Ignatius Loyola often reminds us that our love is more evident in what we do than in what we say. Our actions really do speak louder than our words. Today’s first reading on the feast of the evangelist St. John challenges us in a similar way to actually bear witness to Jesus, the Word of Life, who comes anew to our waiting world.

Of course our deeds flow from “what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked upon and our hands have touched,” as today’s first reading suggests. All of this forms the “word of life” which flows into the various activities of my daily living.

So how does this gift of new life affect what I say today, the judgments I make about another, my iPad and iPhone interactions, all I accomplish throughout this Christmas week?

—The Jesuit Prayer Team