Baptism of the Lord, Year C - January 9th, 2022

Welcome back to Ordinary Time! As always, Holy Mother Church uses the first Sunday of this season to call our attention to the Baptism of Jesus, the beginning of His public ministry which we will be exploring throughout the coming weeks. There are, of course, fathomless depths to this mystery of Our Lord – here are just a few of the topics we pondered together during our weekly Scripture sharing.

First was the powerful theme of the Holy Spirit – “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire!” Why, one Sister wondered aloud, does the evangelist distinguish between the Spirit and the fire? Anyone who has attended a Baptism can attest that the child or catechumen receiving the Sacrament does not burst into flames! Jokes aside, another Sister suggested that this wording is meant to draw out the distinction between the Spirit in Himself and the Spirit’s effect in each individual soul. We receive the Spirit de facto in Baptism, but His presence can only make a difference in our lives if we cooperate with His grace! Additionally, despite the fundamental “common denominator” of the Indwelling Trinity, no two baptized persons are touched by God in exactly the same way. As St. Paul asserts, “there are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit.” (1 Cor 12:4) It is a subject worthy of meditation: what is the “fire” that the Holy Spirit has kindled in my life? How does He call me to “set the world ablaze” with this special gift, or charism, that He has given uniquely to me?

Another theme of this week’s readings is the lavish generosity of the Lord. The Sacrament of Baptism is such an awesome gift precisely because it is totally free, given to us purely out of the overflowing love and goodness in our Father’s heart. Those who were baptized as children may not fully realize the magnitude of what they have received, but those baptized as adults bear witness for all of us to the greatness of the gift. This gratuitous mercy is utterly mind-boggling and can even be hard to accept! The Sacrament of Penance provides a similar encounter with God’s “unreasonable” mercy; how is it that He is willing to forgive any and all sins if we only repent and ask His pardon in Confession? The First Reading (Year C optional readings) reminds us that despite our sin, God tenderly calls out, “Comfort, give comfort to My people …” In the Psalm, we hear that He opens His hands to give lavishly to all living things. And in the Gospel, we realize that each of us who is incorporated into the Mystical Body can hear with Jesus, “YOU are My beloved son; with you I am well pleased.” In the face of such astounding love, we can only respond in the words of the Psalm: “O bless the LORD, my soul!”

Finally, one Sister drew our attention to the connection between the Sacrament of Baptism and our vocation as religious. As Fr. Paul Hinnebusch, OP, argues in his book Religious Life: A Living Liturgy, the consecrated life is not “a different type of holiness.” Rather, it is the most intentional and intense living of the Baptismal consecration, a special call to live the grace of Baptism in a radical and total manner. Several Sisters described the experience of their own vocations as a desire to “go all the way,” to take their faith to its “logical extreme.” Far from diminishing the dignity of the lay vocation, this call to religious life is meant to support and inspire all members of the Mystical Body. The Church asks religious to live the call of their Baptism so intensely in order to provide a vivid witness of the holiness that all are called to live within their own state of life – and, most fully, in eternal life. For instance, we once received a letter from a wife and mother who had attended a Perpetual Profession at our monastery. This woman shared that somehow – she couldn’t quite put her finger on why – witnessing a Sister say “yes” to God enkindled her own desire to live her married vocation more faithfully. How beautiful is the grace of the Spirit, Who uses His manifold gifts to “build up the whole Body in love!”