1 Jn 5: 5-13
Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth. There are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree. If we receive human testimony, the testimony of God is greater; for this is the testimony of God that he has testified to his Son.
Those who believe in the Son of God have the testimony in their hearts. Those who do not believe in God have made him a liar by not believing in the testimony that God has given concerning his Son. And this is the testimony: God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
Manifest the Eternal Life of God
“I write these things to you . . . so that you may know that you have eternal life.”
Do I know that I have eternal life? And that you have eternal life? Right now, not sometime far in the future? And I don’t have to earn it or be someone special to have it?
We have been proclaiming our Christmas faith – Christ, our Savior is born. How does this conviction that we share God’s own life affect how we see ourselves, those around us – and our world?
The Jesuit priest, paleontologist, and philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said: “By virtue of Creation, and still more the Incarnation, nothing here below is profane for those who know how to see.” As the Christmas season continues to unfold, let us open our eyes to see, our hearts to experience, and our lives to manifest the eternal life of God within us.
—Mary da Silva Abinante is retired from the Adult Spirituality Team at St. Ignatius College Preparatory in San Francisco.
Prayer
Grant me, O Lord, to see everything now with new eyes, to discern and test the spirits that help me read the signs of times, to relish the things that are yours and to communicate them to others. Give me the clarity of understanding that you gave Ignatius.
—Pedro Arrupe, SJ