Filled With Expectation

Filled With Expectation

January 13, 2013

Feast of the Baptism of the Lord  2013 C

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

Peter proceeded to speak to those gathered in the house of Cornelius, saying: “In truth, I see that God shows no partiality.  Rather, in every nation whoever fears him and acts uprightly is acceptable to him.  Acts 10:34-35

After all the people had been baptized and Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove.  And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”  Luke 3:21-22

Action

John announces the coming of Christ as the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire.  At Pentecost the tongues of fire come upon the apostles to complete what was begun with the teaching and the discipleship with Christ.  There is no record of the baptisms of disciples that had the personal hands-on experience of Christ.  Our baptisms bring us into the same life with Christ as the Apostles.  We are baptized into the presence of Christ in our lives.  Baptism allows us to belong to the Father in our belonging to Christ.  He makes us into children of God by sharing h his life with us by our baptisms. 

Study

Our joining ourselves with Christ happens with our baptism as we are born again into the life of Christ.  It is not only that we are born again with our baptism.  It is also that we become by our love of one another the hands and the feet of Christ who does his work of recreation by using us as the means of his reaching out to the world.  We are his hands and his feet.  We go in the name of Christ to do what life demands of us.  We are created in Christ and for Christ.  Baptism gives us the life of Christ.  He is as it were a prisoner of our hearts.  He gets out of our hearts by the way we share our love for one another. 

Action

Baptism allows our lives to belong to Christ.  We are Contemplatives in Action when we live our lives in his name.  Whatever we do we can do it in his name.  Even as we turn our lives over to him, he takes us out of ourselves into himself.  We become the center of our world when we allow Christ to be all that we are.  Purity of intention is nothing more than doing what we do in his name.  He keeps us from wasting our time by making us over into his love for the world.  When we offer our suffering in his name we fill up what is wanting to the suffering of Christ’s body, the Church.  We need to listen to what was said of Christ by the Father.  We too are his beloved sons and daughters in our union with Christ begun with our baptisms.  Doing the little things of our hidden lives well makes us worthy of the praise the Father gave to his Son.   The Father can say to us that we are his children in whom he is well pleased.