27 December, 2023 | Feast of Saint John, Apostle and evangelist

 Gospel Jn 20:1a and 2-8

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.

Reflections:

St John dared to call himself “the one whom Jesus loved”. We might ask, what about the others? For sure Jesus loved the others too. But St John, while claiming to be the beloved of the Lord, also reveals his own disposition within. He was deeply convinced that the Lord loved him and he too loved the Lord with all his heart. If not so, would he have accompanied Mary and stood beneath the cross with her, and Jesus entrusting his mother to him? And if not for love, would John spend his entire life meditating on the life of Jesus and theologise the purpose of his incarnation? As love cannot keep good things to itself, St John, even in the last stage of his life did the same—shared all that he knew and reflected about Jesus. And doing so filled him with joy, as we read in the first reading: “We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.” We may not know Jesus the way St John did, and we may not have the extent or depth of love that he had for Jesus, but for sure the Lord loves us just as much, and we are all the ‘beloved of the Lord’.

Activity: 

Let us spend some time during the day to thank God for his love revealed in Jesus. And let us in some way express our love for the Lord in action.