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Q and A: The Baptism of the Lord

Q. This Sunday’s liturgical celebration of The Baptism of the Lord takes us back to the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. How does his baptism relate to our own?

That’s a great question. First, it must be said that Jesus’ baptism is really the moment when he initiated the Christian sacrament of baptism. What Jesus did was to transform John’s baptism of repentance (which was merely an outward symbol of sorrow and a desire to be cleansed) into an efficacious act that actually had the power to wash away sin.

Q. How did this happen?

A. Jesus, as the sinless Son of God, had no need of repentance or forgiveness. His descending into the water did not sanctify him, but rather sanctified the water, imparting to it the power to forgive sins in Jesus’ name. Think of the Lord’s contact with persons who had leprosy. Normally, touching a person with that disease would render one ritually “unclean”. However, the opposite happens in the case of Jesus. Jesus is not rendered “unclean” in any way – rather, the defiling and debilitating disease is eradicated by the touch of Christ. His holiness is, if you will, contagious. So, anything from the created order that Jesus comes into contact with can be sanctified, made to share in his holiness and purity. This is what is happened with the waters of baptism.

Q. How does Jesus’ baptism correlate with his Passion?

A. That’s a very insightful question. As Pope Benedict wrote about in his Jesus of Nazareth series, the baptism of Jesus was really the beginning of his Passion. It was the start of Jesus’ process of descending into the reality of human sin in order to redeem it. He was already beginning the process of identifying himself with sinful humanity, and taking our sins upon himself, bearing in his own body the consequence of sin, which is death. “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Jesus would, of course, complete this mission on the Cross.

In the Old Testament, as well as in the Book of Revelation, the sea is a symbol of death and evil. So, in a sense his emerging from the waters, with the presence of the Holy Spirit, as well as the voice of the Father in Mark 1:11 (“You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased”) is a “sneak preview” of Jesus’ powerful Resurrection at Easter: his triumph over sin, evil, and death.

This victory is transferred to Christians at their baptism. Recall that in the ancient Church, converts were fully immersed in water; it was a species of death and burial. Their rising again out of the water was also a foretaste of their own future resurrection, yes, but it was also a summons for them to leave old, sinful ways behind and live the lifestyle of the Kingdom here on earth. As Saint Paul writes,

We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin – because anyone who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as weapons of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as weapons of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace (Romans 6:2-14).

Let us avail ourselves often of the sacrament of confession, so that we may begin again, as often as necessary, to get back on the path God called us to in baptism: the journey to becoming saints.

How is your journey to live up to your baptismal calling progressing? How can we help others realize that their baptism calls them to holiness and apostolate (sharing their faith)? Share this post on social media and keep the discussion going!

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On the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception

Pope Pius IX, who defined the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception (1854)

Pope Pius IX, who defined the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception (1854)

Today’s great Solemnity of the Immaculate conception of Mary is usually celebrated on December 8. However, due to the second Sunday of Advent falling on that date yesterday, the Solemnity was communicated to today this year. And it’s certainly a doctrine that is misunderstood by many.

The Immaculate Conception is not the Virginal Conception of Jesus. Nor does it have anything to do with this, sports fans.

Here’s the actual definition, from Blessed Pope Pius IX, “Pio Nono”:

We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.

–Ineffabilis Deus, Apostolic Constitution of Pope Pius IX solemnly defining the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, 8 December 1854.

the basis for the Immaculate Conception of Mary in the New Testament is well-known, but today I’d like to share about one of the ways the doctrine is foreshadowed in the Old Testament. In his masterful devotional series, In Conversation with God, Francis Fernandez writes about Mary as the new Temple in which God dwells:

In the litany of Loreto we call upon Mary, House of Gold, the abode of greatest conceivable splendor. When a family turns a house into a home by taking up residence there, the place reflects the individual qualities of the people. They accentuate the beauty of the dwelling place. Just like the Holy Spirit dwelling in Our Lady, the home and its inhabitants make up a particular unity, in much the same way as the body and its garments do. The foremost Tabernacle in the Old Testament, later to be the Temple, is the House of God, where the meeting of Yahweh and his people takes place. When Solomon makes the decision to build the Temple, the Prophets specify that the best available materials are to be used – abundant cedar wood on the inside and clad with gold on the outside. The most highly skilled craftsmen are to work on its construction.

Before God made known his coming into the world in the fullness of time, He prepared Mary as the suitable creature within whom He would dwell for nine months, from the moment of his Incarnation until his birth in Bethlehem. Evidence of God’s power and love show forth in his creation. Mary is the House of Gold, the new Temple of God, and is adorned with so great a beauty that no greater perfection is possible. The grace of her Immaculate Conception, including all the graces and gifts God ever bestowed on her soul, are directed towards the fulfillment of her divine Maternity.

God’s gift of supernatural life to her exceeds that of all the Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors and Virgins combined. It reaches far beyond the experience of anyone who has ever lived, or ever will live, until the end of time. God dwells in Our Lady more than in all the angels and saints, since the foundation of the world, taken together. Truly God has prepared a human vessel in keeping with the dignity of his eternal Son. When we say that Mary has an almost infinite dignity, we mean that among all God’s creatures she is the one who enjoys the most intimate relationship with the Blessed Trinity. Her absolute honor is the highest possible and her majesty is in every way unique. She is the firstborn and most highly favored daughter of the Father, as she has often been called throughout the history of the Church, and as has been reiterated by the Second Vatican Council, Our Lady’s blood relationship with Jesus Christ, the Son of God, leads her to a singular relationship with him.

Mary is indeed the new Temple and Tabernacle of God.

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On the Feast of Christ the King

Today’s first reading records the Israelites saying to their King, David, “Here we are, your bone and your flesh”.

Jesus, the son of David, the rightful heir to the throne of the Kingdom of David (which in the Old Testament is called “The Kingdom of God”), also is a King who shares his flesh and blood with his people. Jesus does this, of course, not through natural descent and lineage, but by supernatural means: the Eucharist. In this way, we become part of the ultimate “Royal Family” (Who cares about the intrigues of Buckingham Palace!).

Jesus’ kingdom, unlike most, is not imposed from without, by means of force (consider the humility of the Passion), but rather proposed for consent from within. And to spread the reign of Christ in the hearts of others, we must first allow him to reign in our own, because the apostolate results from the overflow of our interior life.

One way we can do this is to receive the Eucharist more fruitfully. As St Thomas Aquinas wrote in his beautiful hymn Adoro Te Devote, one drop of the blood of Christ can free the entire world of all its’ sins.

There’s no lack of “power in the blood”, but some of us would rather remain king of our own lives than accede the throne to Christ. But when we do, when we receive our Eucharistic King and allow him to have more of us, as St John the Baptist did (“He must increase, I must decrease”), we will discover that Jesus makes us emissaries of the Kingdom. Like John, we can point others to Christ, even Christ in the Eucharist: “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of he world.”

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