Father; and no one knows the Father except the Son, and those to whom the Son has revealed him.’ The word ‘revealed’ refers not only to the future as though the Word began to reveal the Father only when he was born of Mary; it refers equally to all time. From the beginning the Son is present to creation, reveals the Father to all, to those the Father chooses, when the Father chooses, and as the Father chooses. So, there is in all and through all one God the Father, one Word and Son, and one Spirit, and one salvation for all who believe in him.
11 January
A Reading from The Ascent of Mount Carmel by John of the Cross
The chief reason why it was permissible under the old Law to ask God questions and quite in order for the prophets and priests to seek revelations and visions from him was that, in those times, the faith was not yet firmly founded, nor was the law of the gospel inaugurated. Hence, it was necessary for them to question God and for God to reply. This he did sometimes in words, sometimes by visions and revelations, sometimes in figures and types, and then again by many other ways that expressed his meaning. Everything he replied and spoke and revealed was about the mysteries of our faith or matters touching upon or leading up to it.
But now that the faith is founded in Christ and the law of the gospel has been made known in this age of grace, there is no longer any reason to question God in that way. Nor need God speak and answer as he did then. When he gave us, as he did, his Son, who is his one Word, he spoke everything to us, once and for all in that one Word. There is nothing further for him to say.
This is the meaning of that passage where St Paul tries to persuade the Hebrews to abandon the primitive ways and means of communicating with God which are in the law of Moses, and instead fix their eyes on Christ alone. He says: ‘In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son.’ The Apostle gives us to understand that God has become as if dumb, with nothing more to say, because what he spoke before in fragments to the prophets he has now said all at once by giving us the All who is his Son.
Consequently, anyone who today would want to ask God questions or desire some further vision or revelation, would not only be acting foolishly but would be offending God by not fixing his eyes entirely on Christ, without wanting something new or something in addition to Christ.
God might give this answer: ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.’ I have already told you all things in my Word. Fix your eyes on him alone, because in him I have spoken and revealed all. Moreover, in him you will find more than you ask or desire.
12 January
A Reading from a sermon of Leo the Great
The loving providence of God, having determined in these last days to save the world, set as it was on its course to destruction, decreed that all nations should be saved in the person of Christ.
A promise had already been made to the holy patriarch Abraham that he was to have a countless progeny, born not from his body, but from the seed of faith. His descendants were therefore to be compared with the multitude of the stars. The father of all nations was to hope not for an earthly progeny but for a progeny from heaven. For the creation of this promised progeny, the heirs designated under the sign of the stars are awakened by the rising of a new star. The heavens themselves perform their service and bear witness: a star more brilliant than all others startles wise men from the East who, not unskilled in the observation of such things, recognise in its rising the presence of a sign.
So let the full number of the nations now come and take their place in the family of the patriarchs. Yes, let the children of the promise enter and receive their blessing in the seed of Abraham, which his children according to the flesh have spurned. In the persons of the Magi let all people adore the Creator of the universe; let God be known, not in Judea only, but throughout the whole world, so that ‘his name may be great in all Israel’.
Dear friends, now that we have received instruction in this revelation of God’s grace, let us celebrate with joy the day of our first harvesting, of the calling of the Gentiles. Let us give thanks to the merciful God who has counted us worthy, in the words of the Apostle, ‘to share the inheritance of the saints in light; and who has rescued us from the power of darkness, and brought us into the kingdom of his beloved Son’. For as Isaiah prophesied: ‘The people of the Gentiles, who sat in darkness, have seen a great light, and on those who dwelt in the region of the shadow of death has a light dawned.’ He spoke of them to the Lord: ‘The Gentiles, who do not know you, will invoke you, and the peoples, who knew you not, will take refuge in you.’
This is ‘the day that Abraham saw, and was glad’, when he knew that the children born of his faith would be blessed in his seed, that is, in Christ. Believing that he would be the father of the nations, he looked into the future, ‘giving glory to God, in full awareness that God is able to do what he has promised’. This is the day that David prophesied in the psalms, when he said: ‘All the nations that you have brought into being will come and fall down in adoration in your presence, Lord, and glorify your name’; and again, ‘The Lord has made known his salvation; in the sight of the nations he has revealed his justice.’
This came to be fulfilled, as we know, from the time when the star beckoned the Magi out of their distant country and led them to recognise and adore the King of heaven and earth. Their worship bids us imitate their humble service, and to be servants, as best we can, of the grace that invites all people to seek Christ.
The First Sunday of Epiphany
The Baptism of Christ
A Reading from an oration of Gregory of Nazianzus
Christ is bathed in light; let us also be bathed in light. Christ is baptized; let us also go down with him, and rise with him.
John is baptizing when Jesus draws near. Perhaps he comes to sanctify his baptizer; certainly he comes to bury sinful humanity in the waters. He comes to sanctify the Jordan for our sake and in readiness for us; he who is spirit and flesh comes to begin a new creation through the Spirit and water.
The Baptist protests; Jesus insists. Then John says: ‘I ought to be baptized by you.’ He is the lamp in the presence of the sun, the voice in the presence of the Word, the friend in the presence of the Bridegroom, the greatest of all born of woman in the presence of the firstborn of all creation, the one who leapt in his mother’s womb in the presence of him who was adored in the womb, the forerunner and future forerunner in the presence of him who has already come and is to come again. ‘I ought to be baptized by you’; we should also add: ‘and for you’, for John is to be baptized in blood, washed clean like Peter, not only by the washing of his feet.
Jesus rises from the waters; and a drowned world rises with him. The heavens like paradise with its flaming sword, closed by Adam for himself and his descendants, are rent open. The Spirit comes to him as to an equal, bearing witness to his Godhead. A voice bears witness to him from heaven, his place of origin. The Spirit descends in bodily form like the dove that once long ago announced the ending of the flood and so gives honour to the body that is one with God.
Today let us honour Christ’s baptism and celebrate this feast in holiness. Be cleansed entirely and continue to be cleansed. Nothing gives such pleasure to God as the conversion and salvation of human beings, for whom his every word and every revelation exist. He wants you to become a living force for all humanity, lights shining in the world. You are to be radiant lights as you stand beside Christ, the great light, bathed in the glory of him who is the light of heaven. You are to enjoy more and more the pure and dazzling light of the Trinity, as now you have received – though
