One of the blessings of being Catholic, one of the “perks” if-you-will, is that our Church gives us lots of things. These things come in all shapes and sizes. We get crosses and crucifixes and prayer cards, and chalk…! We get the Communion of Saints to imitate, and we can ask them for prayers. We get palms and statues, and ashes on a Wednesday that begins the season of Lent, a mere six weeks away. . . We get candles to remind us of the light of Christ, incense to symbolize our prayers rising to God, and Catholic schools which we are fortunate to have in our parish and will celebrate in a couple of weeks as we observe Catholic Schools Week. We get all sorts of devotions and medals and manger scenes. We get retreats, and Camp Savio, and youth conferences. And of course, we get fish fries during Lent! Yes, being Catholic means having the opportunity to get lots of things, and to have experiences other churches don’t offer.
And of course there is one thing I left out on purpose, the one with the greatest meaning and impact far above any of those others, care to guess? Yes, Sacraments! No where else can we get more of the gift of GRACE, God’s very life poured out for us and into us, then we get in the Sacraments!
And while there are no limits to God’s grace, God can come into our lives anyway God chooses. We believe that the Sacraments are special moments in our lives of faith and in the life of the Church, special experiences in which our God comes to us in unique and powerful ways:
In sacred food, in promises made between spouses, in oils that heal, in oils that consecrate, in words of reconciliation, all powerful in their own way. All God moments. All times we get something more valuable than we can imagine.
And once again, I left one of those Sacraments out, on purpose, which is? BAPTISM.
And today we gather on this feast of the Baptism of the Lord, a celebration in which we recall and reflect on that day long ago when Jesus sought out John the Baptist along the Jordan River and submitted to the ritual washing he was providing. Jesus, like us, was changed forever at the time of his Baptism. First, he received a very powerful affirmation from God about his identity: This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. And second, as we hear in the Acts of the Apostles, God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit and power, and then he went around doing good. . .
And we don’t claim for Jesus what we don’t also claim for ourselves: Through our Baptism, we are made the daughters and sons of God, and like Jesus, God is pleased with us because God has created us in his image and likeness. . . And at our Baptism, we, too, are anointed with the Holy Spirit and power, and are called to do good. . .
But we so often forget that affirmation, and we often times forget our calling to do good. . .
We sometimes forget that all the stuff that our faith provides, all the stuff our Church provides to us, are NOT ends in themselves. YES, they are things meant for our benefit, but NOT for our benefit alone. They are not things we seek out only to cling to and to keep safe. Rather, all these things we experience as Catholics, and in particular those special God-moments of the Sacraments, are meant to be TRANSFORMATIVE, things that change us that the metanoia Deacon Larry talked about in Advent, SO THAT, we can begin or continue to live lives more like Christ.
And that means NOT seeing our faith as simply containing moments of “getting” but instead seeing these moments as starting points, opportunities to pass these gifts along, opportunities to fill our days with “giving” moments – days in which we simply look for ways to go about “doing good”, just like Jesus, because God is with us.
And so Baptism isn’t some kind of spiritual life insurance, our ticket to get into heaven no matter how we live our lives. Baptism is actually a bonding, a uniting, a connection with the God who loves us, a yoking of ourselves to the Lord Jesus in a most intimate way. And in doing so, we begin to start seeing things in a new way, thinking in a new way, and definitely acting in a new way, that is, we are embracing and accepting the call to be like Christ, doing what he did, going where he went, following THE one true star which is guiding us.
So it comes down to the fact that Baptism isn’t so much about what we are able to GET, it’s about what we are willing to GIVE! And that holds true for all the Sacraments. We receive forgiveness in Reconciliation so we can forgive those who have trespassed against us.
A husband and wife pledge their lives to each other in love, so that love can spread. Those who are Confirmed receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit so they can use those gifts to build up the Body of Christ. One receives grace in the Sacrament of Anointing so they can face their illness with the knowledge that God is with them in their suffering. A priest receives the power of the Holy Spirit to be able to minister to those entrusted to his care in a parish or wherever he serves.
And of course we are nourished by the Body and Blood of Christ so that we can become more like Christ, to serve him by serving others, because God has called us, God has grasped us by the hand, God wants us to be a light for the nations. . .
Last week our guest speaker, King Melchior reminded us the Magi gave their best and their all to the Lord. The question is, will we?