Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Tag: Baptism

  • The Baptism of the Lord

    The Baptism of the Lord

    Today’s readings

    Let’s reflect on two things today: the violence and the voice.

    First, the violence.  Back on the first Sunday of Advent we read from the book of the prophet Isaiah.  That particular reading was focusing on how bad things had become.  People were cheating one another, especially the poor and the powerless.  Corruption was just kind of accepted as the way things were.  Worst of all, people had become rather callous or indifferent to it all; they were jaded and just accepted that bad was the new good.  I was thinking that the things Isaiah lamented could well be lamented in our own day.  The poor seem to get poorer, and more powerless, especially today as companies fail through the greed of a few, affecting the livelihood of thousands.  Corruption in our government has led to scandal in the highest office in our state.  And worst of all, we’re not surprised by any of it any more.

    On that first day of Advent, Isaiah wrapped up his lament of all that nonsense with the frightening words: “Would that you would rend the heavens and come down.”  It’s a pretty violent prayer that he’s praying.  Isaiah is acknowledging that very little is going to attract our attention any more, so the best God can do is to violently tear open the heavens, a kind of barrier between God and us, if you will, and come down.  Only by God’s walking among us and being one of us can things ever be made right.  We need that kind of violent act of God because nothing else has worked.  The flood didn’t work, the wandering in the desert didn’t work, the captivity in Babylon didn’t work.  Maybe those things worked for a while, but we fickle humans soon forgot the lessons we learned in those momentous events.  To get our attention and keep it, something truly earth-shattering, or rather heaven-shattering, had to happen.

    Today we celebrate that that’s exactly what happened.  We gather here today on the last day of the Christmas season, during our continued celebration of Epiphany that began last Sunday.  Epiphany means “manifestation:” we celebrate that God appeared among us, was made manifest among us, became one of us.  Last week’s epiphany was the three magi coming to meet the Christ child with their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.  They worshipped the child who would be king, would be our priest, and would die for our sins.  Today’s epiphany finds Jesus to be an adult, approaching the rivers of the Jordan for baptism.  As he enters those waters of baptism, he isn’t really changed or made holier by those waters.  No, he makes the waters holy by entering them himself.  Through this act, all of the waters of baptism, including the ones that bathed you and me, have been made holy.  And most importantly, that violent act that redeemed us happened: coming up out of the waters, the heavens were torn open – those are the words Mark uses here – “torn open.”  The barrier between God and humanity is sundered now, God has entered human history once again and in a decisive and heaven-shattering event.

    Second, the voice.  The voice in our Gospel story continues the epiphany, that voice comes from those heavens which have been torn open.  First, the Spirit descends on Jesus in the form of a dove, and then the voice roars out of those open heavens: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”  For that brief moment, we see the entire Holy Trinity together at one moment.  We have Jesus coming up out of the water, the Holy Spirit descending upon him, and the Father’s voice roaring out of the heavens.  The epiphany is complete: God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are made manifest at the waters of the Jordan.  God has valued his creation of humanity so much that he appears among us in force, in the completeness of the Trinity, with all of the love that that Holy Trinity gives to us.

    Significant here is what the voice says in that moment.  “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”  In saying that, the Father confirms the manifestation of his Son in  the world, gives him a Father’s blessing, and empowers his work of redemption.  The words are words of mission – being the Son means that he represents the Father in every act and word.  Now I don’t know about you, but I didn’t hear any voices at my baptism.  At least I don’t think so; I was a baby.

    But probably even those who were baptized as adults don’t remember any kind of extra special voice.  But the thing about baptism, is that we’ve all heard that voice at numerous times since, haven’t we?  Whenever we were faced with choices: the easy way out or the way of integrity; the truth or a lie; an opportunity to help someone, or move on; an effort to correct a wrong or turn a blind eye – didn’t we hear an interior voice reminding us who we are by our baptism?  “You are my beloved child with you I am well pleased.”  Didn’t we pray for guidance to make the right choices and strength to follow through on our decisions?

    At those decisive and testing moments did we turn to God for help?  Because the violence and the voice should be strong enough hints about God’s love for us to do that.  Or have we ignored the violence and the voice, turned instead toward more selfish motives, and become just as jaded as those Israelites who needed Isaiah to pray that God would rend the heavens and come down?

    Jesus’ baptism today is a decisive event.  It meant mission for him: God had the special act of human redemption to accomplish in the person of Jesus.  It meant authority for him: as God’s Son he had the authority of the Father to accomplish what desperately needed to be.  Our own baptisms mean mission and authority too.  We are given a mission of some kind – something specific God wants us to accomplish.  And we have the authority to do that mission by being called sons and daughters of God.  In our own baptism God says to us too: “You are my beloved Son – You are my beloved daughter, and with you I am well pleased.”  The rite of baptism says that explicitly.  After the act of baptism by water, the priest or deacon says, “They are now called children of God.”

    And so, on this feast of the Baptism of the Lord, this Epiphany day, this last day of the Christmas season, we celebrate vocation – the realization that every one of us has a mission as the result of our baptism.  We know that every person has a vocation. Every person is called on by God to do something specific with their life that will bring not only them, but also others around them, to salvation. Parents help to bring their children to salvation by raising them in the faith. Teachers help bring students to salvation by educating them and helping them to develop their God-given talents. Business people bring others to salvation by living lives of integrity and witness to their faith by conducting business fairly and with justice and concern for the needy. The list goes on. Every vocation, every authentic vocation, calls the disciple to do what God created them for, and helps God to bring salvation to the whole world.

    And so, to celebrate this week of Vocation Awareness, I invite you to do three things.  First, encourage people to embrace their God-given vocation.  Invite them to consider life as a priest or religious brother or sister.  Parents and grandparents are especially important in helping children know that a religious vocation is a viable option for them.  But everyone can encourage someone they know to embrace the vocation God has given them, whatever that vocation may be.  Second, I invite you to pray for vocations.  Pray for more men to accept the call to priesthood and men and women to accept the call to the religious life.  Pray for those preparing for their vocations: priests and religious in formation, and couples preparing for marriage.  Pray for the faithful living of all holy vocations in the world as a way to build up the kingdom of God.  And third, live your own vocation – whatever it may be – well.  When we do that, we’ll never have to worry about a priest or religious shortage, because if we all live our vocations faithfully and in holiness, then that witness will provide vocations of every kind to build up the Church.

    It’s all about the violence, and the voice.  God cared enough for us to rip open those heavens and come down.  And he continues to speak to all of us through our baptisms: “You are my beloved child; with you I am well-pleased.”

  • CREEDS Retreat Conference I: Advent and the Incarnation of Christ

    CREEDS Retreat Conference I: Advent and the Incarnation of Christ

    Readings:  Matthew 1:18-25; Matthew 3:1-7

    Godspell:  “Prepare Ye” and “Save the People”

    One of the single greatest mysteries of our faith is the Incarnation of Christ.  When you stop to think about it, who are we that the Author of all Life should take on our own corrupt and broken form and become one of us?  It has been called the “marvelous exchange:” God became human so that humans could become more like God.  When I was in seminary, it was explained to us by a simple, yet divinely complex rule: Whatever was not assumed was not redeemed.  So God assumed our human nature, taking on all of our frailty and weakness, all of our sorrows and frustrations, all of the things that make being human difficult at times.  As the fourth Eucharistic Prayer puts it, he became “one like us in all things but sin.”

    This belief in the doctrine of the Incarnation is essential for our Catholic faith, even our Christian religion.  One cannot not believe in the Incarnation and call oneself Christian.  It’s part of our Creed: “By the power of the Holy Spirit, he was born of the Virgin Mary and became man.”  This doctrine is so important, so holy to us, that at the mention of it in the creed, we are instructed to bow during those words, and on Christmas, we are called to genuflect at that time.  There is always a reason for any movement in the Liturgy, and the reason for our bowing or genuflecting is that the taking on of our flesh by our God is an occasion of extreme grace, unparalleled in any religion in the world.  If the Incarnation had not taken place, there never would have been a Cross and Resurrection.  First things are always first!

    And so it seems that it’s appropriate as we being our reflections on Matthew’s Gospel to begin with the Incarnation.  It’s even more appropriate that we do that during this season of Advent, whose very name means “coming.”  During Advent, we begin this wonderful period of waiting with the cry of St. John the Baptist,

    “A voice of one crying out in the desert,
    ‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
    make straight his paths.’”

    And the movie and play Godspell famously does this with the wonderful refrain “Prepare ye the way of the Lord…”  You notice in the movie that this song accompanied the liturgical action of the players being baptized by the Baptist.  Their dancing after pledging repentance of the sins of their past life signifies the joy that we all share being on the precipice of something new this Advent.  They received the forerunner of our sacramental Baptism by the one who was the forerunner of Christ.  This baptism was a baptism for the forgiveness of sins like ours, but unlike ours, did not convey the Holy Spirit.  That would come later, after the death and Resurrection of Christ.  He had to return to the Father in order to send the Holy Spirit.

    But, as the song suggests, that baptism was essential to prepare the way for Christ.  The Benedictus, the Gospel canticle from the Church’s Morning Prayer, which is based on a passage from the Gospel of Luke, speaks of that baptism and the significance of the Baptist’s ministry:  “You my child will be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before him to prepare his way.  To give his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins.”  Indeed, if our sins had never been forgiven, we would know nothing of salvation, indeed there really would be no salvation.  But that baptism of St. John literally prepared the way of the Lord by helping the people to know that God was doing something significant among them.  That was the reason for them dancing and splashing around in all that water: they too were on the precipice of something new, something incredibly, amazingly, wonderfully new.

    Now in Matthew’s Gospel, we have an infancy narrative – a story of the birth of Christ.  “Now this is how the birth of Jesus came about,” the Gospel begins.  Mary is found with child through the Holy Spirit, and Joseph doesn’t know what to believe.  But in Matthew, Joseph is the one who gets a visit from an angel, not Mary.  And he is the first one to hear a key phrase in Matthew’s Gospel: “do not be afraid” – “do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home.”  Fear, for Matthew, is the cardinal sin, because it is fear that keeps us from responding in love to the movement of the Holy Spirit.  Apparently Mary had no such fear, because the beginning of the Gospel “finds” her already with child through the Holy Spirit.  The child is born to the couple and at the instruction of the angel, he is named Jesus, he is Emmanuel, God-with-us.

    In the movie, there is no infancy.  Christ comes at the end of John’s baptism sequence, and instructs John to baptize him because, as Jesus tells him, “it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”  As he is baptized, Jesus sings, “God save the people,” a prayer that is of course already being accomplished as he speaks.  The play seems to be a bit more pessimistic than the actual Gospel, because Jesus practically pleads for God’s mercy on his people, implying a relationship that was not nearly as close as the Gospels proclaim and our faith believes.  This is one of the little grains of salt we need to take from the movie; in fact it does seem to be an expression of the author’s take on the Jesus event.  So I’d just say don’t take Godspell as Gospel, if you know what I mean!

    And so the advent and Incarnation narratives give us some pause in these Advent days.  We have the opportunity to think about our own birth, or rebirth, in faith.  We get to make the paths straight and the way smooth for the coming of our Lord yet again.  Maybe these days find us struggling to come to a new place in our faith, a higher stage, a bold move.  We might tremble a bit at where God seems to be leading us through our study of Scripture.  But Matthew begs us to hear those all-important words – “be not afraid” – be not afraid to go where God and Scripture lead you.  Be not afraid to take the next step.  Be not afraid to ascend to that higher place God longs for you to be in right now.

  • Twenty-eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Twenty-eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    It was shortly after lunch that I finished this homily, and who could blame me?  With all this talk of “juicy, rich food” and wedding banquets, and even St. Paul saying that he knew what it was like to be well-fed and what it was like to be hungry, whose mind wouldn’t turn to food?  And that’s really okay, because all of us have come here [today / tonight] because we are hungry, but maybe hungry in a different way.

    Many people, when asked why they pick one church over another, say that they do it because it is at that church that they are “spiritually fed.”  And that is certainly one of the tasks of the church, to feed those who hunger with the spiritual food that comes from our Lord Jesus Christ.  And I think that’s the lens through which we have to see this rather curious Gospel parable today.

    When our modern ears hear this parable, there are surely things that seem odd about it, aren’t there?  First of all, as the wedding banquet is finished, the guests have to be summoned to the feast.  But in those days, they probably had received a formal invitation previously, and then had to be let know when the feast was ready.  But then we come to this very curious issue of the invited guests not wishing to attend.  What could possibly be keeping them away.  Even if they weren’t thrilled by the invitation and honored to attend, you’d think they would show up anyway because of who it is that is inviting them.  You would think they would want to keep the king happy.

    And many of us have been in the position of going to some social event because it is expected of us, I am sure.  I myself remember clearly attending events for work in my pre-priesthood days because clients or other VIPs were in the area.  Even in seminary, we were often “invited” to events that really were mandatory, which always used to drive me nuts.  But we can all relate in some way to attending some social event because it is expected of us, and not necessarily because we would choose to be there.

    And that makes what happens next even stranger.  Did they really think they could mistreat and kill the king’s messengers without any kind of consequences?  No king worth his salt would let such a disrespectful challenge to his authority go unpunished.

    But now the banquet is still ready and the guests are well, unavailable shall we say…  So the king sends the messengers out to all the public places in order to invite whomever they find.  And who are they going to find?  Well, probably pretty much what you’d expect: peddlers, butchers, beggars, prostitutes, tax collectors, shop lifters, the physically impaired and sick … in short, not the sort of people you’d expect to find at a king’s wedding banquet.

    So, to me, it’s not all that shocking that one of them is not appropriately dressed for the banquet.  What is shocking is that the rest of them are, right?  Some biblical scholars have suggested that perhaps the king, knowing who was going to show up, may have provided appropriate attire, and that one person refused to put it on.  Certainly if that were true, we could all understand the king throwing that person out.

    Putting the parable in context, the banquet is the kingdom of God.  The distinguished invited guests are the people to whom Jesus addressed the parable: the chief priests and the elders of the people.  These have all rejected the invitation numerous times, and would now make that rejection complete by murdering the messenger, the king’s son, Christ Jesus.  Because of this, God would take the kingdom from them, letting them go on to their destruction, and offer the kingdom to everyone that would come, possibly indicating the Gentiles, but certainly including everyone whose way of life would have been looked down upon by the chief priests and elders: prostitutes, criminals, beggars, the blind and lame.  All of these would be ushered in to the banquet, being given the new beautiful wedding garment which is baptism, of course, and treated to a wonderful banquet, which is the Eucharist.  Those who further reject the king by refusing to don that pristine garment may indeed be cast out, but to everyone who accepts the grace given them, a sumptuous banquet awaits.

    Can you imagine the hunger that those beggars, prostitutes, criminals, blind and lame people had?  Think about how filthy were the garments they had to be wearing.  Yet they are all washed clean in the waters of baptism, fed to satisfaction on the Bread of Life.

    If by now you’re thinking that the beggars, prostitutes, criminals, blind and lame are you and me, well, now you’re beginning to understand what Jesus is getting at.  Our sinfulness leaves us impoverished, and hardly worthy to attend the Banquet of the Lord.  It would only be just for our God to leave us off the invitation list.  But our God will do no such thing.  He washes us in the waters of baptism, clothing us in Christ, bringing us to the Banquet, and feeding us beyond our wildest imaginings.  We come here desiring to be spiritually fed, and our God offers us the very best: his own Son’s body and blood.

    [Today we join with our RCIA candidates for full communion, who are themselves answering the king’s invitation tonight.  They are one with us in baptism already, and in the days to come will complete the formation that will bring them along with us to the table of the Lord.  Their presence here stirs our own hearts, reminding us to keep that wedding garment pristine, and approach the Lord’s table with renewed love and devotion.]

    As we come to the Banquet today, we must certainly be overjoyed that our names are on the list.  We have been summoned and the banquet is prepared.  Now we approach the Banquet of the Lord with gratitude for the invitation, which is certainly undeserved, but just as certainly the cause of all our joy.  We sing this joy with our Psalmist today: “Only goodness and kindness follow me all the days of my life; and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD for years to come.”