HOMILY FOR SECOND SUNDAY OF CHRISTMAS

Fr Billy Swan

Dear friends. When you go to an opera, it is common that the orchestra plays an overture of music before the show begins, that contains the main airs of the musical pieces that will follow in the opera itself.

Today, the Church puts before us once again, the first chapter of St John’s Gospel that is widely recognised as a literary and spiritual masterpiece. It is like the overture of an opera that anticipates the themes that will follow in the Gospel itself. It is a panoramic view of Jesus’ identity and mission that climaxes in the verse that is also the response of today’s Psalm: ‘The Word became flesh and lived among us’. On this first Sunday of the new year, I would like to reflect on today’s Gospel through the lens of a prayer we hear at every Mass at the end of the Eucharistic prayer: ‘Through Him, with Him and in Him, O God almighty Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honour is yours forever and ever. Amen’. The hope is that for 2026, all of us will make a new beginning ‘Through Him, with Him and in Him’.

First, ‘Through Him’. Today’s Gospel tells us that ‘through him all things came to be’. This means that in the mystery of how the Father created the universe, all the realities it contains are somehow united in Christ because all things were created ‘through him’. Here is basis of what Christians have always believed – namely, that the wonderful universe that we inhabit is not just a collection of trillions of singular units but that everything is inter-related and held together. The Church has always believed that Jesus Christ is the answer to the question of ‘the One and the Many’ and the harmony necessary for everything and everyone to hold together. ‘Through Him’ also speaks of Jesus as our intercessor and priest. He is the bridge between God and humanity – the One who connects us with the Father and the One with whom we identify as our brother. In the words of St Augustine: ‘He prays for us as our priest, He prays in us as our head, He is the object of our prayers as our God’ (Commentary on Psalm 85).

Second, ‘With Him’. The prophet Isaiah foretold that the name of the Messiah would be ‘Emmanuel’, the name which means, God is with us. This was fulfilled with the birth of Jesus that we celebrate at Christmas (Matt. 1:23). In today’s Gospel, it is summed up with the key phrase: ‘The Word became flesh and lived among us’. This promise of always being with us was made by Jesus at the end of his earthly life when he said to his disciples: ‘I am with you always, yes, until the end of time’ (Matt. 28:20). Recommitting ourselves to Christ at the beginning of a new year means placing our trust that this is true – no matter what happens this year, we will never be alone. The Spirit and presence of the Lord will always be with us. As we discover from today’s Gospel, Christ’s presence with us is not neutral. It doesn’t leave us unchanged. Jesus brings with him light, grace and truth – light to overcome darkness; grace that makes all things new and truth to combat deception and every kind of falsehood.

Thirdly and finally, ‘In Him’. One of the earliest descriptions of baptism is the ‘vitae spiritualis ianua’, which means ‘the door to the spiritual life’. To believe and to be baptised is to enter into the mystery of Christ. We become part of Him or ‘In Him’. We become part of his mystical body which is the Church. To grasp the full meaning of this is to understand something really decisive about Christianity.

Christianity is not primarily about ‘becoming a good person’ or ‘doing the right thing’. Let’s face it: Anyone—pagan, Muslim, Jew, nonbeliever—can be any of those things.

To be a Christian is to be grafted on to Christ and hence drawn into the very dynamics of the inner life of God. This is what the Gospel today reminds us. To us who accept Him, he gives us power to ‘become children of God’. Faith and baptism draw us into the relationship between the Father and the Son, which is to say in the Holy Spirit. Baptism, therefore, is all about grace—our incorporation, through the power of God’s love, into God’s own life.

Friends, as 2026 begins and as we make our new year resolutions, together may we renew our commitment to living a more spiritual and religious life. May our lives be centred every day on Christ as we pray to God ‘Through Him’; may we live every day ‘With Him’ and may we know our deepest identity as beloved children of God ‘In Him’.

And may our lives, filled with his grace and truth, become a beautiful opera of music that the world longs to hear.