There’s an old liturgical practice that began at Salisbury cathedral in medieval England called the “Last Gospel.” The practice began as a private devotion of the priest who would read, on his own, at the end of Mass, the Prologue of John’s Gospel (which we just heard). Over time, this private devotional practice was absorbed into the official rubrics of the Mass so the priest would read aloud John’s Prologue after giving the final blessing. In medieval England, this was the only part of the Latin Mass that was read in the vernacular, in English. And when the priest arrived at that phrase, “The Word became flesh,” he and the entire congregation would genuflect. This remained a common practice in Roman Catholic churches until Vatican II, when it was omitted, some say because there were too many superstitious beliefs associated with the reading of these words. Some believed that simply reading and hearing these words had the power to drive out demons and evil spirits as well as sickness and disease. These days, we hear this reading of John’s Prologue maybe once or twice a year around Christmas time, but for hundreds of years, this was read at the end of every single Mass so that most people had it memorized, especially that most important phrase of all: And the Word became flesh. Et Verbum caro factum est.
I love that this “Last Gospel” practice seemed to have originated in England because the Gospel of John has remained the most favored and beloved Gospel among the English and Anglicans for whom the mystery of the Incarnation remains central. For Christmas this year, I received a book titled In the Eagle’s Wake: Interpreting the Gospel of John from Origen to Eckhart by Bernard McGinn; and in it, he summarizes the sermons and commentaries on the Gospel of John by medieval saints and scholars, including the pope responsible for founding the Ecclesia Anglicana in 597: St. Gregory the Great; the Father of English Spirituality known as the Venerable Bede; and the Celtic mystical theologian John Scotus Eriugena. Each of them engaged deeply and creatively with the prologue to John and they all seemed to agree that the traditional author of the Gospel, John the Evangelist, begins his Gospel by soaring like an eagle among the highest heavens in his prologue, proclaiming “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” And this is why our Christian tradition has associated St. John the Evangelist with the symbol of the eagle (which is why McGinn’s book is titled In the Eagle’s Wake and which is why we have an eagle lectern). The English medieval scholars (Gregory, Bede, and Eriugena) also seem to agree that the eagle lands as the Evangelist proclaims that “the Word became flesh,” that phrase which Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple called the most important phrase in all of Christianity, that phrase that compelled the faithful for centuries to bow and genuflect.
Now we bow and genuflect often throughout the liturgy of the Holy Eucharist. Our custom here is to bow a simple bow whenever the name of our Lord Jesus Christ is spoken during the liturgy. We also bow to the Cross as it passes by in the procession. And we bow a solemn bow at the Sanctus during the Eucharistic Prayer and after the Great Amen. There is also a custom to genuflect (bend the knee) toward the altar or tabernacle before entering one’s pew. These are certainly not requirements for Episcopalians, but they are powerful, ancient, biblically rooted, embodied practices that express our humility, love, and devotion to God. When I read the Gospel of John alongside the English and Anglican scholars, I not only see numerous invitations to embodied spiritual practice, but also an invitation to bow or genuflect at all expressions of the mystery of the Incarnation, including at those words Et Verbum caro factum est.
In his reflections on the Johannine prologue, The Venerable Bede writes, “[Christ] was born God from God, and he did not wish to remain only the Son of God; he deigned also to become Son of Man, not losing what he had been, so that by this he might transform human beings into sons of God and might make them co-heirs of his glory, and that by grace they might begin to possess what he himself had always possessed by nature.”[1] But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.
McGinn concludes his 400-page tome with these words: “the Incarnation (‘enfleshment’) of the Logos [Word] in the person of Jesus Christ, the wandering preacher from Galilee, was directed from the start to bring about the equally astounding development that ‘humans could become the children of God’ (Jn 1:12-13). John’s essential message is clear: the Incarnation was always intended for human deification. Theosis is what it is all about…if there is one central message to take from this history, the unity of Incarnation and deification is it.”[2] God became human so that humans can become God. God participated in the human experience so that we can participate in the divine experience.
So, the soaring eagle of John lands among us, and when we receive the Word-made-flesh with the humility and reverence and love that is expressed and embodied in a simple or solemn bow or a genuflection, may we be prepared for the eagle to then carry us away on a life-long and everlasting journey of deification, making us to shine like the sun.
I invite you to experiment with bowing and genuflecting during the service and, after the final blessing today, I invite us to engage together in that ancient and medieval practice of “the Last Gospel.” After I offer the final blessing, I will read John’s prologue and, when we arrive at the “Word became flesh,” let us bow or genuflect as we are able and thus express, in our bodies, not only our humility and reverence for God but also the descent and ascent of the humble Christ who seeks to deify us. Amen.
[1] McGinn, Eagle, 184.
[2] McGinn, Eagle, 411.
DANIEL DeFOREST LONDON 