This blog uses the daily bible readings of the Catholic Church

Reading 1, 1 John 5:5-13

5 Who can overcome the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

6 He it is who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with water alone but with water and blood, and it is the Spirit that bears witness, for the Spirit is Truth.

7 So there are three witnesses,

8 the Spirit, water and blood; and the three of them coincide.

9 If we accept the testimony of human witnesses, God’s testimony is greater, for this is God’s testimony which he gave about his Son.

10 Whoever believes in the Son of God has this testimony within him, and whoever does not believe is making God a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son.

11 This is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

12 Whoever has the Son has life, and whoever has not the Son of God has not life.

13 I have written this to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.

 Gospel, Luke 5:12-16

12 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.’

13 He stretched out his hand, and touched him saying, ‘I am willing. Be cleansed.’ At once the skin-disease left him.

14 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.’

15 But the news of him kept spreading, and large crowds would gather to hear him and to have their illnesses cured,

16 but he would go off to some deserted place and pray.

 The letter of John puts forward three witnesses to Jesus as the One who offers eternal life: the Spirit, the water, and the blood.

 The Spirit is the loving life the community believes is given by God. The water is Jesus’ baptism which marked him as the Son of God. The blood is Jesus’ death on the cross, which reconciles humanity with the Father.

 These are still the essentials of the Christian Church. Faith was made real to me by the love of a Christian community. Through Jesus I discovered God’s solidarity with me in sin and suffering, and a new life as a child of God.

 These same essentials are found also in the gospel story of Jesus healing a leper. The sick and outcast man fell at his feet because he recognised him as the Son of God, who had the means of healing. Jesus reached out and touched the leper. This was a healing action, which broke a human taboo, and delivered Jesus into danger and ultimately, blood. The crucifixion was already present in Jesus’ unreserved gift of his life in healing. The Spirit was evident in Jesus’ praying. The loving and affirming life which Jesus bequeathed to the church, and was evident in his ministry, flowed from his relationship with the Father.