Three in One  

Isaiah 8:23 to 9:3 is giving a preview of the coming of Christ when it declares: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness– on them light has shone.”

If we keep reading, we come to what Christians read as a description of Jesus:

For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onward and forevermore.

Life is ultimately pretty simple. Everything important is found in one word: “Jesus.” If that sounds like something a fundamentalist would say, then give the fundamentalists credit! Hebrews calls Jesus “the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word.” To know him is to know God. To know God is to have eternal life, which is more than “everlasting life.” Only God’s life is eternal, without beginning or end, and this is the life we share by the “grace [favor] of the Lord Jesus Christ.” God, and Jesus as God, is the “A” and the “Z,” the “Alpha and the Omega”:

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life…. See, I am coming soon; my reward is with me, to repay according to everyone’s work. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.

We can share in Christ’s life without sharing it fully. We can also have human life without being fully alive. We all have more latent talents than we have developed, more potential than we have actualized. We may be impeded by internal or external obstacles from functioning fully in body or mind. The same is true of the life of grace, the divine life that is ours “in Christ.” There is nothing lacking in the Life itself, but we may not be living God’s life “to the full.”

This is where light comes in. We grow in God’s life by growing in his light. This presumes we are living by what we see, of course; the essence of all real growth is love, but to grow in love, we need to grow in light. St. Augustine said, “We cannot love what we do not know.” It is through increasing familiarity with and understanding of God’s word that we “see” the Word made flesh and come to “know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that we may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

So we can add a third word to the “trinity” of Christian essentials. They, like the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity, are distinct from each other but inseparable in their authentic being: Life (from the Father), Light (from the Son), and Love (from the Holy Spirit). And all of these come through Jesus Christ.

The Good News

Matthew 4:12-23 quotes the Isaiah text above to introduce Jesus’ own proclamation of the Kingdom: “A people living in darkness has seen a great light. On those who inhabit a land overshadowed by death, light has arisen.”

To respond to the Good News is to welcome the light; to open our minds and hearts to it; to “reform our lives” by what it enables us to see.

Doesn’t it follow that the sign we really believe in the Good News is that we continue to welcome the light, continue to open our minds to it through reading and reflection, through listening, discussions, and prayer? Is it too trenchant to say that if we are not disciples — that is, students — of the mind and heart of Christ, we have never been evangelized? Even though we may have several years of Catholic education and go to Mass every Sunday?

Does this explain why four of the last popes have called for a “new evangelization”? Does it make it less surprising — in fact, make it almost a foregone conclusion — that a large percentage of those brought up as Christians will no longer “assemble” with the believers? Or that those baptized and committed as Catholics are deserting to “evangelical” churches, which have less mystery to impart, but give what they have with greater enthusiasm and joy?

In light of this, would it sound radical to say that Jesus’ exhortation to “Reform your lives” in order to accept the Good News might be, for many of us, an either-or invitation to make reading and reflecting on the Bible a part of our daily life? An invitation extended which, if rejected, means we just won’t “enter into the kingdom of heaven”? By our own choice.

Prayer Prompt: Put your Bible on your pillow. Never go to sleep without reading at least one line.

— Fr. David M. Knight

View today’s Mass readings, Lectionary #67, on the USCCB website here

Fr. David M. Knight (1931-2021) was a priest of the Diocese of Memphis in Tennessee, a prolific writer, and a highly sought after confessor, spiritual director, and retreat master. He authored more than 40 books and hundreds of articles that focus primarily on lay spirituality and life-long spiritual growth.