Two Hours Traffic

Appreciating John’s prologue and our personal prologues

12/31/2024

Jn 1:1-18 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light  of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. A man named John was sent from God. He came for testimony, to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

One of the unique features of Shakespeare’s plays is the introductory prologue. Serious students of Shakespeare know there is a lot to learn from those first few lines. For example, listen to the opening 15 verses of the familiar play, “Romeo and Juliet.” “Two households, both alike in dignity, / (In fair Verona, where we lay our scene), / Where ancient grudge break to new mutiny, / Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.”

“From forth the fatal loins of these two foes / A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life; / Whose misadventures piteous overthrows / Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife. / The fearful passage of their death-marked love / And the continuance of their parents’ rage, / Which, but their children’s end, naught could remove, / Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage; / the which, if you with patient ears attend, / What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.”

Did you catch all that? Because if you did, you would not have to read the rest of the play. Why not? Well, because the prologue basically touches all the themes you will hear in the play: two feuding families, two star-crossed lovers, their untimely deaths, and the healing of this ancient family rivalry. The prologue, therefore, is the whole play in a nutshell, in this case, in 15 verses.

In the gospel today, St. John takes a page out of Shakespeare’s playbook (pun intended), and introduces the traffic of his entire 21 chapter gospel in the first 18 verses. John touches the main themes he will develop, such as, light and darkness, the Word of God, the testimony of St. John the Baptist, being born again, God’s glory, the Son of God.

In other words, just as Shakespeare prepared his readers for the two hours' traffic of his stage, so John prepares his readers for the 21 chapter traffic of his gospel. Prologues serve as powerful introductions and should not be overlooked or brushed aside quickly, but rather scrutinized closely and studied assiduously.

My friends, I would suggest to you that each of us has a personal prologue in our lives. What do I mean? Well, psychologists tell us that the first seven years of a person’s life are intensely programmatic because in those initial years we develop our basic character and the rough contours of our personalities. Our life experiences in our first seven years essentially tell us what kind of person we will be and what kind of life we can expect to live.

The ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle, said, “Give me a child until he is 7, and I will show you the man.” So, today, at the end of 2024, let me invite you to go back in your mind’s eye and through your memory banks and carefully study your own personal prologue, the first seven years of your life. Who you are today was already preprogrammed in those introductory years, like we see in Shakespeare’s and St. John’s powerful prologues.

If I might use myself as a guinea pig, let me share some of my personal prologue. I was raised in India and lived my first seven years in the capital city New Delhi. Even though most of my memories are sketchy, those early childhood experiences made me the man you hear talking to you today.

For example, Indian society, at least in the early 1970’s, was deeply structured in the caste system. People were born, grew up, and died either as the untouchables, lower, middle, or the highest priestly caste. No wonder I wanted to become a priest! Another theme those first seven years touched upon was the traumatic move from India to the United States. It was traumatic but also taught me a great truth: all things are fragile, and finally we lose them. But God alone endures forever.

In the prologue of my life I woke up to the eternal existence of God, and simultaneously, the fickle existence of everything else. No wonder I find myself irresistibly drawn to what is enduring or even classical, like Shakespeare’s plays, and I turn my nose up at fashions and fad that come and go. As Archbishop Fulton Sheen once remarked: “Marry this age, and you become a widow in the next.”

Folks, go back and reread St. John’s Prologue because that brilliant saint has wisely prepared you to hear the rest of his gospel. And then go back and review your own personal prologue, the first seven years of your life. More than you yourself, the Holy Spirit is the Author of your life, and there he too touches the main themes you will see for the 80 or 90 years’ traffic of your life.

Praised be Jesus Christ!