At least for Roman Catholics in the United States, with this Sunday's celebration of the Lord's Baptism, the liturgical season of Christmas is over. Beginning Monday morning, we move to a brief season of Ordinary Time prior to Lent. I think it is important to point things like this out because the liturgical year is, or at least ought to be, the heart of Christian life, that is, spirituality.
Ending Christmas with our celebration of Jesus's baptism by John the Baptist in the River Jordan makes a lot of sense. The season takes us from Jesus's birth in an animal shelter, through his childhood and youth, to the beginning of his public ministry. Each year we observe the Paschal Mystery precisely by observing the seasons and celebrations of the liturgical year. I apologize in advance for the disjointed nature of what is to follow. This week, as I have been thinking about posting this reflection, I have experienced a flood of thoughts that have prompted various connections and affinities. The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord is an extremely important liturgical observance. As such, the message conveyed via the homily should be suitably prepared and well-delivered. When used properly, this feast can mark a very nice transition from our observance of Christmas to our call to mission.
It's important to point out that Jesus wasn't baptized by John merely to set a good example, showing his followers what to do in imitation. In Jesus's baptism the orders of grace and nature, once again, merge. This merging is the result of a collision. You see, when Jesus went down into the waters of the Jordan it was no so much that he got wet as it was that the waters got "Jesus'd."
Because the waters got Jesus'd, we can be reborn as God's children through the waters of baptism. Hearkening back to our participation in the Paschal Mystery through our celebration of the liturgies of the liturgical year, taking our cue from Saint Paul, in baptism we died, were buried, and rose with Christ to new life (see Romans 6:4-5; these verses constitute the heart of the epistle reading each year for the great Paschal/Easter Vigil). Paul goes on to note that in light of our dying, being buried, rising with Christ, "we believe that we shall also live with him" (Romans 6:8). Stated differently: eternal life is not the life that begins after mortal death, it starts at baptism!
Baptism is the fount of Christian life, not ordination. I am so happy Pope Francis grasps and teaches this so explicitly and so often. He is quite right to both come out against the clericialization of laity and to insist upon something that might be described as the "laicization" (of sorts) of the clergy. Those of us who are ordained are empowered by the sacrament of orders to serve our sisters and brothers and for no other reason. Our service is to facilitate their priestly vocation given in baptism, by means of which they, too, participate in Jesus's priestly, prophetic, and royal ministry. As Lumen Gentium, the Second Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution of the Church sets this forth:
the laity, by their very vocation, seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and by ordering them according to the plan of God. They live in the world, that is, in each and in all of the secular professions and occupations. They live in the ordinary circumstances of family and social life, from which the very web of their existence is woven. They are called there by God that by exercising their proper function and led by the spirit of the Gospel they may work for the sanctification of the world from within as a leaven. In this way they may make Christ known to others, especially by the testimony of a life resplendent in faith, hope and charity. Therefore, since they are tightly bound up in all types of temporal affairs it is their special task to order and to throw light upon these affairs in such a way that they may come into being and then continually increase according to Christ to the praise of the Creator and the Redeemer (sec. 31)This is why everyone who receives the sacrament of orders is ordained a deacon. Before there is sacrifice there must be service.
Like baptism and ordination, confirmation also imprints those who receive it with an indelible mark. It's easy to miss that in our Gospel reading today, Jesus is not only baptized but is confirmed too. His confirmation, according to Matthew, happens when the voice of the Father is heard to say- "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased"- and the Holy Spirit alights upon him in the form of a dove (see Matthew 3:16-17). What is confirmed? His divine Sonship. It's the same for you, my friend. When you were confirmed, in addition to receiving a fuller outpouring of the Holy Spirit, your baptismal identity as God's child through your rebirth in baptism was confirmed and strengthened. Just he does in his Only Begotten Son, the Father delights in you!
It was Nicholas Afanasiev, a Russian Orthodox theologian, in his still remarkable book The Church of the Holy Spirit, who insisted there are no unordained members of Christ's Church. Writing from an Eastern Christian perspective, for Afanasiev, this is true both infants and adults receive all three sacraments of initiation (i.e., baptism, confirmation, Eucharist) in succession during the same liturgy. In the Western Church, of course, unless there is a danger of death or other similarly expedient circumstance, people who are baptized as infants are not confirmed and do not receive the Eucharist until they've reached the age of reason. So, at least from the perspective of Latin Christianity, there are some unordained Church members- those who are baptized (perhaps even communed- communion before confirmation is utterly incoherent sacramentally- different subject) but not confirmed. Ideally, there remain no unordained Christians. It is important to complete one's Christian initiation.
In light of Afanasiev's observation that there are no unordained Church members, instead of referring to Christians who have not received the sacrament of orders as "the laity," he calls them "laics" (Church of the Holy Spirit, 25). As one can quickly see, this brings the appellation in line with the designation "clerics." It is interesting to point out that Afanasiev is the only Orthodox theologian cited in documents of the Second Vatican Council (See Ambrose Mong's Purification of Memory: A Study of Orthodox Theologians from a Catholic Perspective, 33).
It also bears noting there is a close affinity between confirmation and diaconal ordination. This affinity is clearly shown in the prayer over the confirmandi when compared to the prayer of diaconal ordination. Unlike priests and bishops, deacons are not anointed when ordained. Rather, the anointing deacons received in confirmation is further deepened and transformed, thus empowering deacons to serve others in Christ's name for the sake of God's kingdom. By way of a note, I explored the connection between confirmation and diaconal ordination at some depth in my recently-completed doctoral dissertation. As I am prone to write and say often: just there is a priesthood of all the baptized, there is a diaconate of all the baptized.
The Eucharist is the source and summit of our Christian faith because by pulling up your chair at the one table of word and sacrament, you are instructed and strengthened, in a word, equipped, to fulfill your priestly, prophetic, and royal ministry. This why observing the liturgical year is so vital. In our age, we run the risk of reducing Christian formation to mere information. We are awash in information, which is proving more of a challenge than a boon. Because Christian formation is mystagogical, the liturgy and the observance of the liturgical year are vitally important.
Far from dead ritualism, liturgy, at least when participated in fully and actively, is life in the Spirit. This Spirit-filled life spills over the walls and out the doors of the Church like a great wave of the water Christ sanctified when he Jesus'd it at his baptism. Through these life-giving waters, we, too, are Jesus'd. In turn, we are to Jesus the world. As someone stated recently, "There go the Christians Jesus'ing up the place!" May we "Jesus up the place" by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit so our witness is effective and not off-putting.
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