Stepping Into the Light

At the close of the year and within the warmth of the Christmas Octave, today’s readings sound like a bell that gathers memory, longing, and decision into a single, clarifying moment. In a world that often feels like perpetual twilight; rapid change, rapid outrage, rapid forgetting; the Gospel of John opens a horizon immeasurably older and infinitely sturdier: In the beginning was the Word. Against the noise of the moment, the Scriptures insist that the center of time is a Person, and that Person has stepped into our history so that we might become children of God.

The “Last Hour” and the Time We’re In

“Children, it is the last hour,” writes John (1 John 2:18). He does not measure time by calendars but by Christ’s nearness. The “last hour” is not panic, but sobriety. It is the time in which truth and falsehood, light and darkness, are distinguishable because the Light has come. John speaks of “many antichrists”; not a single apocalyptic villain but recurring patterns that oppose the Incarnation: spiritualities that deny Jesus’ true divinity and true humanity, ideologies that separate truth from love, movements that fracture the Body of Christ by replacing communion with rivalry.

This warning is timely. The lure of counterfeit gospels; of success without sacrifice, belonging without repentance, spirituality without the body; multiplies in every feed and forum. John’s counsel is not paranoia but perseverance: remain. Those who left the community betrayed themselves, he says; but those who stay in the truth do so because they have an anointing from the Holy One. Christian stability is not stubbornness; it is a grace given by the Spirit, empowering discernment in tangled times.

Anointed to Discern: Truth as a Way of Seeing

“You have the anointing that comes from the Holy One, and you all have knowledge.” The early Christians knew that “chrism” is not poetic flourish. In Baptism and Confirmation, the Spirit has marked believers with a real capacity to recognize Christ and to reject what is alien to Him. This does not mean instant certainty about every issue, but it does mean we are not helpless in a fog of opinions.

In an age of disinformation and curated outrage, this anointing invites daily practices of truth:

• Return to what you heard from the beginning: the Gospel as handed on by the Church.
• Let truth be inseparable from charity. If speaking or posting must kill love to make a point, the point is not Christ’s.
• Test spirits by their fruits: humility, chastity, mercy, patience, reverence for the poor, fidelity to the Church’s teaching, and concrete love for enemies.

Truth is not mainly a set of correct statements; it is the radiance of a Person. To know the truth is to be conformed to Jesus; who is gentle and strong, meek and unafraid.

The Light That the Darkness Cannot Master

John’s Prologue announces the invincible center of reality: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” The verb carries a double sense: the darkness cannot comprehend or overpower the Light. When cynicism says, “This is how the world works,” the Gospel replies, “Not finally.” The darkness can bruise and confuse, but it cannot author the last word. The last word is already spoken and has a name.

This is consoling and bracing at once. Consoling, because no private grief or public catastrophe can erase the Word’s radiance. Bracing, because followers of the Light will share His pattern: misunderstood, resisted, but unextinguished. The call is not to glow on our own, but to stay close to Him who is Light; through prayer, sacrament, and solidarity with those who suffer.

Children of God: Identity Received, Not Performed

“To those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God.” In a culture that awards identity to the most productive, the most visible, or the most unassailable, the Gospel gives identity as sheer gift. Not by lineage, preference, or achievement, John insists, but “of God.” The Incarnation dignifies our flesh; its limitations, its history, its capacities for tenderness and toil; and relocates worth from performance to belonging.

This frees real courage. If identity is gift, then failure is not annihilation, and success is not divinity. One can apologize without crumbling, forgive without losing oneself, and take risks for love without fear of vanishing. Belonging to the Father in the Son is the unstealable center of a Christian life.

Grace in Place of Grace

“From his fullness we have all received, grace in place of grace.” Not grace replacing law as if the law were a mistake; rather grace fulfilling grace; the law as gift, completed by the Giver who now stands among us. The rhythm is wave upon wave: God does not tire of us. Where we expect scarcity, the Incarnation reveals superabundance. Where we expect a ledger, we find a table.

Receive this practically. Let the year’s disappointments and sins be places where another wave may land. Confession is not a backdoor arrangement; it is how grace keeps arriving. Reconciliation with a friend or a family member is not naïveté; it is how grace interrupts cycles that darkness assumes are permanent.

Creation’s Joy and Our Stewardship

Psalm 96 asks heaven, sea, plains, and forest to rejoice because the Lord comes to rule with justice. Creation is not a backdrop to salvation but a choir. If the Word through whom all things were made becomes flesh, then matter is worthy of reverent care. In an era of ecological anxiety, Christian hope does not deny the crisis; it dares to love the world more, not less. Small acts of stewardship; less waste, attentive consumption, tending local places; are not mere ethics; they are praise. They admit, with the psalm, that the earth is the Lord’s and meant for joy.

Saint Sylvester I: Peace After Persecution, Humility After Triumph

Today also holds the optional memorial of Pope Saint Sylvester I (d. 335), who served after centuries of persecution gave way to imperial favor under Constantine. During his long pontificate, the Church emerged from catacombs to basilicas; Rome saw the construction of the Lateran and Old Saint Peter’s. Sylvester sent legates to the Council of Nicaea (325), where the Church confessed the Son as “consubstantial with the Father,” safeguarding the truth John proclaims today.

The temptation of such a moment was triumphalism; confusing social acceptance with sanctity. Sylvester’s legacy invites another path: use freedom for worship, doctrine, and charity. When the Church is sheltered, the poor must be sheltered; when the Church is honored, the crucified Lord must be honored. Our own era, with its odd mix of suspicion and fascination toward faith, needs Sylvester’s steadying witness: hold fast to right belief, build spaces of beauty and mercy, and let prosperity never eclipse humility.

Practices for Crossing the Threshold of a New Year

• Pray John 1:1–18 slowly. Read it aloud, or memorize a line (“And the Word became flesh...”). Let it become your year’s creed.
• Make an examen of the year: where did the Light meet you? Where did you resist? Bring both to confession or to a quiet time of surrender.
• Choose one act of truth and one act of mercy: a conversation you will have with patience and honesty; a person you will accompany without fanfare.
• Reclaim your baptismal identity. Trace the Sign of the Cross slowly each morning. If possible, renew baptismal promises at church or in private prayer.
• Let creation rejoice through you. Take a walk, bless the Lord for what you see, and decide one concrete change to care for your local place.
• Practice digital meekness. Before posting or sharing, ask: Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it merciful? If not, let silence be your witness.

The Word has made His dwelling among us. The darkness will not master Him, and therefore cannot master those who abide in Him. Receive, again, the anointing you already bear. Stand in the Light that does not fail. And step into the year as a child; wanted, named, and sent.