Today our celebration centers around the Baptism of our Lord by his cousin, John the Baptist.\u00a0 This feast is always celebrated on the first Sunday after the Epiphany and marks the close of our Christmas observance.\u00a0 This entire Epiphany season invites us to reflect on Jesus\u2019 baptism and its importance for us who follow him.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Luke\u2019s version of Jesus\u2019 baptism is more concise than the other Synoptic Gospels.\u00a0 Luke\u2019s intention is for us to focus on the work of the Holy Spirt in Jesus\u2019 baptism, and, by extension, ours.\u00a0 Catholic theologian Raniero Cantalamessa has written that: \u201cJohn the Baptist presented Jesus to the world as \u2018the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit\u2019 (see Jn. 1:33). Not only through the sacrament of baptism that he instituted, but throughout the whole of his work, Jesus \u2018baptizes in the Holy Spirit.\u2019 His entire messianic mission consists in pouring out the Holy Spirit upon the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The baptism in the Holy Spirit, that once again we have started to recognize and discuss in the church, is one of the ways in which the risen Jesus continues his essential work, which is to baptize all of humankind \u2018in the Spirit.\u2019 It has been described as a renewal of the Pentecost event and, as importantly, also of the sacrament of baptism and of Christian initiation in general, even though the two realities coincide and therefore never come about separately or in opposition one to the other. Pentecost does not cast sacrament into a lesser role (especially the sacrament of baptism with water), and neither does sacrament cast Pentecost into a lesser position.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In his baptism, Jesus becomes aware of his full identity.\u00a0 In the same way, we, too, are immersed into our full identity through the gift of the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 There is an old Hindu parable about a tiger cub raised by goats.\u00a0 The cub learned to bleat and nibble grass and behave like a goat.\u00a0 One night a tiger attacked the goats, and they all scattered toward safety. But the tiger cub kept grazing and crying like a goat, without getting frightened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The old tiger roared, \u201cWhat are you doing here, living with these cowardly goats?\u201d He grabbed the cub by the scruff of his neck, dragged him to a pond, and said: \u201cLook how our faces are the same, reflected in the water! Now you know who you are and whose you are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The tiger took the cub home, taught him how to catch animals, eat their meat, roar, and act like a tiger. Thus, the tiger cub discovered his true self.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In baptism, we are gifted with our true selves.\u00a0 This is more than mere identity, rather this sacrament allows who we are \u2013 created in the image and likeness of God to take root and bring our souls to light and life.\u00a0 In a very real sense, the Holy Spirit brings us to the water and there we see our reflection and God\u2019s staring back at us.\u00a0 This is where we begin to discover our true selves as God intended us to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When this happens, we discover that along with being baptized with water we are also immersed in the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 Thus, we are marked and sealed as Christ\u2019s own forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Baptism Today our celebration centers around the Baptism of our Lord by his cousin, John the Baptist.\u00a0 This feast is always celebrated on the first Sunday after the Epiphany and marks the close of our Christmas observance.\u00a0 This entire Epiphany season invites us to reflect on Jesus\u2019 baptism and its importance for us who follow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[16],"class_list":["post-653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homily","tag-sermon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":654,"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653\/revisions\/654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}