Secrets laid bare

WORD 2day: 29th December, 2025

5th day in the Christmas Octave - 1 John 2: 3-11; Luke 2: 22-35

One of the key elements of an authentic spirituality should be to lay bare all secrets. Jesus was doing exactly that, and that is one reason the pharisees and the Scribes could not put up with him.

The way Jesus did it, was by making the criteria cut and dry. He stood far from multiplying requirements and rituals. He simplified the commandments and kept to the basics. He brought everything down to one commandment and this laid everything bare. No amount of beating around the bush would matter anymore... do you love or not - that's the plain question! 

That was indeed, the only question which had to be answered and John so plainly brings it out in today's first reading. He explains lack of love as the lack of light - as darkness! It is simple according to John too... one cannot show oneself as "spiritual", as someone who loves God, except through the love for one's brothers and sisters. Love is the light that has come into the world, according to John; accepting it or not depends on each of us. 

Let your love be genuine (Rom 12): St. Paul too understood this key, the key to being Christlike!