I probably make too big a deal about my revulsion (not too strong a word) of the secular season that tends to obliterate, not just Advent, but also Christmas as a season. Once it arrives, however, I love the season of Christmas. This year, even more than in recent years, I am sorry to see the season go. Time moves inexorably forward. Like most people, I suppose, I feel the pull of time's current more acutely as I grow older.
Today, I welcome the chance to reflect on this feast in a free form kind of way. What follows is a jumble of the kinds of generative ideas I have when I begin to think about what I might say when preaching the readings for a particular Sunday. Of course, these streams can't all be pursued when preaching. But it's nice to be able provide a few sketches.
Speculating on why it is that Jesus accepted baptism at the hands of John the Baptist, Archbishop Fulton Sheen suggested that rather than being cleansed from sin, as the sacrament of baptism would come to signify, symbolize, and ex opere operato achieve, that by entering the water and being baptized, the Lord Jesus began His ministry of taking our sins upon Himself. It is an interesting thought, kind of like a negative image of baptism. The first verse of the hymn for the Office of Readings for today's feast in the 4-volume edition I am using, relates to this idea:
When Jesus comes to be baptized,An older theological idea has it that by His baptism, Jesus sanctified the waters, which in the ancient world and even to some extent now, were something to be feared. Seafaring, as the life of Saint Paul shows, was a dangerous business!
He leaves the hidden years behind, The years of safety and of peace,
To bear the sins of all mankind.
Water is both life-giving and life-threatening. On the one hand, without water you die and sooner than you will perish for lack of food. On the other, water can be and sometimes is terribly destructive. Israel's exodus through the Red Sea, which features prominently in the blessing of baptismal water, shows us this.
It stands to reason that being the Only Begotten Son of the Father, Jesus neither needed to reborn through baptism nor have any sin washed away. Taking a sacramental view, which is really to take a Christian view, it seems far too trite to simply say He did it to set a good example for us. Something that is easy to overlook is that with the appearance of the Holy Spirit and voice of the Father confirming Jesus as His Son, the sacrament of confirmation is also foreshadowed.
Baptism of Christ, David Zelenka, 2005
Another thing easy to overlook in Saint Luke's account is that after His baptism by John in the River Jordan, Jesus began to pray. It seems that, according to Luke, the Lord's experience of the Holy Spirit descending like a dove and hearing the Father's confirmation of His identity were the results of His prayer. Maybe the point here is that being made children of God through baptism, like Jesus, we can now to pray to God as our Father.
Being Year C of the three year Sunday lectionary, during which the Church focuses on the Gospel According to Saint Luke, we have two readings from Luke. You see, the same inspired author composed both Luke's Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles. The passage from Acts that serves as today's second reading is part of a section often called "the Pentecost of the Gentiles."
Our reading from Acts consits of a homily given by Saint Peter in the house of the Roman centurion Cornelius, who had come to faith in Christ and then called for Peter. These words are the result of a conversion Peter had in coming to Cornelius. Peter needed to grasp that the Gospel is for everyone, Jew and Gentile alike. Of course, as we know, even after this, Peter continued to be a bit wishy-washy, uncharitably one might say "two-faced," about this matter. Something for which Saint Paul upbraided him (see Galatians 2:11-14).
Nonetheless, as a result of Peter's preaching on this occasion, the Holy Spirit descended on the members of Cornelius' household and they were baptized.The Gospel of Jesus Christ is universal, it's for everyone, no exceptions. While this kind of universalism is common to us, it was pretty radical in the ancient Mediterranean world and beyond.
It is important to grasp that baptism, to which confirmation is very closely linked, is the fundamental sacrament of Christian life. Baptism, confirmation, Eucharist are the sacraments of Christian initiation. Reception of these fully incorporates a person into Christ, making her/him members of Christ's Body, the Church.
Contrary to what many seem to believe and assert, the sacrament of orders (you can only call it "holy" orders when you refer to matrimony and "holy matrimony") is not the premier sacrament. Along with matrimony, orders is what Owen Cummings has called a "diaconal" sacrament, that is, a sacrament at the service of communion, as we learn in basic catechesis.
Pope Francis has been very wise in warning us against the tendency to want to "clericalize" the Church. It isn't that the Church needs to be "de-clericalized." Rather, the balance envisioned by the Second Vatican Council as set forth in Lumen Gentium and Gaudium et Spes needs to continue being sought after and more fully realized. Whatever you may think about synodality either in principle or execution (I have mixed feelings about both), this is really its goal.
Reflecting on one's own baptism, its purpose, its meaning, its rights, its responsibilities seems a very good way to enter back into Ordinary Time and, even now, a New Year. In this way the stream of time and eternity can flow into each other in and through you.
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