By Rev. Joe McCloskey, SJ
I, the LORD, have called you for the victory of
justice, I have grasped you by the hand; I formed you, and set you as a
covenant of the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes of the blind,
to bring out prisoners from confinement, and from the dungeon, those who live
in darkness. Isaiah 42:6-7
Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be
baptized by him. John tried to prevent
him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you are coming to me?” Jesus said to him in reply, “Allow it now,
for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Matthew
3:13-15B
Piety
He goes into the Jordan to
be baptized for the sinfulness of the human race. He accepts identity with us at the beginning
of his mission to save us all from our evilness. John is reluctant to baptize because he
recognizes Christ as the one who is to come.
Christ is conscious of the plan
of his Father. Prayer has brought him to
the awareness of what it behooves him to do.
He comes out of the water confirmed in his mission. John bears witness to Christ by sharing
Christ with his disciples. His awareness
is of being the precursor of Christ tells us that he hears the Father through
the Spirit. Christ, too, hears that his
Father Is pleased in what he has done. The
Hidden Life grace has its foundation in God’s plan unfolding in little things
done well. The insignificant is
significant in the plan of God. There is
greater meaning found in Christ’s obedience to his parents. Family life gets an incredible boost in its
relationship to piety and spirituality. How
we love God all the more by relating to Christ is affirmed in the way we live
our family life.
Study
We look at Christ and dig
at the meaning of his Baptism to understand better our own. By our baptism we are made children of God. He offers us the life of the eternal word. We become adoptive children of God by our
being baptized into the life of Christ. It
is not only that we are born into his life; we study how to become his life to
our world today. It is a momentous
moment in the life of all of us when we begin to recognize meaning of our life
in Christ.
Action
We try to become the
continuity of Christ in our world today by walking in his footsteps. He is the light of our world and we need to
shine with his light on our world by what we say and what we do in his name. We join ourselves to the victory of Justice. Christ is grabbing us by the hand to lead us
in the good people who become part of our lives. Our vision of what needs to be done in our
world is fed by what we see in the suffering little ones of our world. We are called to be the hands and the feet of
Christ by going where we are needed in his name. Our baptism is a call to action that lives in
our heart’s awareness of the suffering in our world. We have to believe that the first step is
half way there when we open our hearts to where we can be of help to make a
better world. Our job is to open the
eyes of the blind, to bring prisoners out of the dungeons of their ignorance. We are cleaned up by our baptisms to be better
reflections of Christ in all that we do.
We have to come out of our Jordan and make a difference in our world. We have to be like Christ for each other if
we want to be a Christ in our world. Our
destiny is Christ.
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