And the word became flesh and dwelt among us.’ (John. 1:14)

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‘And the word became flesh and dwelt among us.’ (John. 1:14)
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St. John introduces Jesus as ‘The Word of God’.

This is a theological fact, very difficult to be described by any human language. 

Our language was invented by us to communicate our thoughts to others.

We have no other go but to use our human language to describe things Divine.

We must be careful to understand the truths explained in the light of our Faith,

not to misunderstand it in the light of human science.

We use the term ‘word’ to refer to a ‘thought’ that we want to communicate to others.

There can be no communication without words and word itself is a ‘form’ given to ‘our thought’.

Thinking capacity is an attribute shared with us by God when He created us in His image.

No animal can think.

First we think about ourselves and then about the world around us.

God too thinks about Himself from all eternity and the ‘thought’ about Himself is His Son.

God loves His Son from all eternity and this ‘Love’ is the ‘Holy Spirit.’

Father, Son and Holy Spirit are the three Persons in one God.

These words that are used to explain the mystery of the ‘Holy Trinity’ explain why ‘God the Son’ is called ‘Word’ by St. John.

In human language ‘thought’ and ‘word’ are one and same thing,

because we cannot think except in terms of ‘word’.

So St. John who is a human being like us uses the word ‘word’ to refer to the Son.

‘In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God’.  (John 1:1).

We should not mean ‘In the beginning’ in the human way as God has no beginning.

He is eternal.

God the Father begets His Son from all eternity.

‘All things were made through Him. (J. 1:3)

So man was made through God the Son.

Here we should keep in mind that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one God and the world was created by ‘One God.’

God loves man as He loves Himself.

This love reflects in Jesus’ saying, ‘Love your neighbour as you love yourself.’

When man, created by God, lost his relationship with Him by his sin,

the ‘Word’ of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity ‘became flesh’ i.e. became man,

to redeem us from our sin and restore our lost relationship with God.

The ‘Word’ is a spirit and to amend for the sins committed by ‘flesh’ (man) He had to become ‘flesh’.

His love for us is so great that even after redeeming us

He wants to dwell with us,

rather, in us,

always by giving His own flesh as our spiritual food.

Can we find a greater love than this, giving one’s flesh as food anywhere?

As a man, He was like us in all respects, except sin.

He was hungry, tired and sorrowful like us.

He suffered and died for us. He endured all the human drawbacks for us.

In order to dwell with us always He instituted the Sacrament of Eucharist

so that we can enjoy His real presence with us always.

Besides giving us Himself as our spiritual food during Holy Mass,

He is waiting for us in the Tabernacle day and night to be visited by us.

Whom we receive as Holy Communion is the very same Jesus

who died for us on the Cross with the same body and blood.

Thus The Word who became Flesh 2019 years ago is still dwelling with us.

Let make use of His presence with us for our spiritual betterment and our salvation.

Lourdu Selvam.