Second Sunday after Christmas
19 January 2014
José Antonio Pagola
In the prologue of the Gospel of John, the writer makes two basic statements that oblige us to revise radically the way we live the Christian faith after twenty centuries of losing our way not a few times, reductionism and giving importance to things hardly faithful to the Gospel of Jesus.
This is the first statement: “The Word of God became flesh.” God has not remained silent, imprisoned forever in his mystery. He has spoken to us. But he has not revealed himself to us through concepts and doctrines. His Word has been incarnated in the sublime life of Jesus so that even the most simple people can understand and welcome him.
The second statement runs thus: “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.” We theologians speak much about God, but none of us has seen him. Religious leaders and preachers speak much about him with confidence, but none of us has seen his face. Only Jesus, the only Son of the Father, has told us what God is like, how much he loves us, and how he wants to build a more humane world for all.
The second statement runs thus: “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.” We theologians speak much about God, but none of us has seen him. Religious leaders and preachers speak much about him with confidence, but none of us has seen his face. Only Jesus, the only Son of the Father, has told us what God is like, how much he loves us, and how he wants to build a more humane world for all.
These two statements are in the background of the renewal program of Pope Francis. So he working for a Church rooted in the Gospel of Jesus, without being entangled in doctrines and customs not directly connected with the core of the Gospel.” If we do not take this course of action, “it will not be the Gospel we proclaim, but some doctrinal or moral points we make that flow from particular ideological positions.
The attitude of the Pope is clear. Only in Jesus has the compassion of God been revealed to us. So we have to return to the transforming power of the first proclamation of the Gospel, without eclipsing the Good News of Jesus and “without getting obsessed with a number of doctrines we try to impose by dint of insistence.
The Pope is thinking of a Church in which the Gospel can recover its power to attract people, without being confused with other ways of understanding and living the Christian faith today. So he calls us “to recover the original freshness of the Gospel” as the most beautiful, the greatest, the most attractive and, at the same time, the most “necessary”, without locking Jesus up in our boring outlines.
We cannot allow ourselves at this time to live the faith without promoting conversion to Jesus Christ and to his Gospel in our communities for which the Pope himself is asking all of us to put into practice with courage and generosity his orientations without fear or standing in the way.
The Pope is thinking of a Church in which the Gospel can recover its power to attract people, without being confused with other ways of understanding and living the Christian faith today. So he calls us “to recover the original freshness of the Gospel” as the most beautiful, the greatest, the most attractive and, at the same time, the most “necessary”, without locking Jesus up in our boring outlines.
We cannot allow ourselves at this time to live the faith without promoting conversion to Jesus Christ and to his Gospel in our communities for which the Pope himself is asking all of us to put into practice with courage and generosity his orientations without fear or standing in the way.
Recover the original freshness of the Gospel
Translated by Rev. Fr. Valantine de souza SJ
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