The Baptism of The Lord, An Icon Of Grace

The Baptism of Christ by Tintoretto

Today is the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, and so on the last day of the Christmas Season we celebrate the first event in the Public Ministry of Jesus.  All four Gospels tell of John’s baptism of Jesus, but all present a slightly different view.  Mark’s account is the sparest, except that he gives us the most vivid picture of John himself: "Now John was clothed with camel's hair, and had a leather girdle around his waist, and ate locusts and wild honey" (Mark 1:6).  Luke's account (which we hear in today’s Mass) starts with the people "filled with expectation", eagerly anticipating the Messiah, whom they take John to be.  John’s Gospel recounts John the Baptist hailing Jesus with the title "Lamb of God".  They all tell of John’s recognition of himself as a merely the forerunner to Jesus, to whom he is inferior, but only Matthew records his reluctance to baptize the Lord:

Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him.  John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”  But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. (Matthew 3:13-15)

John knows that Jesus, being sinless, requires no Baptism, but Jesus seeks it out in order to show his commitment to being one of us, and to show us the path to follow.  In this account we see Jesus acting out what St. Paul tells the Phillipians:

. . . though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. (Phillipians 2:6-7)

In all the Gospels, we see the Holy Spirit descend upon Jesus and the voice of the Father proclaim him to be the beloved Son in whom the Father is well pleased.  And so Christ’s Public Ministry begins with an icon of all three Persons of the Trinity working together, and an image of Grace in action.  This scene sums up the meaning of the Nativity we have just celebrated, and tells us something about the agenda for the ministry that is begun.  And in Matthew’s Gospel, we are reminded that it is all Grace, a word for which the Latin root gratia means not just favor, but favor freely bestowed (hence related English words “gratuity” and “gratis”); Grace is completely, absolutely, free. God needs nothing, nothing is necessary for Him: He does it all for us, He gives us a share in His own life, as a completely unnecessary gift.  Because He loves us.

"Abide With Me", Hayley Westenra

Happy Sunday! I was tempted to post a scorching screed today on the decay of Western Civilization, but this is the Lord's Day, the day of rest. My rant can wait until tomorrow.  Instead, I'll invite you to join me in listening to the lovely Miss Hayley Westenra sing a beautiful version of "Abide With Me".



Henry Francis Lyte wrote the words to "Abide With Me" (and set them to a tune by William Henry Monk) as he faced imminent death from tuberculosis.  He died three weeks later.

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day;
Earth's joys grow dim; its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see;
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

Not a brief glance I beg, a passing word,
But as Thou dwell'st with Thy disciples, Lord,
Familiar, condescending, patient, free.
Come not to sojourn, but abide with me.

Come not in terrors, as the King of kings,
But kind and good, with healing in Thy wings;
Tears for all woes, a heart for every plea.
Come, Friend of sinners, thus abide with me.

Thou on my head in early youth didst smile,
And though rebellious and perverse meanwhile,
Thou hast not left me, oft as I left Thee.
On to the close, O Lord, abide with me.

I need Thy presence every passing hour.
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter's power?
Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

St. Maximilian Kolbe, Witness To The Gospel Of Love

 Today we celebrate the feast of one of great Saints of the last century, St. Maximilian Kolbe, priest and martyr.  He died by lethal injection on this date in 1941, after suffering for two weeks in the starvation bunker in the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz.  When he was a young man he had a dream in which the Blessed Mother offered him two crowns: the white crown of purity, and the red crown of martyrdom; he chose both.  He is remembered, therefore, in addition to his dedication to spreading the Gospel through the most up-to-date means available, for his devotion to Our Lady, his personal sanctity, and his heroic, self-sacrificing death.

     From his earliest days, St. Maximilian was eager to spread the faith.  He became a Conventual Franciscan, and before he was even ordained he founded The Militia Immaculata, a movement open to all Catholics that aims, through consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary, for the spiritual renewal of individuals and society.  Evangelization is a large part of the Militia's mission, and so St. Maximilian founded a large community for that purpose in his native Poland, and published a magazine he called The Knight Of The Immaculata.  He later established a similar community in Nagasaki, Japan, and quickly became fluent in Japanese so that he could publish in that counrtry as well.

     He also evangelized through the example, not only of his sanctity, but also of his personal warmth and prodigious generosity.  Those who knew him at Auschwitz (an amazing number of whom somehow survived the experience) always spoke of his constant concern for his fellow prisoners, in spite of the sometimes worse abuse the he himself was suffering.  In the end, he gave the ultimate gift: his own life.  When his jailers chose ten men at random to be starved to death in retaliation for an escape, St. Maximilian, who had not been chosen, volunteered to take the place of one of the ten,  because the other man had a wife and children while the celibate Catholic priest had none.

     The modern means of communication available in St. Maximilian Kolbe's day was a printing press.  If he were with use today, he would not only be publishing in print, but also would be a presence online, publishing, blogging, and taking full advantage of social media.  Not surprisingly, he is Patron Saint of journalists, as well as drug addicts, families, political prisoners, and the pro-life movement (and also one of the patrons of this blog).  Even more than his eloquence, however, or his ability to communicate the beauty of the Catholic Faith, St. Maximilian witnessed with his own life.  He lived up to both the Crowns offered by the Blesed Mother, and like Our Lord, showed us that "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13).

Psalm 127: A Blessing And Gift Of The Lord

One of the many benefits of praying the Liturgy of the Hours is that we become very familiar with the Psalms, which comprise the core of the Liturgy.  These ancient hymns of the Jewish Temple address many different aspects of our relationship with God: some are songs of  praise, others speak of our fears, or of God’s mercy, or thank him for his protection from our enemies.

     One Psalm that has always resonated with me is Psalm 127 (I also discuss it more briefly in my post on Daytime Prayer, here, and it provides the title for a recent post on poverty, here).  It is fairly short (four stanzas), but beautifully reminds us of our dependence on God and his providential care.  The psalm opens with the image of house construction: “If the Lord does not build the house, in vain do its builders labor”.  The psalmist then presents a series of images illustrating how useless our efforts are without God’s help:

If the Lord does not watch over the city, in vain does the watchman keep vigil. 

In vain is your earlier rising, your going later to rest, you who toil for the bread you eat, when he pours gifts on his beloved while they slumber. 

What an eloquent reminder that it is only through Grace that our efforts bear fruit!

     The focus shifts in the last half of Psalm 127:instead of building a house, here we are building our “house”, that is, our family, again only through the Grace of God: “Truly sons are a gift from the Lord, a blessing, the fruit of the womb”.  Here, too, God is the real author; and our children are Providence in tangible form: both gift and blessing, which is to say their source is God, and that’s a good thing. And not just good in some spiritual sense: 

Indeed the sons of youth are like arrows in the hand of a warrior. 

O the happiness of the man who has filled his quiver with these arrows! He will have no cause for shame when he disputes with his foes in the gateways.

You can’t ask for images more down-to-earth than these: are sons a like weapons, they’ll back us up when we face our enemies, and all through the generosity of the Lord.

     It will come as no surprise that the idea of our progeny as gift and blessing is not as common as it once was.  Thirty-five years ago, in his introduction to Pope John Paul I’s Illustrissimi, John Cardinal Wright wrote:

     The present almost pathological lack of joy shows up in every vocation and in every area of life.  There already exist among us people who rejoice as little in the coming of children as once used to do only some of our neo-pagan neighbors.  Among descendents of people who, only yesterday, of the coming of a baby as a “blessed event,” maternity  is no longer thought joyful. 

That train has gone much further down the track since 1979, so that now even the President of the United States can speak of a young women being “punished with a baby”. 

     We need to speak out, of course, against this anti-child attitude, the anti-family ethos and what Pope John Paul II called the Culture of Death.  I regularly do so in this space.  But we also need to remember, as Cardinal Wright points out, that our message is at root a message of Joy. Our children, and children in general (sadly, not all who wish it have their quivers filled in this way) are “a gift from the Lord, a blessing, the fruit of the womb”.  We need to say it often, and live it publicly, and always gives thanks to God for building up our house. 

Psalm 127

Unless the LORD build the house,

they labor in vain who build.

Unless the LORD guard the city,

in vain does the guard keep watch.

It is vain for you to rise early

and put off your rest at night,

To eat bread earned by hard toil—

all this God gives to his beloved in sleep.

Certainly sons are a gift from the LORD,

the fruit of the womb, a reward.

Like arrows in the hand of a warrior

are the sons born in one’s youth.

Blessed is the man who has filled his quiver with them.

He will never be shamed

for he will destroy his foes at the gate.

Be Vigilant At All Times

(This Throwback Thursday post was first published November 29th, 2014)

   I discovered a very curious thing yesterday.  As we were saying our family prayers, I noticed that the rosary that I have been carrying has only nine beads on its first decade, as you can see in the picture to the left.  It has wooden beads strung on a strong cord which has never broken, so it must have been that way since I bought it.

     The first thought that entered my mind (after I got over my initial surprise) was of the Muslim prayer rugs that have a few stiches the wrong color, or the great mosques where every row of columns has one that’s just slightly out of kilter.  The makers put these imperfections into their work intentionally, as an acknowledgement that only God can lay claim to perfection, which it is right and proper for us to acknowledge.

     These visible flaws don’t simply remind us that God is perfect, of course; their purpose is also to remind us that we ourselves are radically imperfect; not simply morally flawed, but incomplete without God.  So my flawed rosary, through the (unintentional, no doubt) mistake of its maker can represent the flawed nature of all of us. 

     There is also a reminder here, however, of my own particular imperfection: I have carried this rosary in my pocket for seven or eight years; I don't use it every day (when I pray the rosary in the car, as I often do, I usually forgo the beads and use my fingers, in the interests of automotive safety), but I use it frequently enough that I ought to have noticed that it is one “Hail Mary” short.  In fact, I really should have noticed when I first bought it at the local Catholic book store.  So, I have not only a symbol of human imperfection, but a very real, concrete reminder of my own broken nature, and in a very particular area.    

     Today, as it happens, is the last day of Ordinary Time [i.e., when the post was first published].  Here is the Gospel reading for the day:

Jesus said to his disciples: “Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life, and that day catch you by surprise like a trap. For that day will assault everyone who lives on the face of the earth. Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent and to stand before the Son of Man.”    (Luke 21:34-36)

As we are about to embark on the Season of Advent, in which we prepare for the coming of Jesus, not only at Christmas, but at his second coming, and also his coming for each one of us individually, we are enjoined to pay attention.  It looks like I have my work cut out for me; and every time I put my hand in my pocket, I have a tangible warning of how far I have to go.