Remember that in the pre-Vatican II liturgy the “last gospel” was proclaimed at every mass from the Prologue of St. John (John 1:1-18). Part of the rite was to genuflect at the line “and the Word became flesh.” While it is certainly a good practice to reverence the Incarnation, the prologue as St. John wrote it had a slighty different emphasis. The Prologue is a carefully constructed poem of a type familiar in Biblical times. A series of statements at the beginning of the poem are paralleled by statements at the end like so many parentheses. The very heart of the poem: to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God. The prologue is about us becoming what Jesus was.
