"EUCHARIST IS THE SOURCE OF OUR FELLOWSHIP"

 27th December 2021

MONDAY, FEAST OF SAINT JOHN, APOSTLE AND EVANGELIST

(1 Jn 1: 1-4); (Jn 20: 1-8)

"EUCHARIST IS THE SOURCE OF OUR FELLOWSHIP"

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we all celebrate the incredible feast of one of the Lord's Twelve Apostles, who turns out to be one of the four extraordinary Evangelists too. St. John the Apostle and Evangelist was one of the two children of Zebedee along with St. James the Apostle, his elder son. With St. Peter and St. Andrew, every one of them were fishermen in the lake of Galilee. They were completely called by the Lord to follow Him, and they left their old calling and their families, promising to the Lord and served Him from that moment.

St. John became one of the Lord's nearest teaches, as one of the Twelve Apostles, and furthermore along with St. Peter and St. James, his brothers, he was regularly brought to the main occasions in the Lord's service, for example, the revival of the gathering place official's dead little girl, the Transfiguration of the Lord at Mount Tabor, and furthermore the moment of Our Lord's Agony at the Gardens of Gethsemane not long before the hour of His Passion. He in this manner saw a considerable lot of the significant occasions encompassing the Lord's service and works, and was an observer of His wonders and His reality.

St. John the Apostle was one of the people who stayed by the Lord's side and continued to follow Him even up to the moment of His Passion, enduring and death on the Cross. He went with Mary, the Lord's own Mother as she came at the foot of the Cross, seeing her own Son being executed and passed on before her. It was to St. John that the Lord depended His, Mother and also, He endowed St. John to Mary also. St. John accordingly was truly significant in his job in the early Church, as one of the Apostles and close teammates of the Lord.

What's more not just that, he likewise spent numerous a very long time in spreading the reality of God all around the well explored regions of the planet, venturing out from spots to places with different Apostles and devotees, aiding the behind of the Church in different spots. St. John additionally composed a few Epistles and letters notwithstanding his notable work on one of the four sanctioned or formally embraced Gospels. He was additionally the person who got the vision of the finish of times in the Island of Patmos where he was banished to by the mistreatment of Christians all through the Roman Empire. He recorded all that he had found in what we currently known as the Book of Revelations.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we ponder the life and the service of St. John, Holy Apostle and Evangelist, let every one of us first think about what he wrote in quite a while own Epistle, which is in our first reading today. St. John composed of the Word of Life that has come into this world, and how he and the numerous different Apostles and followers had shared and considering anything they had encountered and gotten from the Lord. He showed us that this equivalent Jesus Christ that we are commending this Christmas is the One Who is the Savior of the world, and the One Who has brought Life upon us.

St. John gave for what seems like forever and did all that he could to laud the Lord by his life and activities. He supported a large number of the dependable in those days who were going through numerous mistreatments, and through his records in the Book of Revelations, he urged the unwavering not to abandon their confidence in God as regardless, eventually, God will come and guarantee His devoted ones, and the individuals who stay dedicated to Him will without a doubt get the guarantee of timeless life, genuine joy and never-ending bliss with Him.

brothers and sisters in Christ, today let every one of us understand that similarly as St. John had been called to follow the Lord and be His devotee, we all have likewise gotten similar calling as Christians to follow the Lord and to dedicate ourselves to Him. This is what we need to remind ourselves well as we keep on praising the delight and any expectation of Christmas in this continuous Christmas season. We need to recall that we are the observers of His reality and love, of the Love of God manifest in the flesh, in Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior.

Are we accomplished and able to continue in the strides and models set by St. John the Apostle and Evangelist, brothers and sisters? Is it safe to say that we will carry on with our lives sincerely in agreement to our Christian confidence, and particularly now in our Christmas festivities by putting Christ at the middle and heart of the entirety of our cheering? It is through our veritable confidence and true obligation to the way that God has shown us that we can move so many others to come to have faith in the Lord too.

May the Lord, brought into the world in Bethlehem and celebrated by us in this Christmas season, proceed to help and guide us in our excursion of confidence? May St. John, His Holy Apostle and one of the four extraordinary Evangelists keep on rousing us by his models and mediate for us all, that God might fortify our confidence and that we will become nearer and nearer to Him, presently and consistently, forevermore.

Thus we are called to know about Jesus from the point view of St. John. How can this be possible? It is possible through the Eucharist alone. It is in the Eucharist that the Lord is made manifest before us consistently. By getting him we become one with him, and subsequently with the Father. This is the association that we partake in each day. It is the Eucharist that joins us with our brothers and sisters also. It a similar word-made-Flesh, the Word in bodily form, that we get every day in the Eucharist. So let us pray to the Eucharistic Lord, to fortify us and fill us with his grace, so we might develop in partnership with both, God the Father and our brothers and sisters. Amen.