A homily by Fr. Herbert Nicholls at the Mother of Light Convent on Wednesday, May 8, 2019.
Often when we think of the Apostle, John, the first thought which comes to mind is his love and loyalty for Jesus and Mary; surely fitting thoughts for this Easter Season.
Despite the years of age, John has lost none of the sharpness of memory, for like the Virgin Mary, he learned to treasure and reflect in his heart upon the mysteries of life, in order to make tangible the transcendent…”from the beginning”, we have seen…heard…touched, not mere appearance but real flesh and blood.
In his Gospel Prologue, John narrates the first encounter at the River Jordan. When he asks Jesus: “Where do you live?” Jesus invites to “come and see”. Whatever he saw and heard is kept secret, but it was so decisive that he carefully notes the very hour it took place, 4PM.
For three years he would share the deepest intimacy with Jesus and later with Mary. So intense was his sense of love that he was consumed with the desire to make others aware of the awesomeness of this love.
It is written that God has no favorite children. He is also free to choose whomever he pleases in his relationships. John was highly favored but surely it was not because John was without fault. He and his brother are called Boangeres, literally translated as ‘sons of thunder’, but more idiomatically as fanatics.
When they asked Jesus to call down the wrath of God as Elijah had done, the Lord rebuked them. (It is interesting that the old vulgate translation of St. Jerome had a line which is no longer in modern translations: “You know not of what spirit you are. For they had not yet received the Spirit that came, not to destroy but to save” (cf. John 3: 17)
Ancient tradition ascribes the Eagle as a symbol of the Evangelist, who with his piercing eye has discovered and communicates to us: “God is love. He who abides in love, abides in God and God abides in him”. So treasured is this discovery that John refers to himself as the “disciples whom Jesus loves”.
Delicacy would have prevented using this appellation during the lives of the other apostles. Perhaps it required the wisdom and reflection of advanced years to realize what is hidden from the learned and the clever is revealed to the merest children. Perhaps that is why he addresses his readers as little children. Love one another.
In a similar passage from the Gospel he writes: This is the commandment that has been given to you, that you love one another as I have loved you. It is not a new commandment but one that came from the beginning. Rooted in the prophets it is the reflection of the Father’s desire for His people through the ages.
It is not the first commandment, but inseparable from it. For if you say that you love God, but you do not love your neighbor, you are a liar (1 John 4:20). Love is first of all a gift from God. “It is not that you have first loved God, but that He has first loved you”, and made you loveable. This gift is first and foremost totally unmerited. It is a response to God. It is a yes to God. It is that place, that sanctuary where God reaches our deepest need. For John, that moment occurred as he gazed into the empty tomb and saw the wrappings, and his eyes were opened to the Truth.
Each of us has a sanctuary where God reaches out to us, to meet us in our deepest need. And until the contact is made, the sanctuary remains no more than an empty tomb. Only the touch of God can bring life and love.
We should not despair if in our own early days, like John we are rebuked for failing to understand this love. Reach out in your search for Emmanuel. Ask for his grace. Lat at his feet all of your failed efforts and embrace His power in hope…is this not after all, the real miracle of Easter?