Leaning Upon the Heart of the Incarnate Word
MASS In medio
EPISTLE Ecclesiasticus 15: 1-6
GOSPEL St John 21: 19-24
HOMILIST Mt Revd Jerome Lloyd OSJV
Beloved in Christ,
Saint John the Evangelist stands before us today not merely as an Apostle of antiquity, but as the living witness of what it means to remain with Christ when others fall away.
Holy Mother Church, still radiant with the light of Christmas, places John before our eyes within the Octave of the Nativity, as though to say: If you would understand the Child in the crib, listen to the disciple who leaned upon His Heart.
The Introit proclaims: “In the midst of the Church the Lord opened his mouth, and filled him with the spirit of wisdom and understanding.” This is no ornamental praise. John is not honoured for eloquence alone, nor for longevity, nor even for authorship. He is honoured because he remained.
When the crowd fled, he remained.
When the Apostles scattered, he remained.
When the Cross stood exposed to mockery and terror, John stood beneath it.
And because he remained, he was entrusted with mysteries denied to others.
At the Last Supper, it is John who rests his head upon the breast of Christ. The Fathers never tired of contemplating this moment. It is not sentimentality; it is theology. John listens, not merely with his ears, but with his whole being. He listens to the heartbeat of the Incarnate Word. And thus it is John—not Peter, not James—who will later write: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The one who heard the Heart of Christ is the one who most clearly proclaims His divinity.
This intimacy explains the Gospel given to us today. Peter, newly humbled, newly commissioned, turns and asks: “Lord, and what shall this man do?” How human that question is. How perennial. And the answer of Our Lord cuts through every age of comparison, envy, and curiosity: “What is it to thee? Follow thou Me.”
John’s vocation is not Peter’s. Peter will shepherd and be crucified. John will remain, testify, suffer exile, and outlive them all. Fidelity does not always look like martyrdom in blood; sometimes it looks like endurance in truth.
The Church, in her wisdom, corrects the ancient misunderstanding recorded in the Gradual: John was not promised immortality of the flesh, but a mysterious abiding—“If I will have him to remain till I come.” And in a sense, John has remained. He remains in the Church’s liturgy, in her doctrine, in her defense of the true Christ against every reduction and distortion. In an age when Christ is softened, moralised, psychologised, or reduced to a social symbol, it is John who still proclaims: “That which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes… and our hands have handled, of the Word of life.”
This is why John belongs so fittingly to Christmas. The Nativity is not merely about a Child; it is about Who that Child is. The crib already demands a confession of faith. And John, more than any other, guards that confession. Against Arius, against the Gnostics, against every modern denial clothed in novelty, John insists: the Child is God. The Word is flesh. Light has entered the darkness, and the darkness has not comprehended it.
Finally, consider the testimony of Saint Jerome: when John could no longer preach, when strength failed and words were few, he said only this: “My little children, love one another.” Not as a vague sentiment, but as the final fruit of truth. Charity severed from truth becomes indulgence; truth severed from charity becomes cruelty. John unites both because he learned both from the Heart of Christ.
Beloved in Christ, in this holy Octave, Saint John teaches us that the Christian life is not sustained by novelty, nor by activism, nor by noise—but by remaining.
Remaining in doctrine.
Remaining in charity.
Remaining at the Cross.
Remaining with Christ when it costs something.
If we would be true sons and daughters of Christmas, we must learn again to listen at the Heart of the Word made flesh, and having listened, to bear witness—quietly, faithfully, and unto the end.
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