A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint John. Now, what I'm going to read is the gospel according to Saint John, which we used to say at the end of every mass, the whole business. In the beginning was the word, and the word was in God's presence, and the word was God. Now I should say that the the Greek for that use the word word is logos, and that is a word of which whole libraries have been written about. So if any of you have any ideas about it, I'll welcome them.
He was present to God in the beginning, and through him, things came into being. And apart from him, nothing came to be. Whatever came to be in him found life, life for the light of men. The light shines on in darkness, a darkness that did not overcome it. There was a man named John, sent by God, who came as a witness to testify to the light so that through him all men might come to believe, but only to testify to the light.
For he himself was not the light, The real light which gives light to every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and through him the world was made. Yet, the world did not know who he was. To his own, he came, yet his own did not accept him. Yet anyone who did accept him, he empowered to become children of God.
These are they who believe in his name, who were begotten, not by blood, nor by carnal desire, nor even by man's willing it, but by god. The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. And we have seen his glory, the glory of an only son coming from the father filled with enduring love. John testified to him, that was the logos or the light or Jesus. John testified to him by proclaiming, this is he of whom I said, the one who comes after me ranks ahead of me, for he was before me.
Of his fullness, we have all had a share, love following upon love. For while the law was a gift through Moses, This enduring love came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen god. It is god, the only son, ever at the father's side who has revealed him, and this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen.
As I said, for many, many years, many, many years, this excerpt from the gospel of Saint John, which I have just read to you, was read at the end of mass. It's a like most of Saint John's writing, it has a an atmosphere about it totally different from the synoptics, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. This the way John uses this word logos, that tells you a lot about his Greek background and all of that. Then how he how he identifies that with Jesus Christ and with light. In many ways, the gospel of Saint John is not easily understood.
And a good friend of mine, a published poet, said that the his favorite gospel was Saint John. And I said, why Saint John? He says, because I can't understand it. That tells you something about the age in which we're living. In other words, there's a cultivation of lack of understanding.
You like something because it makes no sense to you, or you like something because you can't understand it. The fact that you can't get ahold of it, comprehend it, becomes a great attraction to it. You see what where we are today and our attitude towards truth. Well, that's I'm that's not Saint John's attitude. He says that he identifies our lord with the logos, whatever that is.
There's a long history to it. He identifies Jesus Christ with light, and he identifies Jesus Christ as the son of God and man. And that's all in this gospel today. It's all there. That this much is perfectly clear.
Perfectly clear. And and one of the things among us is the identification we have with god as as part in a sense, participating in god. We are his. Now the thought, especially in the in the last week or so when we've been hearing a lot about civil rights and human rights and all of that, I began asking my question once again. What is the foundation of human rights?
What is the foundation of it? If you eliminate relationships to God, and that what what where does that leave man now? How is he so superior to the pigs and the horses, the snakes that roam the marshes, or the birds that soar in the sky? Caldifference. If man has innate rights, what are they based upon?
His humanity? Well, we're told we're told on very great authority that our humanity is just a higher level of evolution from our friends, the apes, who came up from little old monkeys, and I don't know where the monkeys came from. So where does that leave us? Now you contrast what I call this verbiage. Now I'm not at all downgrading the sincerity and the sacrificial spirit of people who are professed pagans or not pagans, professed atheists who who talk about human rights.
I'm not downgrading it. I'm only saying when you start asking one or two questions, where do are you left? And above all, how can anybody in his common sense tell me I have to love some of these people around me? I'm not including any of you. That's easy, of course.
Why? Who why should I love them? Well, we're told we should. Old man Franklin, I think it was was it he or William Penn, established a city to the north of here. You know, that's that city between Washington and New York.
On brotherly love. Well, if all we have is brotherly love, think of Cain and Abel. That's where brotherly love gets you. Then in contrast to this, I was just reading some of our holy father's talks and homilies and sermons from Australia when he visited down there. This is a point he hammered home.
The innate dignity of human beings, innate dignity. No matter how good looking, how rich, how poor, how ill, how close to death, how absolutely repulsive you are, I have to see in that object dignity and something worthy of my love and even sacrifice. Where does it come from? Very simple. For a person who believes that Jesus Christ became man and that all men are brothers of God.
As saint as mother Teresa's remarked in one of her statements in that show that I've thought spoken of several times. When she went on and picked up these horrible, hopeless outcasts who had only minutes sometimes to live, minutes, and and put her arms around them, made up all over them. She said, I'm picking up Jesus Christ. Because if there's not something like that there, what are you picking up? An animal.
And the sooner they're out of their misery, the better. So shoot them. You see how logical that is because it is logical. Now if there's anything that this gospel of Saint John hammers home is our brotherhood with Jesus Christ, the son of god. And there you have an absolute solid foundation for respecting every human life.
And if it's only doubtfully human human, you have to respect it. You have to you have to cannot act on that doubt. You know I'm talking about abortion now. You cannot act on in doubt when you're dealing with a human being's innate rights. They you have to give them the benefit of the doubt no matter how how primitive, how early the conception is, or how late.
Because we see in this thing, not a thing, but a person. And that's my objection to this this pro life thing. That's a very unfortunate thing. Who respects life? Who's who hesitates in swatting a mosquito or cutting down a pine tree to put in your living room for Christmas?
That's life. We don't respect life as life. Who cares about it? We're not Albert Schweitzer's. We respect not life because of life, but we respect the life when it's human life, And it's the humanity that makes and demands our respect, and not because they're human, but because all men and all women, as lovable as they may be, as repulsive as they often are, we must respect them.
We must love them. We must attribute to them certain inalienable rights because they are as brothers of Jesus Christ, the son of god. That's the thing in a nutshell. And you take away god, you take away Christ, what are you left with? And the answer is not paganism, but nothing.
In the name of the father, the son, the holy spirit. Amen.