5 December 2026 · Syro-Malankara Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Syro-Malabar Rite · Latin Rite · മലയാളം
“The police answered, “Never has anyone spoken like this!”” John 7:46
Paul tells Timothy to have nothing to do with silly myths and to “train yourself in godliness”. Physical training has some value, but godliness is valuable in every way, “holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.” That is what a fast is: spiritual training. Mar Saba, whom the East remembers today, trained himself for decades in the desert and founded a monastery that still stands near Jerusalem.
The temple police were sent to arrest Jesus and came back empty-handed. Asked why, they could only say: “Never has anyone spoken like this!” The crowds argue whether he is the prophet or the Messiah; the leaders sneer that no prophet comes from Galilee. Only Nicodemus asks for a fair hearing. In this fast, let us give Jesus that fair hearing, listening to his word until, like the police, we are disarmed by it.
Theme: “Never has anyone spoken like this.”
Training in godliness, listening to the Word.
“This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; you shall meditate on it day and night,” Joshua 1:8
“for, while physical training is of some value, godliness is valuable in every way, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.” 1 Timothy 4:8
Apply: Add five minutes of silent prayer to each day of the fast.
“My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” Psalm 42:2
“For to this end we toil and struggle, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.” 1 Timothy 4:10
Apply: Offer your fasting as a prayer of hope.
“I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak to them everything that I command.” Deuteronomy 18:18
“The police answered, “Never has anyone spoken like this!”” John 7:46
Apply: Read one Gospel chapter slowly today.
The fast trains us; the Word disarms us.
Let us listen to Jesus.
Take-home resolution: Read the whole Gospel of Luke during the fast, a few verses each day.
Dear friends, today the Church remembers Mar Saba, the great monk of the Judean desert, and St Clement of Alexandria, an early teacher of the faith. Both trained themselves in godliness.
St Paul tells Timothy: train yourself in godliness, for while physical training is of some value, godliness is valuable in every way, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come (1 Timothy 4:7–8). We train our bodies for health; how much more should we train our souls?
The fast is spiritual training. Like an athlete, we practise small disciplines: getting up for prayer, controlling our tongue, saying no to some food, saying yes to charity. These small exercises make the soul strong.
In the Gospel the people are divided about Jesus. Some say he is the prophet, others the Messiah. The temple police, sent to arrest him, return empty-handed and say: never has anyone spoken like this! (John 7:40–46). His words disarmed them.
Nicodemus, who had come to Jesus by night, now speaks up a little for him: our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing (John 7:51). It is a small step of courage, but it is a beginning. Faith often grows by small steps.
This week, let us take one small step of courage for Christ, and one step of training in godliness. The Lord who spoke like no one else still speaks to us in the Gospel. Let us listen. Amen.
Children, athletes train their bodies; Christians train their hearts with prayer and kindness. Train your heart today!
Lord Jesus, no one has ever spoken as you speak. Train us in godliness during this fast, set our hope on the living God, and through the prayers of Mar Saba, let your word disarm our hearts. Amen.
Paul tells Timothy to train himself in godliness as an athlete trains his body, which is a fitting word in a fast. John shows the crowd, the temple police and the authorities divided over Jesus, and one man, Nicodemus, asking only that he be given a fair hearing. Training in godliness begins with this kind of honest listening.
Setting.
The First Letter to Timothy, received by the Church among the letters of St Paul, gives guidance to a young church leader at Ephesus. Just before this passage it warns of teachers who “forbid marriage and demand abstinence from foods”, and answers that “everything created by God is good” (4:3–4). So the training Paul now commends is not contempt for the body or for food. Christian fasting does not come from thinking creation is bad.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Have nothing to do with profane myths and old wives’ tales. Train yourself in godliness,” (4:7)
The contrast is between speculation that goes nowhere and practice that changes a life.
“for, while physical training is of some value, godliness is valuable in every way, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.” (4:8)
Bodily training is not despised: it has “some value”. But its benefits end with this life, while godliness carries over.
“For to this end we toil and struggle, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.” (4:10)
“Struggle” translates a word used for athletic contests. The effort is not self-improvement: it is hope in a God who wants to save all (compare 1 Timothy 2:4).
How the Church reads it.
“There is no holiness without renunciation and spiritual battle,” says the Catechism, and spiritual progress requires ascesis and mortification (CCC 2015). The two saints of today lived this in different ways. Mar Saba spent long years in the desert and founded a community of monks there. St Clement of Alexandria wrote a work called The Tutor (Paedagogus), in which Christ is the one who patiently trains Christians in daily conduct.
Setting.
The scene is the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem (7:2). On its last day Jesus has cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me” (7:37). The crowd is now divided. Some think he is “the prophet” like Moses promised in Deuteronomy 18:15; some, the Messiah; some object that he is from Galilee. Temple police sent earlier to arrest him (7:32) come back without him.
John does not speak here of a whole people rejecting Jesus. He shows a division among ordinary people and among the authorities themselves, and a member of the council who speaks up for him. The Church firmly teaches that the Jewish people as a whole must not be blamed for what happened to Jesus (Nostra Aetate 4; CCC 597–598).
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Has not the scripture said that the Messiah is descended from David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David lived?”” (7:42)
The speakers are right about the Scriptures (2 Samuel 7:12; Micah 5:2). John leaves an irony for his Christian readers, who know the stories of Jesus' birth: the objection is mistaken because the speakers do not know who stands before them.
“The police answered, “Never has anyone spoken like this!”” (7:46)
Men sent with authority return disarmed by a voice. They offer no argument; they only report what they heard.
““Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?”” (7:51)
Nicodemus, who came “by night” (3:2), speaks by day now. Deuteronomy 1:16–17 commands fair hearings. He will appear once more, bringing myrrh and aloes for the burial (19:39).
“[[ Then each of them went home,” (7:53)
A note on the text. The NRSV brackets v. 53 because it begins the story of the woman taken in adultery (7:53–8:11), which is missing from the earliest Greek manuscripts of John. The Church receives that passage as inspired Scripture all the same.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism points to this scene to show that the religious authorities in Jerusalem were not of one mind about Jesus: Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea were secret disciples, and there was long-standing dissension about him (CCC 595). The objection about Galilee reminds Christians that human knowledge, even of Scripture, needs humility before the living Word.
Did no prophet come from Galilee?
The Pharisees' claim in v. 52 is spoken in anger and is not strictly accurate: 2 Kings 14:25 says the prophet Jonah came from Gath-hepher, a town in the region later called Galilee. John simply reports the words, and his readers can see how little the argument holds.
Mar Saba (died 532) founded the Great Lavra in the Judean desert, which still has monks today; St John of Damascus, remembered yesterday, lived there. St Clement of Alexandria (died around 215) was an early Christian teacher who took the wisdom of the Greeks seriously and led it to Christ. Between them they show the two sides of the Eastern Christian inheritance: the desert and the school. A fast in the Malankara tradition needs both: self-denial and the hearing of the word.