Our Call To Love And Union With God

• 2 years ago

By FR. ROBERT ALTIER

The Baptism Of The Lord (YR C)

Readings: Isaiah 42:1-4, 6-7

Ti 2:11-14; 3:4-7

Luke 3:15-16, 21-22

In the second reading St. Paul tells us the grace of God has appeared. This is actually a Christmas reading, similar to St. John saying the Word was made flesh. Since God is infinite, purely spiritual, and beyond our comprehension, there is no practical way to express what it means that the second Person of the Most Holy Trinity took on our human nature and lived our human life. For this reason, the Apostles used these rather poetic terms to describe the Incarnation of our Lord.

St. Paul differentiates this first coming of our Lord with His second coming by saying that “we await the blessed hope, the appearance of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.” In between these two revelations of the Lord, but clearly connected with the first coming of Christ, St. Paul says: “When the kindness and generous love of God our Savior appeared … He saved us through the bath of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.” This “bath of rebirth” refers to our Baptism.

To prepare the Church for this baptism, Jesus first accepted baptism at the hand of St. John the Baptist. This might strike us as strange because St. John’s baptism was one of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus is God; He is our Savior. As God He cannot sin. He came to save us from our sins because He has no sins of His own. As we know, He did not enter into the waters of baptism for Himself, but for His Bride, the Church. As with everything else, Jesus will not ask us to do something He was unwilling to do Himself.

Therefore, Jesus was washed in the waters of the baptism of repentance, so that we would follow where He leads. However, we have been baptized in the baptism of Jesus, not that of John. In the Gospel, the Baptist said he baptized with water, but the One coming after him would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. If this is the case, one might wonder why we were baptized with water.

The word baptism means a cleansing. Our sins are washed away when we are baptized, but God is calling us to something much deeper. It is excellent that we repent of our sins and have them removed, but in baptism we become children of God by becoming members of Jesus Christ. In the first reading, the Prophet Isaiah told us the Messiah was formed and set as a covenant to the people. Jesus is the covenant that brings us into a familial and intimate relationship with God.

It is the work of the Holy Spirit to facilitate this union. This union with God is established at the moment we are baptized, but God wants more for us. Even this basic union is more than we could ask or imagine, but God’s generosity is infinitely beyond what we could hope for. Therefore, because God loves us and wants only what is best for us, He wants us to enter more and more deeply into the mystery of Himself. God wants us to receive His love and to love Him. Since love never remains static, He desires that our love for Him grow at every instant.

Keep in mind that God gets nothing out of this. He is perfect, He is perfectly happy, and He is perfectly fulfilled. There is nothing we can add to God. Even our Lady’s love for God did not add anything to Him. There was not, and is not, anything lacking in God. For this reason, we can say with absolute certainty, that God wants us to grow deeper in our love for Him because it is what is best for us; it is what will bring us fulfillment. He truly wants this only for our good.

In order to go deeper, we need to be more and more purified. This is the fire St. John speaks of in the Gospel. It is a fire of love, but as such, it is also a purifying fire. Although we are baptized, there are still imperfections in our person. The more these imperfections are removed, the more freedom we have to be who God created us to be, and the more capacity we have to love Him and to love those around us.

So, as the Holy Spirit descended on our Lord at His Baptism and the Father proclaimed His pleasure in His beloved Son, so now, as members of Jesus, the Holy Spirit is poured into our hearts and we become beloved children of God. In baptism we are justified by grace and become heirs to eternal life, but this is only the first step in our call to love and union with God in this life and for eternity!