St. John gave us the basic facts of life in the opening verses of this Gospel.

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Tuesday, 11/25/14

I have nothing worthwhile to say about the first reading or the Gospel. Thos symbolic figures in John’s heavenly dream baffle me, and I don’t know anything about the end of the world.  So, let me cheat. What I frequently find spiritual worth in is Chapter One of the Gospel according to John. Please join me in thinking on its first four phrases: 1. In the beginning was the Word. 2. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. 3. All things came to be made through him, and without him nothing was made. 4. In him was life, and the life was the light of the world.

1.     In the beginning as the Word.

 Americans, in speaking of Mother Nature are referring to an underlying plan that keeps all of creation running smoothly. The Greek's word for Mother Nature was the Logos, which we here translate as the Word. They saw the Logos as their God, immanent in nature. We go along with that, but we do not stop at that.

2.     The Word was with God, and the Word was God.

   We honor that same Logos also has a transcendent being, one God with the Creator. John describes their inner relationship as  Love.

3.     All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be.

  All creation is somehow modeled after God, and brought into being by the Word.Dante in his Diving Comedy, after his sojourns in the Inferno and Purgatory, was brought to Paradise, and there he met with Beatrice, his heavenly muse. He asked her how it was that while everything in heaven was new, it was also somehow familiar. Here is how Beatrice explained creation’s likeness to God.

      All things among themselves possess an order,

       And this order is the form that makes the

       Universe like God.

It is the orderliness of music and of DNA that has them made in God's likeness. It was  only Christian or Jewish astronauts who could fly around the moon, knowing that God's order ruled there.   

4.     In him was Life, and this life was the light of the world.

The Life that is in God is an endless possession of his own being, and it is an intelligence embracing everything, What John here refers to as the “light of the world” describes the fleeting years of our existence, along with our off-and-on moments of consciousness.  On earth we are fleeting sparks struck off the Rock of Ages.