Bright Saturday
Acts 3:11-16; John 3:22-33
No fasting or abstention from foods
Read John 3:22-33
Christ is risen! Truly, He is risen!
Did you ever play a game when lining up at school where everyone raced to be “the first,” and when you didn’t quite make it, and so blurted out “first the worst, second the best!?” That pretty much sums up our continuing desire for prestige and recognition in whatever we do, especially as adults. We want to be noticed and appreciated. We want to be honoured and shy away from honouring unless we really need to.
St. John the Baptist shows us the secret to his joy today which is all about a reversal of this mad rush of seeking honour. John knows that he is not the Christ, and instead of seeking honour, he finds his joy in simply being the friend of the bridegroom. Having worked and struggled to prepare the people for the coming of the Lord, St. John the Forerunner rejoices in the fact that “He [Christ] must increase while he himself must decrease.” His satisfaction lies in humility and the honesty of knowing exactly who Christ is and who he himself is not!
In all that you do today in loving the Lord, you can keep the priority of loving the Lord first and your neighbour next by practising the short prayer that Catherine Doherty popularized through her writing and her actions: “I am Third.” God is first, my neighbour is second, and I am third. May we too, through this holy forgetfulness of self, come to find our joy is complete by turning more to the Lord!