A
Reflection on John 1:29-34
On
this feast of the Most Holy Name of Jesus, we hear John the Baptist proclaim
something extraordinary: "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin
of the world." John is giving Jesus a name, a title that reveals his
deepest identity and mission. Just as parents choose a name for their child
with love and hope, God the Father has given his Son a name that contains the
entire story of our salvation. "Jesus" means "God saves,"
and today we celebrate that this name is not just a label, but a reality, God
himself has come to rescue us. When John points to Jesus and calls him the
Lamb, he's connecting Jesus to the Passover lamb whose blood saved God's people
in Egypt. But this Lamb is different: he doesn't just save one nation for one
night, but the whole world for all eternity.
John tells us something else remarkable: "I saw the Holy Spirit come down
like a dove from heaven and remain upon him." The Holy Spirit doesn't just
visit Jesus and leave, he remains. This is crucial. In the Rosary, we meditate
on the mysteries of Jesus's life, and in every single mystery, we find the
Trinity at work. When we pray the Joyful Mysteries, we see the Holy Spirit
overshadowing Mary at the Annunciation. In the Luminous Mysteries, we witness
the Holy Spirit descending at Jesus's baptism, the very moment John describes
today. In the Sorrowful Mysteries, Jesus offers himself to the Father through
the eternal Holy Spirit. And in the Glorious Mysteries, the Holy Spirit is
poured out at Pentecost. The Rosary isn't just repetition, it's training our
hearts to see what John saw: that wherever Jesus is, the Holy Spirit remains,
and the Father's love is made visible.
John says twice that he "did not know him" before the Holy Spirit
revealed who Jesus was. Think about that, John was Jesus's cousin, yet he
needed God to open his eyes to see the truth. We can be around Jesus our whole
lives, going to Mass, saying prayers, and still not truly know him if we don't
allow the Holy Spirit to reveal him to us. This is why we invoke the Holy Name
of Jesus, why we pray the Rosary, why we return again and again to Scripture.
Each Hail Mary is an invitation for the Holy Spirit to show us Jesus more
clearly, to help us recognize him as the Lamb of God in our own lives. Just as
John needed heaven to open and the Holy Spirit to descend to understand who was
standing before him, we need those same gifts to move from knowing about Jesus
to knowing Jesus himself. The name of Jesus, spoken with faith, becomes a
doorway through which the Holy Spirit can enter and teach us.
John's final words are his testimony: "I have seen and testified that he
is the Son of God." He saw, and then he spoke. He encountered Jesus, and
it changed everything, his vision, his mission, his voice. When we pray the
Rosary, we're asking for that same transformation. We're asking to see Jesus as
the Lamb who takes away our sins, to recognize the Holy Spirit's presence in
our lives, to know Jesus not just as a historical figure but as the living Son
of God. The mysteries of the Rosary become mysteries of our own lives when we
let them sink deep into our hearts.
Questions
to Consider:
•
How
often do I invoke the Holy Name of Jesus throughout my day, and what happens in
my heart when I do? Do I say his name with the reverence and faith that
acknowledges who he truly is?
•
When
I Pray the Rosary, am I simply reciting prayers, or am I asking the Holy Spirit
to reveal Jesus to me the way he revealed Jesus to John? What would change if I
approached each mystery expecting to truly "see" Jesus more clearly?
•
It
was the Holy Spirit that filled Elizabeth, so that John would recognize Jesus’s
Presence. What blindness might exist in my own life that prevents me from
recognizing Jesus in the people around me, in the Eucharist, or in the
circumstances I face each day?
©2026 James Dacey, Jr., OFS
