The Church keeps company today with two friends whose lives were a single hymn to the Trinity: Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen. Their time was crowded with clever distortions of the Gospel, yet they answered them with prayer, learning, pastoral courage, and charity. The readings fittingly speak of abiding in the truth of the Son and bearing witness without self-importance. They give us a map for a new year: remain in Christ, recognize him already among us, and become a clear voice that prepares his way.
“Who are you?” and the grace of saying “I am not”
In the Gospel, priests and Levites ask John the Baptist the question that echoes through every age: “Who are you?” John could have taken advantage of the attention. Instead he empties the stage of himself: “I am not the Christ… I am not… No.” Only then does he speak positively, borrowing the prophet’s language: “I am the voice of one crying out in the desert, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord.’”
John’s self-knowledge is Christ-knowledge. He understands himself in relation to the One who is coming: “There is one among you whom you do not recognize, the one who is coming after me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie.” This is not self-contempt; it is clarity. The voice exists to serve the Word. The water prepares for the Fire.
There is something quietly liberating here for contemporary life, in which title, platform, and self-brand are constant temptations. The Gospel offers a different grammar of identity. First, clear renunciation: naming what we are not, so that false expectations do not colonize our hearts. Then, receiving a mission that points beyond us. Our credibility, like John’s, depends less on our impressiveness and more on transparent reference to Christ.
Practical questions can help: What am I trying to be for others that only Christ can be? In projects and conversations, do I make room for Another to arrive, or do I fill the space with myself? John’s desert is not escape; it is a cleared path.
The anointing that remains
St. John writes with urgency: “Who is the liar? Whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ.” To deny the Son is to lose the Father; to confess the Son is to receive the Father. Between those poles moves all Christian discernment. The apostle then speaks of an interior compass: “The anointing that you received from him remains in you… his anointing teaches you about everything… just as it taught you, remain in him.”
Anointing (chrisma) and Christ (Christos) belong together. The early Church knew that to confess Jesus as the Christ is to receive the Spirit’s anointing, especially through baptism and confirmation. The Spirit does not dispense with the Church’s teaching; he makes us docile to it from within and vigilant against counterfeit gospels.
Here the memorial saints are luminous. Basil the Great’s treatise On the Holy Spirit defended with precision the divinity and personhood of the Spirit, safeguarding the very anointing John describes. Gregory Nazianzen’s Theological Orations proclaimed, with contemplative fire, the full divinity of the Son: what is not assumed is not healed; the Savior is truly God from true God. They lived in a century when it seemed intellectually sophisticated to reduce Jesus to a splendid creature. They answered not with slogans but with worship-purified reason and lives poured out in charity.
Our own time is not short on denials, though they wear subtler clothes. Jesus as inspiring teacher but not Lord; as symbol but not Sacrament; as private consolation but not Judge and Friend who claims my whole life. John’s counsel is not combative posturing but steady abiding: let what you heard from the beginning remain in you. The beginning includes Scripture, the Creed, the sacramental life, and the communion of saints; precisely the places where Basil and Gregory help us hear the Son today.
A new song at the ends of the earth
Psalm 98 invites a fresh voice: “Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done wondrous deeds… All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation by our God.” The new song is not novelty for its own sake. It is the old truth sung with renewed gratitude because God keeps doing what only God can do: he saves. He reveals justice, remembers kindness, and makes himself known publicly, not merely in private spiritual enclaves.
Basil gave this psalm flesh. As bishop of Caesarea, he organized care for the sick and poor in a vast complex later called the Basiliad. Doctrinal clarity in him was never a sterile correctness; it became hospitable structures, bread, medicine, and dignity. Gregory, made bishop against his preference, preached Christ with beautiful austerity and reconciled a divided flock. Orthodoxy sang through orthopraxy.
A resolution for the new year worth keeping: sing the truth with works. Let confession of the Son take on the tangible accents of justice, mercy, and fidelity; in family patterns, parish initiatives, workplace integrity. The Church’s song is heard when the hungry are fed and the lonely are received.
Friendship in the light
Basil and Gregory’s most distinctive witness may be their friendship. As students they stirred one another to holiness; as bishops they bore each other’s burdens; when controversy threatened to turn them into pawns, they chose God’s will over human favor; even at personal cost. Their companionship was neither pious sentimentality nor mere alliance; it was a school of truth and charity.
Remaining in the anointing is not a solo project. To abide in the Son is to live among his friends. Serious Christians know the need for companions who help them say “I am not” to false roles and “I am” to a God-given vocation. In a culture that often prizes utility over communion, pursuing friendships that make space for prayer, frank conversation, and shared service can be a quiet revolution.
Perhaps name one or two friendships this week that need rekindling in the light; through an honest apology, a word of gratitude, or an invitation to pray together. Grace often travels along human lines of trust.
“One among you whom you do not recognize”
John’s startling claim is enduring: the Christ already stands “among you,” yet he goes unrecognized. Recognition is a theological act. God has “spoken to us through his Son,” says the Alleluia from Hebrews. But to discern that voice within the noise requires the humility of the Baptist and the steady receptivity commended by the apostle.
Where might the unrecognized One be waiting now?
- In the Eucharist, veiled yet wholly present, summoning faith and adoration.
- In the poor and vulnerable, as Basil insisted, where love of doctrine becomes love of persons.
- In the Church’s teaching, sometimes inconvenient yet medicinal.
- In the tedious parts of our vocation; the repetitive tasks of parenting, the hidden sacrifices of caregiving; where fidelity becomes a straight path for the Lord.
Making straight the way is rarely dramatic. It looks like cleaning the motives behind a good deed; choosing silence over gossip; turning a screen off to make time for Scripture; setting aside a portion of income for those in need; asking hard questions gently; receiving correction without bristling. These are the ordinary carpenter-tools of sanctity.
Abide, confess, rejoice
John the Apostle hands on a simple sequence: remain in what you heard; confess the Son; receive the promise; eternal life. Basil and Gregory show that such remaining is not rigidity but stability; such confession is not stridency but praise; such promise begins to shine even now.
On this memorial and at the threshold of a year, a brief prayer can frame the day: Spirit of the Anointed One, renew in me the anointing I received. Let me recognize the Son, confess him without embarrassment, and work for the Father’s praise. Make me a voice that does not drown out the Word. And through the intercession of Basil and Gregory, teach me to love truth with mercy until all the ends of the earth sing a new song.