Homily: 7th Day in the Octave of Christmas

Readings: 1 Jn 2:18-21; Ps 96; Jn 1:1-18

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Here we are on the last day of the year, ready to say, “Goodbye” to 2024, for which we thank God, and look forward to the beginning of 2025.

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Have you ever noticed that there are no road signs in The Villages that say, “Dead End”? You’ll see them everywhere else, in Leesburg and Wildwood and Lady Lake. But in The Villages the relevant signs read “No Outlet.” My guess is the developer decided that signs proclaiming “Dead” and “End” might not be very well-received in a large retirement community advertised as the “beginning of your new life.”

I really have no problem with that, because for a faithful Christian there are no dead ends. Indeed, the end is always the beginning of something immense and wondrous.

Mary Queen of Scots, who for centuries was treated horribly by most historians, is today undergoing deserved rehabilitation. Anyway, I once read that shortly before her execution she embroidered these words:

“In my end is my beginning.”

For the Christian, then, the life of faith is always the beginning; there really is no end. 

Anna, the Temple prophetess, demonstrated this in yesterday’s Gospel passage. Although she was at the end of her life, she was “looking forward,” not back. We see this, too, in today’s passage where John starts the Prologue to his Gospel with the words, “In the beginning was the Word.…” But in our other reading from John’s First Letter, he begins with the end…

“Children, it is the last hour…"

For John, “the last hour” is also a “beginning.” Of course, to John it's really all of one piece, just as it should be with us. Yes, indeed, God is the beginning and the end...the alpha, the omega...and He’s active through it all.

I think we sometimes forget that. Oh, yes, we know God made the heavens and the earth, but then far too many today go through their lives as if He’s no longer involved with His Creation, no longer involved with us. For we, too – each one of us – are His Creation, and His involvement with us couldn’t be more intimate, more involved, more pervasive than it already is.

John wants to ensure we understand this: the fullness of God’s love for us manifests itself through His Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ. “Fullness” is the correct word, too, because God’s love begins with Creation, redeems us through the Incarnation, and leads us into eternity with His merciful Judgment…and that’s about as full as it gets.

Throughout it all, Jesus is the Word.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” [Jn 1:1].

And the Word of God is creative, for "all things came to be through Him..." And when God speaks, things happen:

“Then God said: Let there be light, and there was light.”

The Father, then, speaks through His Son, the Word, and all is created. But when you or I speak, we’re lucky if anything happens. Heck, even my little dog, who left us last year, obeyed me only when it suited her.

And then John shares those words that mean so very much to us:

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…”

Yes, Jesus became one of us, blessing our human existence with His Divinity, infusing us with His glory, if only we accept it.

Today, then, as we consider making New Year resolutions, perhaps we should just start anew.

I remember reading about a monk who confessed how he used to complain about the number of steps in his abbey. As he aged, he found that climbing those steps wore him down.

“I used to count them as I climbed,” he wrote, “just to help me get through them. But then, one day in prayer I realized my spiritual life needed, again and again, to start at the beginning. Now, as I go up the steps, I count each step aloud, “One, one, one…”

Consider today and every day a new beginning, asking God to come into our hearts and lead us as we struggle to follow Him on the Way.

Sisters and brothers, Sacred Scripture has depths beyond our understanding, and I often pray after our weekly Bible Study that I haven’t misapplied them or mangled them too badly as I try to share them with others. But, as we read God’s Word, and pray it, and live it, we become like the two on the road to Emmaus, because Jesus walks with us, from one beginning, not to the end, but to a new beginning.

God love you all...and Happy New Year.