WITH the celebration of the Solemnity
of Christ’s baptism,
we end the Christmas season and enter the Ordinary Time of the
liturgical calendar. It is a good occasion to remind ourselves that we
should try to make our prayer and our whole spiritual life follow the
liturgical calendar.
Doing so would help us to unite ourselves with Christ in a
living if sacramental way. Let’s always remember that our life is not
anymore just our own. It becomes life with Christ who remains present,
available and actively continuing his redemptive work and dispensing
its merits to us in the liturgy.
The celebration, of course, commemorates Christ’s baptism
in the River Jordan by John the Baptist where a voice from heaven was
heard: “You are my beloved Son, in you I am well pleased.” (Lk 3,22)
This declares Christ to be both the Son of God and our Redeemer.
It’s a historic event pregnant with very important
implications. With no need to be baptized, he had himself baptized,
even insisting on it, to institute the sacrament of baptism which is
the gateway for us to Christian life, to incorporate us into the
mystical body of Christ.
With baptism, we open ourselves to the possibility of
receiving all the other sacraments that fully satisfy our spiritual
needs with the view of attaining our salvation and our eternal life
with God our Father.
We have to understand then that our life has to revolve
around the sacraments that serve to build it up and make it Christ’s
life as well. As the Catechism puts it, all the sacraments form one
organic whole, and they “touch all the stages and all the important
moments of Christian life.” (1210)
Also, we have to understand that of the seven sacraments,
the “Eucharist occupies a unique place as the ‘sacrament of
sacraments.’ All the other sacraments are ordered to it as to their
end.” (1211)
Some spiritual writers have also considered Christ’s
baptism as his second birth. The first one was with Mary, quite hidden
and known only to a few shepherds and mysteriously to three magi who
came from a far country. This second one highlights the fact that
Christ is the Son of God and presents him to the world as such.
St. Maximus of Turin, for example, has the following
relevant words to say: “At Christmas he was born a man. Today (his
baptism) he is reborn sacramentally. Then he was born from the Virgin.
Today he is born in mystery…The mother holds the child for the Magi to
adore. The Father reveals that his Son is to be worshipped by all the
nations.”
Yes, Christ’s baptism also marks the transition of
Christ’s hidden life, consisting of more or less 30 years of doing
ordinary things daily, to his public life when he would start going
around preaching and healing and ultimately offering his life on the
cross.
To be sure, the life of Christ is perfectly one and
consistent, thoroughly redemptive in character both in his human and
divine natures, and also in his hidden and public life. The
distinctions do not divide Christ since all these distinctions are
held in one divine person as subject.
This truth about Christ should somehow be reflected in our
own lives. We are human, yes, but we are meant for a divine
destination since we are God’s image and likeness, adopted children of
his. With God’s grace, this blend, so to speak, is made possible.
Also, our personal, hidden life should not undermine the
public life that is also meant for us since we are social beings. We
have need for privacy, for discretion and confidentiality, but all
these should not be made as an excuse to avoid our social duties and
responsibilities.
We should not be afraid to go public, so to speak, to give
witness to our faith which is not something to be held only personally
but also collectively. We just have to make sure that our “public
life” should not be an occasion to seek human glory, but only for
God’s glory and for the good of all.
This will be our constant danger, and therefore we need to
rectify our intentions continually and see to it that the means we use
for giving witness to our faith in public are in keeping with the
purpose of simply giving glory to God and for the common good.
But all the precautions we need for this should never be
an excuse for us not to give public witness of our faith, especially
in areas where Christ is forgotten or deliberately deleted, and that,
unfortunately, is practically everywhere!
we end the Christmas season and enter the Ordinary Time of the
liturgical calendar. It is a good occasion to remind ourselves that we
should try to make our prayer and our whole spiritual life follow the
liturgical calendar.
Doing so would help us to unite ourselves with Christ in a
living if sacramental way. Let’s always remember that our life is not
anymore just our own. It becomes life with Christ who remains present,
available and actively continuing his redemptive work and dispensing
its merits to us in the liturgy.
The celebration, of course, commemorates Christ’s baptism
in the River Jordan by John the Baptist where a voice from heaven was
heard: “You are my beloved Son, in you I am well pleased.” (Lk 3,22)
This declares Christ to be both the Son of God and our Redeemer.
It’s a historic event pregnant with very important
implications. With no need to be baptized, he had himself baptized,
even insisting on it, to institute the sacrament of baptism which is
the gateway for us to Christian life, to incorporate us into the
mystical body of Christ.
With baptism, we open ourselves to the possibility of
receiving all the other sacraments that fully satisfy our spiritual
needs with the view of attaining our salvation and our eternal life
with God our Father.
We have to understand then that our life has to revolve
around the sacraments that serve to build it up and make it Christ’s
life as well. As the Catechism puts it, all the sacraments form one
organic whole, and they “touch all the stages and all the important
moments of Christian life.” (1210)
Also, we have to understand that of the seven sacraments,
the “Eucharist occupies a unique place as the ‘sacrament of
sacraments.’ All the other sacraments are ordered to it as to their
end.” (1211)
Some spiritual writers have also considered Christ’s
baptism as his second birth. The first one was with Mary, quite hidden
and known only to a few shepherds and mysteriously to three magi who
came from a far country. This second one highlights the fact that
Christ is the Son of God and presents him to the world as such.
St. Maximus of Turin, for example, has the following
relevant words to say: “At Christmas he was born a man. Today (his
baptism) he is reborn sacramentally. Then he was born from the Virgin.
Today he is born in mystery…The mother holds the child for the Magi to
adore. The Father reveals that his Son is to be worshipped by all the
nations.”
Yes, Christ’s baptism also marks the transition of
Christ’s hidden life, consisting of more or less 30 years of doing
ordinary things daily, to his public life when he would start going
around preaching and healing and ultimately offering his life on the
cross.
To be sure, the life of Christ is perfectly one and
consistent, thoroughly redemptive in character both in his human and
divine natures, and also in his hidden and public life. The
distinctions do not divide Christ since all these distinctions are
held in one divine person as subject.
This truth about Christ should somehow be reflected in our
own lives. We are human, yes, but we are meant for a divine
destination since we are God’s image and likeness, adopted children of
his. With God’s grace, this blend, so to speak, is made possible.
Also, our personal, hidden life should not undermine the
public life that is also meant for us since we are social beings. We
have need for privacy, for discretion and confidentiality, but all
these should not be made as an excuse to avoid our social duties and
responsibilities.
We should not be afraid to go public, so to speak, to give
witness to our faith which is not something to be held only personally
but also collectively. We just have to make sure that our “public
life” should not be an occasion to seek human glory, but only for
God’s glory and for the good of all.
This will be our constant danger, and therefore we need to
rectify our intentions continually and see to it that the means we use
for giving witness to our faith in public are in keeping with the
purpose of simply giving glory to God and for the common good.
But all the precautions we need for this should never be
an excuse for us not to give public witness of our faith, especially
in areas where Christ is forgotten or deliberately deleted, and that,
unfortunately, is practically everywhere!
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