Tuesday, March 24, 2020

John 5:1-16

There was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem at the Sheep Gate a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, with five porticoes. In these lay a large number of ill, blind, lame, and crippled. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be well?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me.” Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your mat, and walk.” Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked. 

Now that day was a sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who was cured, “It is the sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.” He answered them, “The man who made me well told me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.’“ They asked him, “Who is the man who told you, ‘Take it up and walk’?” The man who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away, since there was a crowd there. After this Jesus found him in the temple area and said to him, “Look, you are well; do not sin any more, so that nothing worse may happen to you.” The man went and told the Jews that Jesus was the one who had made him well. Therefore, the Jews began to persecute Jesus because he did this on a sabbath.

St. John adds these words to his account of this miracle: “Because he did this on a sabbath.”  John takes for granted that his original readers, the Jewish Christians of the first century, would have understood his implication.  John is referring to the fact that the Pharisees — and this is who John means when he says “Jews”, here — understood the Sabbath in their own way, and taught this to others, insisting that this was the authentic teaching of the law.  Jesus challenged their interpretation on this and other points of the law throughout his public life.  We can thus read this Gospel account as Jesus proposing the proper understanding of the law regarding the Sabbath.  More than that, though, Jesus, indeed, is showing himself to be the Lord of the Sabbath himself (cf. Matthew 12, 8).  He tells the lame man, on his own authority, to pick up his mat and walk.  He doesn’t quote the law to show that this is permitted, he simply issues a command.  And let us note that it is a command.  Jesus does not heal the man and then walk away, leaving the man to decide what to do with his mat.  He tells him directly to carry it, knowing that this will attract the attention of the Pharisees.  Now, John does not show the Pharisees as praising God for his mercy to this man.  He shows them instead fastening on what they consider a breach of the law.  This ought to strike us as remarkable.  One would think that they would be so amazed at the healing that they would completely forget that he was carrying the mat.  As learned men, we might also expect that understanding the lame man to be healed, and that the healing could only be done by God, they should conclude that God would not have healed him if he knew the man was going to break the law immediately afterwards.  The miracle is quite extraordinary.  The attitude of the Pharisees is nearly so.  It reminds us that the Jewish leaders did not strive to kill Jesus because they didn’t know who he was, but because they did.

One of the reasons John and the other Evangelists include the disbelief of the Pharisees in their accounts of the Lord’s miracles is to show that the obstinate blindness that led them to demand the Lord’s crucifixion was also behind the early persecutions.  As the Lord tells his disciples in John 15, 20: “If they have persecuted me, they will persecute you.”  We Christians ought to keep this in mind as we go about our business in the world.  There are people who turn themselves inside out in their desperation to suppress our Faith.  While their actions are sometimes harmful and even deadly, these people themselves are actually rather pathetic.  They are like small children throwing temper tantrums and whom nothing will calm down.  While we pray for the strengthening of our faith and the peace of Christ’s Church, we pray also for the conversion of these unhappy folks.

Today is the traditional date for the Feast of St. Gabriel the Archangel.  It was moved to this date by Pope Benedict XV in 1921, after having been celebrated on March 18 for many centuries.  With the reform of the Church calendar after the Second Vatican Council, the feasts of the three archangels were merged into one, and their collective feast is celebrated on September 29.  It is appropriate for his festival to be placed on the day before the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, since he had carried the message of the conception of Jesus to the Blessed Virgin Mary and received her answer.  We also read of Gabriel in the Book of Daniel, where he shows signs to the Prophet.  His name, in Hebrew, means “God is my strength”.  He is thought to have been the angel who appeared to St. Joseph, confirming that the Virgin Mary had conceived by the Holy Spirit, and also to the shepherds at Bethlehem.  In addition, some speculate that he was the angel sent by the Father to comfort his Son in the Garden of Gethsemane (cf. Luke 22, 43).  Finally, the prayer, Regina Caeli, contains the words believed to have been spoken by Gabriel to the Virgin Mary in announcing to her the Resurrection of her Son.

Monday, March 23, 2020

I have gone long periods in which I was unable to offer Mass publicly, as in the months after the surgery to remove part of my pituitary tumor.  For some time afterwards I was not able to stand or even sit up long enough to offer Mass in public.  I could only offer it in my room.  This was very hard.  No priest gets ordained to say Mass only in his room.  Offering the Sunday Mass in private yesterday was hard, too, as I know it was hard for so many of you not to go to Mass.  We are made to worship God, and our worship of him here is our preparation for the eternal worship in heaven.  May our present circumstances whet our appetites to worthily offer God our adoration at Mass and to receive the Body of his Son in our churches one day soon!

I want to continue our discussion of the healing, the enlightenment, of the man born blind, from yesterday’s a Gospel reading.  It would be incomplete if we did not consider what Jesus was telling this blind man to do.  The temple, in which the Lord found this man begging, was built to the north of the old city of Jerusalem.  The Pool of Siloam is located to the south of the city and down a slope.  In order to get to the pool, the blind man would have had to pass all the way through the bustling old town.  Even if someone was assisting him, this would have been very time consuming and arduous.  But the man went, with only the assurance of a man he had never met before to urge him on.  Very many people would have seen him struggling down the streets of the city, and would have been knocked against or tripped over by him.  They would have known him to be a blind man, and his rags would have given him away as a beggar.  And they would have been amazed when this same man came running back, able to see, his eyes wide with sight.  He would be seeing the world for the first time, and he must have felt overwhelmed with the reality of the miracle.  He could have hurried back to his parents in the city to tell them the news of his cure, but he went back to the temple to look for Jesus, to give him thanks.

This should remind us of the story of the leprous Syrian general Naaman, who was told of the power of the prophet Elisha and went to him for healing.  Elisha, rather than heal him on the spot, sent him to wash in the Jordan River.  Having done so, he was healed (the story is told in 2 Kings 5, 1-17).  The Pharisees must have thought of this when they strove to show that no miracle had occurred.  We might ponder their reasons for doing this.  They certainly showed some desperation.  They questioned the man himself, they questioned witnesses, they threatened his parents, they even argued with the man as though to get him to deny that he had either been blind or that he had been healed.  Why not simply glorify the God who shows his mercy in this way?  But the Pharisees were trying to convince themselves and others that Jesus could not be the Messiah, for that was the meaning of the sign he had performed.  This might remind us of how Luke describes their reaction to the preaching of St. Stephen when he proclaimed Jesus as the Son of God, in Acts 7, 56: And they, crying out with a loud voice, stopped their ears.  

In our own way, we do this when we resist the prompting of the Holy Spirit to go to confession or Mass when we already have other things planned, or to pray the rosary or the Stations of the Cross, or to come before the Blessed Sacrament to make holy hours.  We note that the water did not come to the blind man, but the blind man to the water.  Jesus wants us to take trouble to come to him.  He wants us to take part in our own growth in grace and spiritual maturity.  

Sunday, March 22, 2020

John 9:1–41

As Jesus passed by he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither he nor his parents sinned; it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him. We have to do the works of the one who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva, and smeared the clay on his eyes, and said to him, “Go wash in the Pool of Siloam”—which means Sent—. So he went and washed, and came back able to see. 

His neighbors and those who had seen him earlier as a beggar said, “Isn’t this the one who used to sit and beg?” Some said, “It is,” but others said, “No, he just looks like him.” He said, “I am.” So they said to him, “How were your eyes opened?” He replied, “The man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and told me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went there and washed and was able to see.” And they said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I don’t know.” 

They brought the one who was once blind to the Pharisees. Now Jesus had made clay and opened his eyes on a sabbath. So then the Pharisees also asked him how he was able to see. He said to them, “He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and now I can see.” So some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, because he does not keep the sabbath.” But others said, “How can a sinful man do such signs?” And there was a division among them. So they said to the blind man again, “What do you have to say about him, since he opened your eyes?” He said, “He is a prophet.” 

Now the Jews did not believe that he had been blind and gained his sight until they summoned the parents of the one who had gained his sight. They asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How does he now see?” His parents answered and said, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. We do not know how he sees now, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him, he is of age; he can speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone acknowledged him as the Christ, he would be expelled from the synagogue. For this reason his parents said, “He is of age; question him.” 

So a second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, “Give God the praise! We know that this man is a sinner.” He replied, “If he is a sinner, I do not know. One thing I do know is that I was blind and now I see.” So they said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples, too?” They ridiculed him and said, “You are that man’s disciple; we are disciples of Moses! We know that God spoke to Moses, but we do not know where this one is from.” The man answered and said to them, “This is what is so amazing, that you do not know where he is from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if one is devout and does his will, he listens to him. It is unheard of that anyone ever opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he would not be able to do anything.” They answered and said to him, “You were born totally in sin, and are you trying to teach us?” Then they threw him out. 

When Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, he found him and said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered and said, “Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” He said, “I do believe, Lord,” and he worshiped him. Then Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind.” 

Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not also blind, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you are saying, ‘We see,’ so your sin remains.” 

The Pool of Siloam was a freshwater reservoir which stored water from the intermittent Gihon Spring, the main source of water for the region in which the city of Jerusalem was built.  It was first constructed by the Canaanites, and was last reconstructed about a century before the birth of our Lord.  It was formed in the shape of a trapezoid.  Recent excavations reveal that the pool had a width of over two hundred feet and featured steps leading to its floor.  Completely covered over by dirt and debris for the nearly two thousand years since the Jewish Revolt, it was only rediscovered in 2004.  Its finding adds confirmation of the Apostle John as an eyewitness to the events he describes in his Gospel, providing accurate details of Jerusalem during our Lord’s lifetime.

Throughout his Gospel, St. John shows how the Son of God uses our ordinary words to reveal heavenly realities.  The Lord uses “birth” for baptism; “wine” for grace; “temple” for his Body; “bread” for his life-giving Flesh.  In today’s Gospel reading, John shows how Jesus uses “sight” for faith.  In ancient Hebrew and Greek, the verb “to see” can mean what we do with our eyes and with our mind: it can mean “to perceive”, as in English we say “I see” when we mean that we perceive an idea.  In the reading, Jesus calls himself “the Light of the world”: Jesus is not an idea but something much greater, a Person.  The one who “sees” Jesus in faith, perceives him in a way that goes beyond mere human sight or understanding and sees him as he is, as Light.  This is not reflected light, as that of the moon, but Light itself.  This “light” of which Jesus speaks is his divinity.  With the eyes of faith, we can know Jesus as God.  John, in his painstaking account of the miracle or “sign” of a blind man’s healing, shows the steps by which earthly understanding grows into supernatural belief, the virtue of faith.  First, the man knows him as a prophet, then as a man of God, and finally as the Son of man, the Christ.  This might remind us of how St. Mark also used the healing of a blind man by Jesus to show the steps of faith (Mark 8, 24).  John shows us besides that the people who knew the man when he was blind did not recognize him after he gained his vision: someone who is baptized and becomes a Christian is transformed by grace and so can act and live in a manner unlike in his previous existence.  

St. John in addition gives his account of this event in order to show Jesus teaching on what today we call “the problem of evil”: If God is all good, all powerful, all knowing, and everywhere present, why is there evil in the world?  The Apostle relates how his fellow disciples asked Jesus what sin had caused this particular man to be born blind.  Jesus brushes aside their primitive thinking and replies that he was born blind “so that the works of God might be made visible through him.”  Jesus uses the word “visible” and refers both to the healing of the man and to the gift of faith which the man receives, and in which he now lives as a disciple, as witnessed by the crowd in Jerusalem.

Saturday, March 21, 2020

Luke 18:9-14

Jesus addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else. “Two people went up to the temple area to pray; one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector. The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself, ‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity - greedy, dishonest, adulterous - or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.’ But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’ I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

In this reading from the Gospel of Matthew, the Lord Jesus presents a parable featuring two seemingly contrasting characters: a Pharisee and a tax collector.  They would seem to have nothing in common: the first was a learned member of the dominant branch of Judaism during our Lord’s lifetime, and the second was a collaborator with the Roman occupiers.  The first presented himself in public life as honorable and virtuous, and the second kept to the edge of society and were widely reviled by their fellow citizens.  And in addition to working for the Romans, the tax collectors engaged in the practice of adding to the taxes for their own benefit.  Yet a bond did exist between the two.  According to the historian Flavius Josephus, the Pharisees brought the Roman general Pompey to Jerusalem to end the civil war then taking place there.  They even opened up the gates of the city to the Roman army.  The Romans began to rule Judea and Galilee at that time and, as part of their rule, the Romans commissioned tax collectors.  

The Pharisee is shown standing in the temple and thanking God that he is not “like this tax collector”, but in fact, he was more like the tax collector than he could admit.  His pride in himself and in his sect blinded him to the history of his sect and to his own personal faults.  His “prayer” is actually nothing more than a boast.  The tax collector, on the other hand, had come to repent and to beg God for mercy.  Perhaps Jesus is telling us about Matthew, resolved to give up his post when he returns to his town.

The tax collector, in order to be saved, was willing to give up his position.  The Pharisee would have needed to give up his sect.  Each us likewise must examine ourselves honestly and give up what we cling to so that we might have the mercy of Christ.  

The Roman Martyrology lists the Feast of St. Benedict on this day.  His holy life has inspired untold numbers of men and women to leave the world for the religious life.  The Rule he wrote for his followers, founded on the foundation of “Work and Pray”, remains a great spiritual classic to this day.

May the intercession of the blessed Abbot Benedict, commend us to You, O Lord, so that through his merits we may obtain that which we cannot accomplish by our own. Through Jesus Christ, thy Son our Lord, Who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end.  R. Amen.

March 20, 2012

Mark 12:28-34

One of the scribes came to Jesus and asked him, “Which is the first of all the commandments?” Jesus replied, “The first is this: Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.” The scribe said to him, “Well said, teacher. You are right in saying, He is One and there is no other than he. And to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” And when Jesus saw that he answered with understanding, he said to him, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.” And no one dared to ask him any more questions.

The great question about Jesus for the Jewish leaders concerned which of the several Jewish sects did he belong to.  At the time when Jesus walked among us, four major Jewish sects claimed followers: the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes, and that of John the Baptist.  Smaller groups following local leaders formed and dissolved with regularity, as well.  Each had a distinct way of praying and a distinct way of understanding the Law, particularly regarding the Sabbath, the purity ordinances, and their attitude towards the Temple.  The largest and most dominant group was that of the Pharisees, which began to form about 200 years before our Lord was born.  We see members of this group asking Jesus to tell them to identify himself according to his sect throughout the Gospels.  

In today’s Gospel reading, one of the scribes, most of whom belonged to the Pharisees, asks Jesus to tell him what he considers the most important commandment.  In this way, he hopes to start a line of questions which will pin Jesus down into revealing the sect to which he belongs.  The scribe fully expects the first part of the answer Jesus gives: “Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.”  Jesus is quoting from Deuteronomy 6, 4-5, a passage the Jews refer to as the Shema, from the Hebrew word “hear”.  But Jesus goes further in his reply: “The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.”  Jesus thus links following the Law to the love of God, and this delights the scribe, who praises him: “Well said, teacher.”  And in his turn, the scribe elaborates on what Jesus has said: “And to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”  The scribe seems to recognize Jesus as a Pharisee himself and he quotes from Hosea 6, 6 (for the Pharisees held the works of the Prophets to be Scripture): “It is mercy I desire, not sacrifice, and knowledge of God than burnt offerings.”  He is floored when Jesus says to him: “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.”  Jesus here subtly rejects the scribe’s conclusion about him and in turn asserts his own teaching, which is particularly centered on the coming of the Kingdom.  In short, Jesus is telling the scribe, I do not belong to your sect, but you should leave your sect and belong to me.  It is no wonder, then, that “no one dared to ask him any more questions”.  

Today’s saint, St. Cuthbert (d. 687), lived and worked in the northeast corner of what is now England and southern Scotland.  Constantly on the move, he preached the Faith among the many pagans and helped in the slow conversion of the region.  He was aided in this by the performance of miracles.  Although consecrated a bishop towards the end of his life, he lived out his days as a hermit.  The Venerable Bede wrote an early life of this saint.

The following prayer is taken from the Roman Ritual:

We beseech thee, O Lord, grant us a hearing as we devoutly raise our petitions to Thee, and graciously turn away the epidemic of plague which afflicts us; so that mortal hearts may recognize that these scourges proceed from Thine indignation and cease only when Thou art moved to mercy. Through our Lord.

March 19, 2012, St. Joseph’s Day

During this terrible time of disease and distress, it is more necessary than ever for us to fasten onto the fundamentals of our lives.  Nothing is more fundamental than God and our faith in him, for he is the very foundation of our existence, the Cause of our love, the Giver of all good things.  In order to help us all to persevere in the Faith and even to grow in it, despite the lack of public Mass, which is the center of Catholic life, I will provide reflections on the daily readings, the saint of the day, and any parish news that I have.  Please feel free to comment, to ask questions, and to suggest topics you would like to read about.  First, let me say that all the priests here at Blessed Sacrament are in good health.  We grieve at not being to offer the Sacrifice of the Mass in public, but we are praying for you and offering our Masses, in private, for the intentions listed in the parish Mass book.  We are hoping and praying for an end to the virus so that we can all be together again, praising and thanking God for his mercy.

Today is the Solemnity of St. Joseph.  Joseph’s family was originally from Bethlehem in Judah, and since his family was of David’s lineage his ancestors were likely officials in the Kingdom of Judah at the time Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians in the year 597 B.C.  As such, they would have been carried into exile in Babylon.  They would have returned to Judah after the Persian conquest of Babylon.  Some of Joseph’s ancestors moved to Galilee about a hundred years before the birth of Christ.  At that time few Jews lived there.  The land had been depopulated as a result of the Assyrian conquest in the 8th venture B.C., and over the centuries had been slowly resettled by Gentiles from the north.  Many of Joseph’s neighbors may have been the descendants of pagan converts to Judaism.  

In today’s Gospel reading, Matthew 1:16, 18–21, 24a, the Evangelist tells us of how Joseph struggled to know what to do in the face of Mary’s pregnancy.  St. Jerome and the early Greek Scripture scholar Origen tell us that Joseph surely knew that Mary had conceived by the Holy Spirit and that Mary had revealed this to him.  It was his humility that made him hesitate to take her into his home as his wife.  As a “righteous man” he would have been looking forward to the coming of the Messiah, but the thought of his own unworthiness to be the husband of the Mother of the Messiah must have overwhelmed him: not only was the Child the Messiah, but the Son of God!  He was faced with a seemingly impossible dilemma: he was unworthy to be in the life of this Woman and her Child, and yet he was espoused to her and must take care of them.  His first thought was that he should “release her” or “separate himself from her”, better translations than “to divorce her quietly”.  He could reassure himself that since God had given her this Child, his own Son, God would take care of Mother and Son, and that he, Joseph, was not needed, and was certainly undeserving of being part of this mystery.

But God, in his wonderful providence, did will for Joseph to be an important part of this mystery.  He sent his angel, probably Gabriel, who had spoken to Mary, to tell him that he need not “be afraid” to take Mary into his home as his wife, for indeed “it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her”.  That is, the miraculous conception of the Child is given as the reason for why Joseph should not fear to take Mary into his home.  The angel was telling Joseph that God meant for him to take an intimate part in what was happening, despite his unworthiness.  Once Joseph understood this, he immediately resolved to do as he was told.  This determination ought to remind us of how immediately Mary consented to become the Mother of the Son of God the moment she understood what she was being asked.  The angel tells Joseph that he is to name the Child “Jesus”.  As a result, Joseph understands that he is to be considered his father, not merely his caretaker.  When the newborn infant was named by his or her father, the father was publicly claiming his paternity.  Joseph did this, naming the Child at the time of his circumcision, which must have taken place at his ancestral home, Bethlehem.  

The immediate carrying out of orders is not an easy thing to do.  A person requires considerable training to do this, whether as a soldier, an athlete, or a musician.  Joseph was able to rise from his sleep and immediately begin preparations to take Mary into his home because he had always been obedient to God in the past, following the law and rejecting temptation to sin.  Always thinking of God and his will for him, Joseph was the one man among all the men who had ever or would ever live who could have been the foster father of the Son of God.  We have him to pray to so that we might become more obedient to God’s will and his law, and so come into the inheritance promised by his foster Son, Jesus Christ.

As a side note, the angel’s words, “You are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins”, remind us that St. Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew, as the Church Fathers tell us.  Only in Hebrew does this verse make sense: You are to name him Yeshua, for yasha his people from their sins.  Yasha means “he saved” or, in the historical present, “he saves”.  This verb is the root for the Hebrew name we know in English as “Jesus”.  We see this only in Hebrew.

Let’s end with this ancient prayer:

Be with us, we beseech You, O merciful God, and by the intercession of blessed Joseph, Your Confessor, graciously keep safe the gifts You have given us. 

Through Jesus Christ, thy Son our Lord, Who liveth and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end.

R. Amen.

1 John Chapter 3

In this section of his letter, John is concerned with strengthening his Gentile Christian audience in their understanding of themselves as "brethren" of one another.  This was a very important concern of the Apostles, as we see in Paul's Letter to the Galatians 3, 28: "There is no longer Jew or Greek, or slave or free, or male or female, for you are all one in Christ."  He continues to speak of the brotherly love which follows from the fact that all those united in .Christ, and so the adopted children of the Father, are made brethren of one another.

1 JOHN CHAPTER 3

1. Behold what manner of charity the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called and should be the sons of God.  Therefore the world knoweth not us, because it knew not him.  While we call the Father, "Father" because he is the origin of the Son, he is also the "Father" of all those joined to Christ in baptism.  In this way we become his "adopted" children.  This verse would have had particular meaning for the gentile converts who could not have imagined becoming "sons" of Zeus or Apollo.

2. Dearly beloved, we are now the sons of God: and it hath not yet appeared what we shall be. We know that when he shall appear we shall be like to him: because we shall see him as he is.  "What we shall be": that is, in heaven, with our bodies glorified.  The question of "what we shall be" as a result of union with Christ must have been very pressing for these converts, as it should be for us.  "We shall see him as he is": to see, then, is to become.  If we are what we eat, in Holy Communion, then how much more we should be like what we see, the glorified Jesus.

3. And every one that hath this hope in him sanctifieth himself, as he also is holy.  "Hope" is not wishful thinking, but a way of life in which the Christian lives in expectation of the Lord's coming.

4. Whosoever committeth sin committeth also iniquity. And sin is iniquity. 5. And you know that he appeared to take away our sins: and in him there is no sin. 6. Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: and whosoever sinneth hath not seen him nor known him. "Sin" is not merely some ritual infraction, or a private failing, but wickedness enacted against God and man.  "And in him there is no sin": only One who is without sin could take sin away by his own power.  A person who "abides" in him through baptism and the faith and works that flow from baptism, does not sin.  In this way, virtue is seen as a good in itself, and also as a sign of abiding in Christ.  On the other hand, a person who commits sin shows that he "does not know" the Lord. "To know" can be understood in terms of understanding, believing, and also being placed in a relationship with the Lord.  The sins of which John speaks are mortal sins, committed out of malice, the chief ones being idolatry, adultery, and willful murder.

7. Little children, let no man deceive you. He that doth justice is just, even as he is just. 8. He that committeth sin is of the devil: for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God appeared, that he might destroy the works of the devil.  The just man performs just deeds.  An unjust man performs unjust deeds.  He cannot perform just deeds.  An unjust person, living apart from God, may perform an act which benefits Christians or the community in general, as say a king who makes peace with another king, but he does this from ulterior motives (because he cannot continue to afford to make war) and not from love of God and neighbor.

9. Whosoever is born of God committeth not sin: for his seed abideth in him. And he cannot sin, because he is born of God.  That is, he cannot sin except by the abuse of his free-will.  This can also be understood in an absolute sense if we understand "born of God" to pertain to the saints raised to Heaven, who cannot sin.

10. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil. Whosoever is not just is not of God, or he that loveth not his brother.  John is encouraging the Christians to manifest their justice, but also to beware of those who might claim to be Christians, but whose works prove them otherwise.  This incidentally is a warning about Gnostic Christians and other heretics.

11. For this is the declaration which you have heard from the beginning, that you should love one another. 12. Not as Cain, who was of the wicked one and killed his brother. And wherefore did he kill him? Because his own works were wicked: and his brother's just.  John says "the" declaration, about which he has been writing throughout his letter.  Here he names it explicitly.  The early Gentile Christians must have found this radical, for nothing like it existed in the culture before, and had only the example of the Apostles and other missionaries to show them what this love looked like.  "Wherefore did he kill him?"  John supplies information not given in the original story in Genesis, where Cain seems to kill Abel out of jealousy for the Lord's accepting Abel's sacrifice and ignoring Cain's.  Cain's offering of a sacrifice might seem to be a just act, but the rejection of it and the murder shows that it was not, and that Cain was an unjust man.

13. Wonder not, brethren, if the world hate you.  "The world": the pagans, those attached to the things of the world, the authorities.  John tells them not so wonder at the world's hatred.  It seems a general theme in early Christian writings that the new Christians were amazed and confused by the fact that their compatriots, or even their fellow Jews, not only were not attracted to the the promise of eternal life by Jesus, but that they persecuted them, besides.  The parable of the Sower and the Seed, found in three of the four Gospels, speaks to this.

14. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not abideth in death. 15. Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in himself.  John insists that "we know" this, and proof of it is that "we love the brethren" -- our fellow Christians, regardless of national origin, class, or occupation.  John points out signs of God's love, of whether a person is just, of the fact of our passing from death to life in order to bolster the faith of these new Christians.

16. In this we have known the charity of God, because he hath laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 17. He that hath the substance of this world and shall see his brother in need and shall shut up his heart from him: how doth the charity of God abide in him? 18. My little children, let us not love in word nor in tongue, but in deed and in truth.  In the midst of daily life, with its toil, sufferings, preoccupations, demands, and petty annoyances, it is easy to forget or take for granted the love of God.  John reminds us that God's love is so deep and personal that he sent his Son to die for us in order for us to be freed from sin.  Our response to this is to be prepared "to lay down our lives for the brethren" -- that is to show them the fullness of our love for them, a love patterned after that of the Lord himself.

19. In this we know that we are of the truth and in his sight shall assure our hearts. 20. For if our heart reprehend us, God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things. 21. Dearly beloved, if our heart do not reprehend us, we have confidence towards God.  "Assure our hearts": ease our consciences.  If our consciences are stirred up as a result of our actions or inactions, God, who "knows all things" will surely know. If we are at peace with our consciences, then we may be confident that God approves of what we have done.  Our conscience is "man's most secret core and his sanctuary.  There he is alone with God, whose voice echoes in his depths" (from Gaudium et Spes 16).

22. And whatsoever we shall ask, we shall receive of him: because we keep his commandments and do those things which are pleasing in his sight.  Jesus had said, "ask and you shall receive".  Here, John notes that there are  conditions for the granting and receiving of gifts from God.  A person who asks for gifts while in a state of sin, or which would be used in sin, ask "wrongly", as St. James writes in his letter (James 4, 3).  How can we expect to be heard, much less favorably answered, by one whom we have offended, and have shown no signs of regret for what we have done?

23. And this is his commandment: That we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as he hath given commandment unto us. 24. And he that keepeth his commandments abideth in him, and he in him. And in this we know that he abideth in us by the Spirit which he hath given us.  The laws of belief in Christ and in love for one another are so dependent upon each other that John speaks of them as a single Commandment.  James 1, 22:  But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.