“I think that there’s real wisdom in leaving the old year behind you as you step into the New Year. However,
if you’re foolish enough to leave the lessons behind as well, it won’t matter that you left the old year behind because you’re going to repeat it all over again anyway.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough, The Eighth Page
(How did you grow in your relationship with God in 2019? What were the most important lessons learned?)
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1 JN 2:22-28; Psalm 98:1, 2-3AB, 3CD-4
JN 1:19-28
This is the testimony of John.
When the Jews from Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to him
to ask him, “Who are you?”
He admitted and did not deny it, but admitted,
“I am not the Christ.”
So they asked him,
“What are you then? Are you Elijah?”
And he said, “I am not.”
“Are you the Prophet?”
He answered, “No.”
So they said to him,
“Who are you, so we can give an answer to those who sent us?
What do you have to say for yourself?”
He said:
“I am the voice of one crying out in the desert,
‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’
as Isaiah the prophet said.”
Some Pharisees were also sent.
They asked him,
“Why then do you baptize
if you are not the Christ or Elijah or the Prophet?”
John answered them,
“I baptize with water;
but there is one among you whom you do not recognize,
the one who is coming after me,
whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie.”
This happened in Bethany across the Jordan,
where John was baptizing.
Reflection on the Scriptures |
I needed these readings today. It always comes back to putting our sights on God, on Jesus, doesn’t it? As John says twice in 1 John, “remain in him.” We really have no hope if we take our sights off of God, his word, his Son, and put them exclusively on the present world and all of its divisions and rancor. Or on our health, with its ups and downs. As the psalmist says, “All the
ends of the earth have seen the saving power of God.” We just need to remember that, to revel in it, to let it permeate our being.
In the Gospel, John writes that when priests and Levites came to John the Baptist asking who he was, “He admitted and did not deny it, but admitted, ‘I am not the Christ.’” How refreshing. Someone admitting and not denying something. Present-day politicians do not know the meaning of those words. Their mantra is admit nothing, deny everything.
John points his questioners to Jesus, gladly. Even though his own situation is bleak, he is happy to direct them to Jesus. He, and the whole of Scripture as well, points us to Jesus, too. The Alpha and the Omega. Our beginning and our end.
Lord, help us to follow John’s lead, and always look to your Son for the answer to every problem, for the Way, the Truth and the Life.
- by Cindy Murphy McMahon
Revelations of Divine Love
- by Julian of Norwich
Sixteenth Revelation, Chapter 66
“The place that Jesus taketh in our soul He shall never remove from, without end:—for in us is His homliest home and His endless dwelling.” “Our soul can never have rest in things that are beneath itself—yet may it not abide in the beholding of its self”
And in this [sight] He shewed the satisfying that He hath of the making of Man’s Soul. For as well as the Father might make a creature, and as well as the Son could make a creature, so well would the Holy Ghost that Man’s Soul were made: and so it was done. And therefore the blessed Trinity enjoyeth without end in the making of Man’s Soul: for He saw from without beginning what should please Him without end. All thing that He hath made sheweth His Lordship,—as understanding was given at the
same time by example of a creature that is to see great treasures and kingdoms belonging to a lord; and when it had seen all the nobleness beneath, then, marvelling, it was moved to seek above to the high place where the lord dwelleth, knowing, by reason, that his dwelling is in the worthiest place. And thus I understood in verity that our Soul may never have rest in things that are beneath itself. And when it cometh above all creatures into the Self, yet may it not abide in the beholding of its
Self, but all the beholding is blissfully set in God that is the Maker dwelling therein. For in Man’s Soul is His very dwelling; and the highest light and the brightest shining of the City is the glorious love of our Lord, as to my sight.
And what may make us more to enjoy in God than to see in Him that He enjoyeth in the highest of all His works? For I saw in the same Shewing that if the blessed Trinity might have made Man’s Soul any better, any fairer, any nobler than it was made, He should not have been full pleased with the making of Man’s Soul. And He willeth that our hearts be mightily raised above the deepness of the earth and all vain sorrows, and rejoice in Him.
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