And the Word became flesh

SUNDAY 5 JANUARY (Jn 1-18)

Being a creature Lucifer wanted to make himself God out of pride. A third of angels of the sky let itself be deceived by his falseness and they also from light became darkness and were precipitated in the eternal darkness of the hell. Having lost him the light, out of foolishness, ignorance and great pride, out of envy he tempts every man to lose it too: “For God formed man to be imperishable; the image of his own nature he made him. But by the envy of the devil, death entered the world, and they who are in his possession experience it” (Wis 2,23-24). Today Satan has unleashed one of his most bloody battles, not against the man who is already in his power, but against the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. What the Book of the Apocalypse reveals seems to be lived: “A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was with child and wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth. Then another sign appeared in the sky; it was a huge red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on its heads were seven diadems. Its tail swept away a third of the stars in the sky and hurled them down to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman about to give birth, to devour her child when she gave birth. She gave birth to a son, a male child, destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod. Her child was caught up to God and his throne. The woman herself fled into the desert where she had a place prepared by God, that there she might be taken care of for twelve hundred and sixty days (Rev 12,1-6). A third of the stars of heaven are not only the angels of God, they are also the angels of the churches. Only the Father knows how long this bloody battle will last. We are responsible for not falling into the falsehoods of Satan and his lies against Christ, against God and against the Church herself.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. A man named John was sent from God. He came for testimony, to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came to be through him, but the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him. But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not by natural generation nor by human choice nor by a man’s decision but of God. And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth. John testified to him and cried out, saying, “This was he of whom I said, ‘The one who is coming after me ranks ahead of me because he existed before me.'” From his fullness we have all received, grace in place of grace, because while the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. The only Son, God, who is at the Father’s side, has revealed him.

Today, the very children of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church are the ones who proclaim men as gods and Saviours. God, the heavenly Father, gave every man one way to rise to divine dignity, to become a participant in the divine nature, to be a true child of God. This way is his Word made flesh. The Word became true man, so that in him man became God were deified and raised to very high dignity. The way of Satan is of pride. The way of the Word is of humility and obedience. The incarnate Word became obedient to the Father until his death and death on the cross and was raised to Lord of heaven and earth, Judge of the living and the dead. Whoever wants to become God has this only way: humbling himself in Christ until death by the cross, becoming with him only one sacrifice and holocaust of obedience. But Satan does not want this way. He wants the way of pride and for this with every temptation he is leading the children of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, to be separated from the very pure truth of Christ Jesus, surrendering themselves to idolatry and immorality, proclaiming every man God.

Mother of God, Angels and Saints, free us from this heavy temptation of Satan.