Daily Gospel Reflection
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December 27, 2024
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.
In John’s Gospel today, we are immediately brought back to a scene that is so familiar to us—the resurrection of our Lord. However, let’s pause here and place ourselves with Mary Magdalene, Peter, and the “other disciple.”
Think about the events of the last three days. After the Last Supper, our Lord went to the Garden of Gethsemane. There, a mob of people carrying torches charged down the road from Jerusalem to arrest Jesus. After he was arrested, he was whipped by a guard who expertly tore the flesh from his skin, exposing his bones. The purpose: to increase the intensity of the pain as Jesus carried his cross. He was mocked, spat upon, and died a most painful death.
Imagine yourself as a disciple or follower of Jesus. Your Messiah, the one you loved, was brutally captured, tortured, and killed. It was a chaotic time filled with fear and pain. Now, it’s Sunday morning, and Jesus’s body is missing.
Mary Magdelene alerts Peter, and they run to the tomb. Peter goes in first, followed by the other disciple, to confirm that Jesus is gone. When the other disciple enters, John gives us this simple and powerful sentence about him: “He saw and believed.”
We all have times, even during the holidays, when faced with pain and sorrow and are searching for answers. This past October, in a span of eight days, I had three friends die suddenly. My challenge was to be “the other disciple.” I had to accept and believe that God has all in his hands. Through the darkness and pain, could I believe or succumb to the questioning?
The next time pain and suffering are in your life, believe that Jesus is there for you, and you will become “the other disciple, the one that Jesus loved.”
Prayer
Peter was like us. Peter was slow to believe, and so are we. He did not look around as if he cared greatly. We too, O Lord, are distracted all too often. In the grave the burial clothes of Jesus were folded up. It was the kind of humble respect one could expect of Jesus. We need eyes open and clear to see in our lives that the Lord is risen in us and in those we meet every day. For this grace, we pray, through the risen Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Saint of the Day
John is known in Scripture as being Jesus’ beloved disciple. Jesus called John along with his brother, James, as they were mending their nets near the Sea of Galilee. He called the two brothers “sons of thunder.”
John was the youngest of all the disciples, and it is believed he outlived the others. He was the only one who is known to not have suffered martyrdom—he died when he was in his 90s.
John, represented in today's featured image by a stained glass window from the chapel in St. Edward's Hall, was present at most of the important moments of Jesus’ life—the transfiguration and in the Garden of Gethsemane before Jesus was arrested, for example. In the story of the Last Supper, John leans on the breast of Jesus to ask who would betray him. Of all the disciples, he remained with Mary at the foot of the cross, and before he died, Jesus handed over care for his mother to John.
John eventually settled in Ephesus among the Christian community there. His biography indicates that he was arrested, tried in Rome, and banished to the island of Patmos, where he received visions and dreams that he recorded in the Book of Revelation.
After the emperor’s death, John returned to Ephesus, where the Church's tradition holds that he wrote his Gospel. John’s Gospel is entirely different from those of Mark, Luke, and Matthew—it presents Jesus with great authority, radiating divinity throughout. For his soaring theology, John is represented by the symbol of an eagle (depicted below in stained glass from the chapel in Morrissey Hall). He also wrote three letters that are part of our New Testament.
It is said that when John was too old to preach to the Christians at Ephesus, he was brought before the congregation and would simply say, “My little children, love one another.” When asked why he always repeated these words, he would reply, “Because it is the word of the Lord, and if you keep it, you do enough.”
Several pieces St. John's relics are kept in the reliquary of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on campus, including a piece of his tomb. The chapel in Farley Hall, a women's residential hall on campus, is named after him. Croatian artist Ivan Mestrovic sculpted a story from John's Gospel of Jesus talking to a Samaritan Woman at the ancient site of Jacob's Well and portrays John and Luke on either side of the main sculpture, which stands in front of O'Shaughnessy Hall on South Quad.
St. John the Evangelist, whose Gospel urges us to love one another because God is love—pray for us!