The First and Last Gospel

Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the Flesh, nor of the will of Man, but of God. So the Johannine prologue, today's Gospel in the Missa in Die, describes those who have 'received' Him. By Baptism, we have that New Birth which is of God and not of human begetting.

But there is a very early variant reading in some - the 'Western' family - of the manuscripts of S John: Who was born .... In other words, the sentence is made to refer to the Lord Himself and to His Virginal Conception. It fits rather well, doesn't it?

If we make the assumption that the text usually translated is the correct one, it nevertheless remains true that S John is deftly alluding to the Lord's Virginal Conception; and that the scribes who produced the 'Western' text accurately picked up and made explicit an implication which the Evangelist intended to be perceived.

Incorporated into Him, we are made sharers in His Divine, unfleshly, Birth "from above", just as we also are of His Death and His Resurrection.

Happy Xtmass, Happy Birthday, to all readers: for His birth is our birth, and His Father our Father, and His Mother our Mother, and His endless glory ours also.