January 9, 2026
Friday after Epiphany
Lectionary: 216
Reading
I
Beloved:
Who indeed is the victor over the world
but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
This is the one who came through water and Blood, Jesus Christ,
not by water alone, but by water and Blood.
The Spirit is the one who testifies,
and the Spirit is truth.
So there are three who testify,
the Spirit, the water, and the Blood,
and the three are of one accord.
If we accept human testimony,
the testimony of God is surely greater.
Now the testimony of God is this,
that he has testified on behalf of his Son.
Whoever believes in the Son of God
has this testimony within himself.
Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar
by not believing the testimony God has given about his Son.
And this is the testimony:
God gave us eternal life,
and this life is in his Son.
Whoever possesses the Son has life;
whoever does not possess the Son of God does not have life.
I write these things to you so that you may know
that you have eternal life,
you who believe in the name of the Son of God.
Responsorial
Psalm
R. (12a) Praise
the Lord, Jerusalem.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Glorify the LORD, O Jerusalem;
praise
your God, O Zion.
For he has strengthened the bars of your gates;
he has
blessed your children within you.
R. Praise the Lord,
Jerusalem.
or:
R. Alleluia.
He has granted peace in your borders;
with
the best of wheat he fills you.
He sends forth his command to the earth;
swiftly
runs his word!
R. Praise the Lord,
Jerusalem.
or:
R. Alleluia.
He has proclaimed his word to Jacob,
his
statutes and his ordinances to Israel.
He has not done thus for any other nation;
his
ordinances he has not made known to them. Alleluia.
R. Praise the Lord,
Jerusalem.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia,
alleluia.
Jesus proclaimed the Gospel of the Kingdom
and cured every disease among the people.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
It happened that
there was a man full of leprosy in one of the towns where Jesus was;
and when he saw Jesus,
he fell prostrate, pleaded with him, and said,
“Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.”
Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said,
“I do will it. Be made clean.”
And the leprosy left him immediately.
Then he ordered him not to tell anyone, but
“Go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing
what Moses prescribed; that will be proof for them.”
The report about him spread all the more,
and great crowds assembled to listen to him
and to be cured of their ailments,
but he would withdraw to deserted places to pray.
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/010926.cfm
Commentary on 1 John
5:5-13
Today’s reading is taken from the Third Part of the
Letter—about the source of love and faith. To understand this reading we also
need to know that John is speaking in the context of Gnostic teachings which
said that the Spirit of God entered into Jesus only at his baptism and left him
before his death on the cross. John begins today’s passage by asking:
Who is it who conquers the world but the one who believes
that Jesus is the Son of God?
He means this not in any triumphalist or dominating way
about the world in general, but rather using ‘world’ in the sense of asking who
is the one who has the ability to overcome the evil tendencies with which our
lives are surrounded. The implication is that it is someone who directly came
to grips with the world, not an outsider.
The answer is that it is the one who has total faith in
Jesus as the Son of God. Faith in Jesus who not only came through the water of
his baptism, but “with the water and the blood”, where ‘blood’ signifies Jesus’
death on the cross. All of this is testified to by the Spirit who, with the
testimony of the water and blood which symbolically flowed from the breast of
the dead Jesus, form one single witness to the identity and the work of Jesus.
John is reacting to the heretics of his day (especially
Cerinthus) who said that Jesus was born only a man and remained so until his
baptism. At that time, the Gnostics maintained, the Christ (the Son of God)
descended on the human Jesus, but left him before his suffering on the cross—so
that it was only the man Jesus who died. According to the New
International Version Study Bible:
“Throughout this letter, John has been insisting that Jesus
Christ is God as well as man (1:1-4; 4:2; 5:5). He now asserts that it was this
God-man Jesus Christ who came into our world, was baptised and died. Jesus was
the Son of God not only at his baptism, but also at his death (v 6). This truth
is extremely important, because, if Jesus died only as a man, his sacrificial
atonement (2:2; 4:10) would not have been sufficient to take away the guilt of
man’s sin.”
John, in his Gospel, tells us that when the dead Jesus’ side
was pierced:
…at once blood and water came out. (John 19:34)
It is interesting that he then adds a parenthetical which
makes more sense in the Gnostic context:
He who saw this has testified so that you also may
believe. His testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth, so that
you also may continue to believe. (John 19:35)
In other words, the Person who died was the God-made-man,
something denied by the Gnostics.
Today’s passage continues:
There are three that testify: the Spirit and the water
and the blood, and these three agree.
The Spirit pervades the life and death of Jesus. He was born
in the Spirit, baptised in the Spirit and died in the Spirit—the Spirit of God.
The blood and water were the ‘evidence’ for the original
eyewitnesses, but they are also the witness for all Christians as the type of
the baptism and the sacrificial death of Jesus which are operative in our own
lives. For us, it is essential to our understanding of Jesus that it was the
incarnate Son of God who died on the cross; otherwise his death would not have
had its redemptive and atoning effect.
To believe in Jesus as the Son of God is to accept this
testimony as that of God himself. Not to believe in the witness that Jesus has
given by his life and death is to make a liar of God. For:
God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
And so:
Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the
Son of God does not have life.
This is not merely a statement to be accepted; it is a
reality that can be experienced and should be experienced. And it is in the
experience that we know its truth.
In the Gospel, Jesus tells us again and again that he has
come to give life to the world, and we know from experience that all those who
commit themselves to Jesus and his Gospel experience this life. That life is
open to every one of us provided we, in a spirit of total trust and faith,
surrender ourselves to Jesus as Lord. But it is not given willy-nilly, nor is
it forced on us. We have to open our hearts and allow God’s love and life to
flow in.
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Commentary on Luke
5:12-16
Leprosy was one of the most feared diseases of the ancient
world. It was known to be contagious, which made the leper a very dangerous
person. As a result, the leper was a social outcast, feared and rejected by
all. The leper had always to warn people around of his or her presence and had
to keep a clear distance away from others. What was particularly tragic is that
sometimes the person might not have been suffering from leprosy at all, but
from some other skin disease which was, in fact, not contagious.
In today’s Gospel we find a leper approaching Jesus, falling
prostrate before him. His request is full of faith and trust in the power of
Jesus:
Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.
Obviously he had heard stories of Jesus’ many healings, some
of which are recounted by Luke in this part of his Gospel. Jesus responds
immediately, reaching out and touching the man, saying:
I am willing. Be made clean.
The man was healed immediately.
The touching is very significant. No ordinary person would
dare to touch a leper. But think of the inner healing that must have resulted
from the touch, that moment of physical contact. Touch is something we all need
and are so often deprived of. We, too, are in need of healing, including the
healing that comes from touch. Let us put our trust in Jesus that he can also
bring us healing.
Jesus then gives him two commands. First, he is not to go
around telling people about what happened to him. This story follows Mark’s
version very closely. In Mark, Jesus often demands the concealing of his true
identity. At this stage, he does not want people to identify him with the
Messiah because of the preconceived ideas which most people had—ideas very
different from the kind of Messiah that Jesus is. This will not become fully
clear until his passion, death and resurrection.
Second, the healed leper is told to go to the priests and
make the prescribed offering of thanksgiving for his healing. This was also,
one presumes, a time for him to be officially declared as free of the disease.
He could now freely re-enter society. The healing of someone like a leper went
far beyond the mere physical healing. It was a total re-integration of his
life, a real re-making of the whole person.
We should well ask, who are the lepers in our own day? Of
course, there are still many parts of the world where leprosy has not been
eradicated. But in every society there are people who are treated as lepers,
people that no one wants to mix with, and people who are ostracised or
marginalised for one reason or another. There are the victims of contagious
diseases (especially those sexually transmitted) with whom people are afraid to
have contact. There are the homeless people we walk past in the street every
day and try not to notice. There are the victims of addictions—to drugs legal
and illegal and alcohol. There are people who are excluded on the basis of race
or religion, or because they have mental or physical disabilities. We might
also look at those who are effectively treated as lepers in our own family, our
place of work or our social gatherings.
There is no place in our society, still less in our church,
for lepers of any kind. The world of Jesus is a totally inclusive one.
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https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/c0111g/
Friday, January 9, 2026
Christmas Time
Opening Prayer
All-powerful Father, you have made
known the birth of the Savior by the light of a star. May he continue to guide
us with the light, for he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one
God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Gospel Reading - Luke 5: 12-16
Now it happened that Jesus was in one of the
towns when suddenly a man appeared, covered with a skin-disease. Seeing Jesus
he fell on his face and implored him saying, “Sir, if you are willing you can
cleanse me.”
He stretched out his hand, and touched him
saying, “I am willing. Be cleansed.' At once the skin-disease left him. He
ordered him to tell no one, 'But go and show yourself to the priest and make
the offering for your cleansing just as
Moses prescribed, as evidence to them.”
But the news of him kept spreading, and large
crowds would gather to hear him and to have their illnesses cured, but he would
go off to some deserted place and pray.
Reflection
•
A leper came close to Jesus. He had to live far
away from others, because whoever touched him remained impure! But that leper
had great courage. He transgressed or broke the norms of religion so as to be
able to get close to Jesus. He said: Lord, if you want, you can heal me! That
is: “It is not necessary for you to touch me. It is sufficient for the Lord to
want it, and he cured him!” The sentence shows two evils:
•
a) the evil
of leprosy which renders him impure;
•
b) the evil
of solitude to which he was condemned by society and by religion.
•
This also reveals the man’s great faith in the
power of Jesus. And Jesus profoundly moved, heals him from both evils! In the
first place, to cure the solitude, he touches the leper. It is as if he would
say: “For me you are not excluded. I accept you as a brother!” And then he
cures the leper saying: I want it, be cured!
•
The leper, in order to be able to enter in
contact with Jesus, had transgressed the norms of the law. Jesus also, in order
to be able to help that excluded man and reveal to him a new face of God,
transgresses the norms of his religion and touches the leper. At that time,
whoever touched a leper became impure according to the religious authority and
by the law of the time.
•
Jesus, not only cures, but also wants the cured
person to be able to live with others. He once again inserts the person in
society so that he can live together with others. At that time for a leper to
be accepted again in the community, he needed a certificate from a priest, that
he had been cured. It is the same today. The sick person leaves the hospital
having a document signed by the doctor of the section. Jesus obliges the person
to go and look for the document, so that he can live normally with the others.
He obliges the authority to recognize that this man has been cured.
•
Jesus forbids the leper to speak about the
healing. The Gospel of Mark informs us that this prohibition was not effective,
did not serve. The leper, went away,
but then started freely proclaiming
and telling the story everywhere, so that Jesus could no longer go openly into
any town, but stayed outside in deserted places (Mk 1: 45) Why? Because Jesus
had touched a leper. For this reason, according to the opinion of the religion
of the time, now he himself was impure and should be far away from everybody.
He could no longer enter into the cities. And Mark says that the people did not
care at all about these official norms, in fact, people came to him from all
parts (Mk 1: 45). Total Subversion!
•
The two-fold message which Luke and Mark give
the community of their time and to all of us is the following: a) to announce
the Good News means to give witness of the concrete experience that one has of
Jesus. What does the leper announce? He tells the others the good that Jesus
has done to him. That is all! All this! And this is the witness which impels
the others to accept the Good News of God, those brought by Jesus. b) In order
to take the Good News to people, it is not necessary to be afraid to transgress
the religious norms which are contrary to God’s project, and which render
communication, dialogue and the lived experience of love, difficult. Even if
this implies difficulty for the people, as it happened with Jesus.
Personal Questions
• In
order to help the neighbor, Jesus transgresses the law of purity. In the Church
today, are there any laws which render difficult or prevent the practice of
love toward neighbor? • In
order to be cured, the leper had the courage to challenge the public opinion of
his time. And I?
Concluding Prayer
Praise Yahweh, Jerusalem, Zion, praise your God. For he gives
strength to the bars of your gates, he blesses your children within you. (Ps
147: 12-13)
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