Weekly Sunday Homilies

Fr. Joseph's Homily for the Baptism of the Lord

I am a chaplain at Children’s hospital. For as long as I can remember, the priest of the Cathedral has been the Catholic chaplain of Children’s hospital and in the past 20 years St Edwards joined and also helps there. In my role as chaplain, often I have the privilege to be with people in their most joyful and most trying moments in their lives. In fact I just met an individual I prayed with recently, and so it brought all this to mind... because the ones that always hit me most deeply are when I come in to baptize. There’s uncertainty in the air, yet also a deep desire to give their child a gift, of sonship in Christ, a gift of being part of the Body of Christ, the gift of light.

When you are I were baptized, maybe some of us remember our baptisms. And some of us have only heard about our baptisms or watched a video of it as we were infants. And no matter how or where you were baptized, whether in a hospital room or in a stream or most appropriately in a Church, there are two things which permeate the ritual sacrament: Water and Words.

And thats true for Jesus too, a unique Baptism if there ever was one, The source of all Baptism is baptized himself, the designer of water at the microcosmic level allows himself to die and be reborn in the waters. Christ signals his commitment and His Father gives Him the sacramental words: This is my son, listen to Him, This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. This is the gift of Sonship which we receive!: we hear these words now for us as we remember our baptisms. A good prayer for the Holy Water when you walk into church is that verse: “This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased” remember Jesus and experience and know that you are called beloved as well.

But what about the other baptismal symbols! What about the oil of catechumen and the oil of chrism, the white garment and the candle? Did Jesus not get these things?

As a reminder for those who have not seen Baptism in a while here is how the liturgy flows: Entrance, Questioning, Signing, Scripture, Intercession, Oil, Blessing, Baptism, Chrism, Garment, Candle, Prayer and blessing.

So should we just conclude, well, you see Jesus was baptized before all these symbols existed so he didn’t have them. But I find this to be unsatisfying for Jesus is the Light Himself! He embodies these symbols and so they were foretold.

For example, the oil of catechumens is given to children and adults before they are baptized to symbolize and effect protection upon their bodies and souls. The oil with which Jesus was anointed is the gift of the protection of His Father and His parents, who by obedience to God the Father faithfully heard and responded to every prompting and therefore knew when to stay or when to go in order to protect their child. Their obedience was a anointing and gift upon Him coupled with being presented in the temple and the good words prophesized over him by Simeon and Ana.

The oil of chrism for Christ was the movement of the Holy Spirit which from His conception unto that very moment that he kneeled in the river Jordan is the spirit of truth and relationship between he and His Father just as the Holy Spirit is the source of all real relationship and all truth-seeking and knowing. Without the Holy Spirit there are no bonds between us as Christians, for there would be no Christ in the world without the coordinated and united efforts of the Holy Trinity’s Divine Care for us.

The Baptismal Garment is the Holy and beautiful mystery of His Incarnation by which Divinity and Humanity are perfectly fitted together upon the same person of The Second Person of the Trinity. No one has ever lived out Humanity more perfectly that Christ whose Baptismal Garment beams brightly from Birth to Baptism to Transfiguration to Resurrection and in Heaven. It is by this Garment that we are wrapped up into the Body of Christ, for two more symbols remain. The unmentioned one is that of the People gathered at the Baptism, for no one can be baptized alone! No one can baptize themselves and this is significant, for we are received into the gift of the whole Body of the People of Christ, the Church, by that miraculous gift that brings us into relationship with Christians before and after us unequivocally through Christ Jesus who is our great Mediator between all of heaven and all of earth! It is by this Holy Gift of His Incarnation, that our prayers are worth anything or are effective!

And that final symbol, O that HOLY LIGHT! The Light of the Nations, God tells His People to let their Light shine for the Nations to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out prisoners from confinement, and from the dungeon [to bring out], those who live in darkness.

Jesus’ Baptismal candle had started shining from all eternity, and was foreshadowed by the light of a start that led the Magi to Him, and is the light that is revealed publicly at the Wedding Feast of Cana! Jesus is the light, gives us His light so that He might shine in and through us! And so we have been charged, we have been commissioned by Baptism to let our light shine before others and glorify God in so doing. Jesus was not baptized so that he might receive the gift of light but so that he might gift YOU light. Take your light, now, shine forth in Christ Jesus, keep it burning brightly and guard it from all that would quench it, guard it from sin and go forth and light the world on fire!

This is the Baptismal Mission which you and I have. Shine brightly, shine into the darkness of the World with Christ’s light!