2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time / A 16/01/2011
John 1, 29-34 (p. 398)
At the beginning of Lent the Gospel of John makes the connection with the festival last Sunday The Baptism of the Lord. We find the character of John the Baptist. This Gospel is so when Jesus begins his public ministry. It is a decisive moment. John makes his testimony to the Lord Jesus comes from Nazareth to the Jordan to be baptized. In advance it gives the people of Israel, the identity of Jesus. Before looking closely at this identity card, it is good to dwell on a specific fact. Twice the precursor Jean says: "I do not know." Whoever is responsible for preparing the way for Christ does not hesitate to assert his ignorance about the real identity of Jesus! It is God himself who inspired John's knowledge of his Son. He revealed to him. This fact allows us to meditate on the reality of our faith. If we are born into a Christian family we are likely to forget this feature essential of faith: it is a gift of God reveals his Son as Savior. Faith is not a natural reality accessible only to our human will. It is a grace of God revealed for our happiness and our salvation. It is for this reason that talk of "transmission of faith" is still ambiguous. Parents and catechists or priests have no power to pass on the faith. As if men could give other people the gift of faith! I often meet parents who tell me their sorrow for the children educated Christian who seem to have abandoned the path of Christ. Of course I understand their pain. I would point out that it is not uncommon for children who received the same education in the same family then took different paths ... Some remain faithful to Christ while others seem to be far away ... Why is that? By the fact again that parents are not able to transmit the faith to their children, but also by the fact that faith is a free act. Faith is always also a gift from God and a free response from us this gift. The teachers of the faith, parents, catechists or priests have only one power, not to faith but presentation of the contents. They like John the Baptist the opportunity to say who Jesus is and above all bear witness to him. True evangelism is to bear witness to Christ through our actions and our words. It differs in that proselytizing in which we believe we can give faith, even if it means not to respect the freedom and the consciousness of that which we want to bring Christ. The ignorance of John reminds us that it took the early church at least three centuries, from Scripture and its prayer life, understanding a little more about the identity of his Master and Lord. The councils were responses to errors, heresies concerning the person of Christ. Even if we have the Catechism of the Catholic Church as a light for our faith, do not believe all understand the mystery of Christ and even fewer have gone around to the measure of a human life. St. Thomas Aquinas admitted at the end of his life his temptation to burn all his writings, realizing the immense distance between what he could perceive the mystery of Christ and the inexhaustible richness of the Christian revelation.
That said let's look at how John introduces Christ to the beginning of his mission. On his identity card he wrote two words: the Lamb of God and Son of God, often translated in other versions of the Bible by the Chosen of God. And the seal that authenticates this testimony is the Holy Spirit. The expression "Lamb of God" refers of course to the sacrifice of the paschal lamb in which the Jews were in memory of their liberation from Egypt. In the New Covenant the Lamb is no longer an animal but a man, the Chosen of God, the Son of God. From the beginning of his ministry Jesus was designated by John as one who gives his life for our liberation. So this is the Cross from the beginning. Jesus is the Chosen of God upon whom the Holy Spirit. In the new covenant God speaks to us not through the prophets but his only Son, that he chose to tell us once and for all and in a way his extreme love of the Father, his desire to see us finally reconciled among ourselves and with Him. After Christ so it can be neither new nor prophets of new revelation. That is why a Christian can not regard Muhammad as a prophet.
To conclude we can ask ourselves some questions: What role does the Holy Spirit in my life of faith and my prayer? Am I always this desire to better know Christ through prayer and study? As Christians we can not rest on our achievements and even less about the only catechism received during our childhood. Through prayer we must nourish in us the desire of God, tell him that we are constantly looking. And by studying how the Word of God becomes more and more interior light and despite all the difficulties of biblical revelation.
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