Jn 1, 1-9 In the beginning was the Word

Gospel according to John
John 1

(Jn 1, 1-9) In the beginning was the Word

[1] In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. [2] He was in the beginning with God. [3] All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be [4] through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; [5] the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. [6] A man named John was sent from God. [7] He came for testimony, to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. [8] He was not the light, but came to testify to the light. [9] The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

(CCC 291) "In the beginning was the Word… and the Word was God… all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made" (Jn 1:1-3). The New Testament reveals that God created everything by the eternal Word, his beloved Son. In him "all things were created, in heaven and on earth… all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together" (Col 1:16-17). The Church's faith likewise confesses the creative action of the Holy Spirit, the "giver of life", "the Creator Spirit" ("Veni, Creator Spiritus"), the "source of every good" (Cf. Nicene Creed: DS 150; Hymn “Veni, Creator Spiritus"; Byzantine Troparion of Pentecost vespers, "O heavenly King, Consoler"). (CCC 240) Jesus revealed that God is Father in an unheard-of sense: he is Father not only in being Creator; he is eternally Father by his relationship to his only Son who, reciprocally, is Son only in relation to his Father: "No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him“ (Mt 11-27). (CCC 241) For this reason the apostles confess Jesus to be the Word: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"; as "the image of the invisible God"; as the "radiance of the glory of God and the very stamp of his nature" (Jn 1:1; Col 1:15; Heb 1:3). (CCC 717) "There was a man sent from God, whose name was John" (Jn 1:6). John was "filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb"(Lk 1:15, 41) by Christ himself, whom the Virgin Mary had just conceived by the Holy Spirit. Mary's visitation to Elizabeth thus became a visit from God to his people (Cf. Lk 1:68). (CCC 718) John is "Elijah [who] must come" (Mt 17:10-13; cf. Lk 1:78). The fire of the Spirit dwells in him and makes him the forerunner of the coming Lord. In John, the precursor, the Holy Spirit completes the work of "[making] ready a people prepared for the Lord" (Lk 1:17).