Daily Mass Gospel Reflection - Feast of Saint John, Apostle and evangelist

Word on Fire Ministry ^ | 12.27.23 | Bishop Robert Barron

[MurphsLaw]

John 20:1a,
John 20:2-8

Friends, on this feast of St. John,
our Gospel tells of his coming to faith
in the Resurrection when he saw the empty tomb.

From this grave of Jesus,
we learn that everything we took to be the case is not the case;
that what always moved this way now moves that way.

God has shown us his power over death in the most unambiguous way;
our lives should not be dominated by the fear of death,
and we see the proof of this in the most vivid way imaginable.

Some people think that they will make the Resurrection more intelligible
or more acceptable to modern people if they allegorize it away,
turning it into a vague symbol of the perdurance of Jesus’ cause.
But then his grave would be, like the grave of any ordinary hero,
sad, wistful, reassuring.

Notice please that no cult of Jesus’ tomb ever developed in Christianity;
we don’t look back with easy wistfulness.
Rather, we allow ourselves to be surprised,
turned upside down by it.

[MurphsLaw]

+++ On the first day of the week,
Mary Magdalene ran and went to Simon Peter
and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved,
and told them,
"They have taken the Lord from the tomb,
and we do not know where they put him."
So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb.
They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter
and arrived at the tomb first;
he bent down and saw the burial cloths there,
but did not go in.
When Simon Peter arrived after him,
he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there,
and the cloth that had covered his head,
not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place.
Then the other disciple also went in,
the one who had arrived at the tomb first,
and he saw and believed.+++

[ebb tide]

Here's another rotten fruit of VC II:

What We Lost When We Lost the Last Gospel

Third, Msgr. George J. Moorman, in his book, The Latin Mass Explained, has noted best of all that—and it is worth quoting at length:

This reading, in the course of time, was added to the Eucharistic service on account of the great reverence the early Christians entertained for this portion of the Gospel and because it contains a summary of the benefits of which we are made partakers through Christ’s Sacrifice. The service was introduced by the prayer of the priest: ‘Send forth Thy Light and Thy Truth!’ It could not be concluded in a more becoming manner than with the words, ‘AND THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH, and dwelt among us; and we saw His glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.’ At the words ‘AND THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH’, the priest and the people kneel on one knee in token of adoration of the mystery of the Incarnation, which is expressed in these words, and to indicate that the Son of God came from Heaven to earth. When the priest has finished the reading of this Gospel, the server answers, ‘Deo Gratias’—‘Thanks Be To God.’ These are the last words of the Mass.