Friday after Epiphany
1 John 5:5-13  +  Luke 5:12-16
January 8, 2021

And this is the testimony:  God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

The Beloved Disciple, St. John the Evangelist, uses many words to describe God throughout the course of his Gospel account and three epistles.  Among these words are “life”, “light”, and “love”.  In today’s First Reading St. John considers divine life and how an ordinary human person may share in this life.

One of the more overlooked principles of the Christian spiritual life is that the Christian is not called merely to imitate Jesus.  Jesus is not a mere example for the Christian to follow.  The Christian disciple must live and act “in” Christ, as one member of Christ’s Mystical Body.

It’s within this Body as one of its members that he Christian shares in the life of Christ.  This life is not only the divine life that God the Son shared with the Father from before time began.  This life also includes all the human experiences of God the Son, especially His Death, Resurrection, and Ascension.  These experiences are the experiences of the Christian disciple.

This life of Christ is the source of strength and inspiration for daily Christian life.  This is one reason that the sacraments are key to Christian growth.  For when the sacraments are devoutly received, their graces deepen one’s share in the life of Christ.  This in turn allow the disciple’s human life more easily to follow the pattern of Christ’s earthly life, if the disciple submits his daily thoughts, words, and actions to Christ’s life.