am, already on the eve of the fourth year of my pontificate, with an immense programme of work in front of me to be carried out before the eyes of the whole world, which is watching and waiting. As for myself, I feel likel St Martin, who "neither feared to die, nor refused to live."

I must always hold myself ready to die, even a sudden death, and also to live as long as it pleases the Lord to leave me here below. Yes, always. At the beginning of my eightieth year I must hold myself ready: for death or life, for the one as for the other, and I must see to the saving of my soul. Everyone calls me "Holy Father", and holy I must and will be.