The Baptism of the Lord (2027 Edition)

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with a profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins, and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My immaculate mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

The feast of the baptism of Our Lord falls on the Sunday following the solemnity of the Epiphany. This feast brings to mind the mystery of Christ’s person and mission. At the same time, it’s an opportunity for us to give thanks to God for the innumerable gifts which we have received since the day we were baptized. Saint John Paul II says the church exhorts the faithful to renew with deep faith those baptismal commitments which we assumed through our parents and godparents, particularly our loyalty to Christ and our determination to struggle against temptation.

We’re told in Saint Matthew, “When Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him, and lo, a voice from heaven saying, ‘This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased’” (Matt. 3:16–17).

A few days ago, we celebrated the feast of the Epiphany, which was the manifestation of Our Lord to the Gentiles, as represented in the person of the wise men. An earlier manifestation had been made to the shepherds on Christmas night. The shepherds had come to the stable bearing simple gifts. Today’s feast, you could also say, is an Epiphany because it commemorates the manifestation of Christ’s divinity by the voice of the Father and the descent of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove.

The fathers of the church like to point out a third manifestation of the divinity of Jesus. It took place in Cana of Galilee on the occasion of Christ’s first miracle. “Jesus manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him” (John 2:11). In the prophet Isaiah, we’re told, “Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights. I have put my spirit upon him. A bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench. I am the Lord, I have called you to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison, those who sit in darkness” (Isa. 42:1, 3, 6–7).

This prophecy is fulfilled during the baptism of Our Lord. We’re told in Saint Luke, “At that time, the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form as a dove, and a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my beloved son, with you I am well pleased’” (Luke 3:22). In this great Epiphany on the shores of the Jordan, the three divine persons of the Blessed Trinity are made manifest. The Father allows his voice to be heard as he gives testimony to the Son, while the Holy Spirit appears above him.

The expression from Isaiah, “my servant,” has been replaced with the phrase “my beloved son.” These new words tell us about the person and the divine nature of Christ. Following upon his baptism, Our Lord formally begins his salvific mission. It is at this moment that the Holy Spirit begins his action on souls by means of the Messiah, an influence which will last until the end of time.

We can use this opportunity to recall the joy of our own baptism and how that sacrament has affected our lives. Saint Augustine remembered his baptism with a special joy. “In those days, I could not take my fill,” he says, “of meditating with wondrous sweetness on the depths of your counsel concerning the salvation of mankind.” We could cultivate the same kind of sentiments today when we pray about our baptism in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

The baptism of Jesus is a mystery, and “from his fullness have we all received, grace upon grace” (John 1:16). We have been baptized not only with water, as in the baptism of John, but with the Holy Spirit, which joins us to the life of God. We can thank God for that day when we were incorporated into the life of Christ. Our destiny is to be with him forever in heaven. We thank God that we were baptized soon after being born, following the long-standing custom of the church, or having been received into the church in our adult life.

We were baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. We entered into communion with the Blessed Trinity. Heaven has been opened for us. We can enter into the house of the Lord and learn about our divine filiation. Saint Cyril of Jerusalem says, “If you endeavor to have true piety, the Holy Spirit will also descend upon you from above. You too will hear the voice of the Father saying, ‘This is not my son, but now that he has been baptized, he has been made mine.’”

One of the important gifts which we received at baptism was that of our divine filiation. Saint Paul speaks about this filiation in moving words. He says to the Galatians, “So through God, you’re no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir” (Gal. 4:7). In the rite of the sacrament, the church reminds us that our unity with Christ takes place by means of a spiritual rebirth. As Jesus said to Nicodemus, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (John 3:5).

John Paul II says Christian baptism is, in fact, a mystery of death and resurrection. The immersion in the baptismal water symbolizes and actualizes the burial of Jesus in the earth and the death of the old man, while the coming up out of the water signifies Christ’s resurrection and the birth of the new man. This new birth is the basic foundation of our divine filiation. By baptism, men are grafted into the Paschal mystery of Christ. They die with him and are buried with him and rise with him. They receive the spirit of adoption as sons in which we cry, “Abba, Father” (Rom. 8:15), and thus become true adorers, such as the Father seeks.

This filiation brings with it the cleansing of all sin from the soul and the infusion of grace. By means of baptism, we are forgiven and cleansed from original sin, from our personal sins, as well as from the eternal and temporal penalties which we have merited because of our sins. The soul receives the infused virtues and gifts of the Holy Spirit. The doors of heaven are opened to the new Christian and the angels and the saints rejoice. After baptism, our human nature still is marked by the consequences of original sin. The baptized person remains prone to error and eventual death. Nevertheless, the sacrament has sown a divine seed in the human body, a seed which will lead to a glorious resurrection.

Saint Hippolytus says the Christian comes forth from baptism resplendent like the sun. But what is even more important, he has been converted into a son of God and a co-redeemer with Christ. We thank Our Lord a great deal for all these gifts which we can pray about today. We can ask, as we say in the prayer after communion, “Lord, that we will listen humbly with faith to the word of your Son, so that we may become your true sons.” This can be our great desire and aspiration.

In the letter of Saint Peter, he presents a brief review of Christ’s public life. He says, “You know the word which he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace by Jesus Christ. The word which was proclaimed throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism which John preached, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, how he went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the devil” (Acts 10:36–38). This is an appropriate summary of Christ’s life on earth. It should be the description of the life of every baptized person since our lives are subject to the influence of the Holy Spirit. This ought to be so in our daily work, in our times of rest, whenever we help other people in our family or community.

Today’s feast gives us an opportunity to have a renewed awareness of those baptismal commitments which we took ourselves or on that day when our parents or godparents spoke on our behalf. We should reaffirm our devotion to Christ and our intention to come closer to him every day. We should resolve to separate ourselves from all sin, including venial sins. Having received the sacrament, we’ve been called by God to participate in his divine life. Baptism makes us faithful. It’s a word that was used, like sanctity for the saints, by the first followers of Jesus to refer to one another. We still use this term today, the faithful of the church. We shall be faithful to the extent that our life is built upon the sure foundation of true prayer.

Saint Luke, in his gospel, makes note of the fact that Christ was praying after his baptism by John. Saint Thomas Aquinas has commented that after one’s baptism, a Christian needs to live a life of persevering prayer in order to win heaven. He says baptism acts to cleanse us from sins, but the baptized person is still prone to the temptations of sin, the flesh, and the devil. We can thank God for all the benefits that we’ve received from this sacrament, and use today as a good moment to renew our commitment to Christ and his church by means of daily prayer.

We’re told in Saint Matthew, “And when Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him, and a voice from heaven saying, ‘This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased’” (Matt. 3:16–17). Though he had himself no stain of sin to be washed away, Our Lord wanted to submit himself to this rite, in the same way that he submitted himself to other requirements of the law. As a human being, he submitted himself to the laws that ruled and governed the lives of all the people of Israel who had been chosen by God to prepare the way for the Redeemer.

John the Baptist carried out his mission energetically to prophesy and arouse a great movement towards repentance as an immediate preparation for the coming of the Messianic kingdom. Saint Augustine says Our Lord desired to be baptized so that he might freely proclaim through his humility what for us was to be a necessity. By his baptism, Jesus left for us the sacrament of Christian baptism, directly instituted by Christ with what would be a further progressive determination of its elements and then be imposed as universal law from the day of his ascension. We’re told in Saint Matthew, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go you therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:18–19).

In baptism, we receive faith and grace. The day we were baptized was one of the most important days of our lives. Saint Irenaeus says, “Just as the parched land does not yield its fruit if it does not get water, so also we, who were like dried sticks, can produce fruits of life only if we receive freely the gentle and the abundant rainfall of grace from on high.” Before we received baptism, we were outside the locked gates of paradise, unable to bring forth the slightest supernatural fruit. Today our prayer enables us to thank God for this totally undeserved gift and to rejoice in the countless good things which he has so lavishly bestowed upon us.

One writer says thanksgiving is the very first emotion that should be born in us in our response to baptism. The second is joy. Never should we think of our baptism without deep feelings of interior gladness. We must rejoice in the cleansing of our souls from the stain of original sin and of any other sin that we may have committed before our baptism. Paul VI says all men are members of the same human family which was originally damaged by the sin of our first parents. This original sin is transmitted as an intrinsical part of our fallen human nature by generation, not by imitation, and is to be found individually in each one of us. But Jesus gave us baptism as a specific means of purifying our human nature and freeing it from the terrible affliction of the sin we were born with. The baptismal water operates in a real way, signifying what the use of natural water signifies, a cleansing and purification from every blemish or stain.

Saint Leo the Great says, thanks to the sacrament of baptism, you have been turned into a temple of the Holy Spirit. He says, don’t ever let it happen that you drive away so noble a guest by your evil deeds, or ever again submit to the power of the demon, for the price you were bought with is the blood of Christ.

In the opening prayer of today’s Mass, it says, “Almighty ever-eternal God, when the spirit descended upon Jesus at his baptism in the Jordan, you revealed him as your only beloved son. Keep us, your children born of water and the Holy Spirit, faithful to our calling.”

Baptism initiates us into Christian life. It’s a true birth into supernatural life. It’s the new life preached by the apostles and spoken about by Jesus to Nicodemus. “Truly, I say to you, that he who is not born again from on high cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. What is born of the flesh is flesh, what is born of the spirit is spirit” (John 3:3, 6). The result of this new life is a true divinization of man that gives him the power to bring forth supernatural fruit. Often the dignity of the baptized person is veiled by the ordinary circumstances of his life. Like the saints, we must strive hard to live in accordance with that dignity at all costs.

Our highest dignity, that of being children of God, conferred on us by baptism, is the consequence of our rebirth. If human birth gives as its result fatherhood and sonship, in a similar way those engendered by God are really his children. In the letter of Saint John, it says, “See what love of God the Father has for us, that he has called us children of God. We really are. Beloved, now we are children of God and it is not yet shown what we shall be” (1 John 3:1–2).

The miracle of a new birth is achieved at the moment of baptism by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The baptismal water is blessed on Easter night and in the prayers we ask, just as the spirit came upon Mary and produced in her the birth of Christ, so may it descend on the church and produce in her eternal womb the rebirth of the children of God. The profound reality corresponding to this graphic expression is that the newly baptized person is born again to a new life, the life of God, and thus is his son. We are sons and heirs too, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ.

In The Way, Saint Josemaría says, let us give thanks to our Father God for bestowing such gifts, gifts beyond all measure, upon us, upon each one of us. What great joy it is to think often about those realities. “Father,” said a big fellow, a good student at the university, “I was thinking of what you said to me, that I am a son of God. And I found myself walking along the street, head up, chin out, and a proud feeling inside... a son of God.” With sure confidence, with sure conscience, I advised him to encourage that pride.

In the church, nobody is an isolated Christian. From the time of baptism, each person is part of a people, and the church presents itself to the world as the true family of the children of God. Lumen Gentium of the Second Vatican Council says it was the will of God to sanctify and save mankind, not in isolation, separated from one another, or without forming a people that would acknowledge him in truth and serve him in holiness.

Baptism is the door through which we enter the church. In the church, precisely through baptism, we are all called to holiness, each one in his own state of life and condition, and to the exercise of the apostolate. Blessed Alvaro del Portillo states the call to holiness and the consequent need for personal sanctification is universal. Everyone, priest and laity, are called to holiness. We’ve all received in baptism the first fruits of a spiritual life which by its very nature will tend to maturity.

Another truth intimately connected to the condition of being a member of the church is the sacramental character, a sure, indelible, spiritual sign imprinted on the soul. It’s like Christ’s seal of possession on the soul of the baptized. Christ took possession of our souls at the moment we were baptized. He rescued us from sin by his passion and death. With these thoughts in mind, we appreciate the church’s desire that children should receive early these gifts of God. It has always urged parents to have their children baptized as soon as possible. It’s a practical demonstration of faith. Neglect to do so is not caring for their freedom, just as if one were to cause them hurt in their natural life, to neglect to feed, clothe, clean, or care for them when they were unable to ask for those things for themselves. On the contrary, they have a right to receive this grace. There’s a wonderful apostolate there for us to exercise in many cases among friends, companions, acquaintances.

Baptism brings into action something greater than any other good: grace and faith, perhaps eternal salvation. It can only be by ignorance and a distorted faith that many children are deprived, even by their own Christian parents, of this greatest gift of their lives. Our prayer today could be that Our Lord might never allow this to happen. We can also thank our parents who brought us, perhaps just a few days after we were born, to receive this holy sacrament. Mary, our mother in the order of grace, help us always to be open to all the graces that you want to give us as we live out our baptismal vocation.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My immaculate mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.