Baptism is fundamental. It marks the start of Jesus’ ministry. The baptism of Jesus by John is recounted in the three synoptic gospels. The earliest of the accounts that has come down to us is that of Mark:
In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
“Jesus’ baptism by John is almost surely based on an historical event... Whether the individual details are historical, however, we cannot determine, but they are important for what Mark wants to tell us about Jesus. The Jewish people of Jesus’ time mourned the loss of prophets and the silence of God. Now, with Jesus’ appearance, the heavens are again opened up; God’s Spirit comes once more; and God’s silence is broken.” (Invitation to the Gospels, Paul Achtemeier)
Baptism is fundamental in the life of a Christian. That sounds straightforward. But I think that we are still in the process of renewing our understanding of this sacrament.
It has become customary to celebrate infant baptism in the course of the Sunday Eucharist. (Adults are baptized at the Easter Vigil.) It is not uncommon to hear comments about the infant that is being baptized being welcomed into the parish community, as well as being welcomed into the larger church. What I don’t often hear are words about Christ and the Holy Spirit and the Father.
However, by our baptism we enter into in a relationship with Father, Son and Spirit, with the Trinity. This is certainly the most important dimension of baptism. In baptism we are anointed with the Holy Spirit. We are “Christ-ened. God looks upon us and sees “his” own sons and daughters.
In celebrating the baptism of an infant, we are invited to proclaim the gospel message of Jesus in a powerful manner. We profess our faith in the good news that God loves us from the very beginning of our lives, that God loves us before we have the slightest ability to do anything on our own. We affirm what we read in the first letter of John: God is love and in this we know love that God has first loved us.
In the baptism of an infant we celebrate the awesome action of God proclaiming, as he did at the baptism of Jesus, this is my dearly loved child upon whom I pour out my own Spirit.
It seems customary now to applaud after the baptism as a sign of welcome. I confess this leaves me cold. It is a nice gesture that befits a birthday party or a luncheon speaker. The action of God calls for so much more. How I would love to hear a church resonate with a congregation’s praise of a God with full throated acclaim “You have put on Christ” or “Great is the Lord, Worthy of Praise, Spread the word of his Love.”
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Monday, January 2, 2012
Collect for Tuesday in Christmas Time
O God, whose Only Begotten Son has appeared in our very flesh, grant, we pray, that we may be inwardly transformed through him whom we recognize as outwardly like ourselves.
The expression “Outwardly like our selves” is reminiscent of Docetism, an early heresy which maintained that Jesus simply appeared as a man, that his humanity was only an appearance, not a reality.
The expression “Outwardly like our selves” is reminiscent of Docetism, an early heresy which maintained that Jesus simply appeared as a man, that his humanity was only an appearance, not a reality.
Monday, December 26, 2011
Favorite Carol
One of my favorite Christmas Carols is “Good King Wenceslaus.”
The good king looked out his window on the feast of Stephen, that is, on the day after Christmas. The moon shone brightly; a clear sky means a very cold night. The king saw a man gathering fuel to heat his home and inquired who the man was. The king’s page answers that the peasant lives “a good league hence.” A league is somewhere between two and a half and four and a half miles, a long way to go to forage for firewood.
The king responds by having his page gather meat and wine and firewood. He doesn’t sent them out to the man but tells his page that they will take them to the man’s house.
When the page says he can go no further because of the wind and cold, the king tells him to follow behind him, using the king as shelter.
The carol concludes: “Ye who now will bless the poor, shall yourselves find blessing.” Not just at Christmas, but especially when Christmas has passed.
The good king looked out his window on the feast of Stephen, that is, on the day after Christmas. The moon shone brightly; a clear sky means a very cold night. The king saw a man gathering fuel to heat his home and inquired who the man was. The king’s page answers that the peasant lives “a good league hence.” A league is somewhere between two and a half and four and a half miles, a long way to go to forage for firewood.
The king responds by having his page gather meat and wine and firewood. He doesn’t sent them out to the man but tells his page that they will take them to the man’s house.
When the page says he can go no further because of the wind and cold, the king tells him to follow behind him, using the king as shelter.
The carol concludes: “Ye who now will bless the poor, shall yourselves find blessing.” Not just at Christmas, but especially when Christmas has passed.
Octave of Christmas
The prayers for the 7th day within the Octave have some intriguing phrases.
The Collect reads that “God… who, in the Nativity of your Son, established the beginning and fulfillment of all religion.” What does this mean in light of the covenant that was made with Abraham and the covenant that was made with the people of Israel at Mount Sinai? Is Judaism not a religion?
The Prayer over the Offerings asks that “we may do fitting homage to your divine majesty.” The dictionary indicates that “pay homage” is the usual expression.
The Prayer after Communion prays that “your people… with the needed solace of things that pass away may strive with ever deepened trust for things eternal.”
The Collect reads that “God… who, in the Nativity of your Son, established the beginning and fulfillment of all religion.” What does this mean in light of the covenant that was made with Abraham and the covenant that was made with the people of Israel at Mount Sinai? Is Judaism not a religion?
The Prayer over the Offerings asks that “we may do fitting homage to your divine majesty.” The dictionary indicates that “pay homage” is the usual expression.
The Prayer after Communion prays that “your people… with the needed solace of things that pass away may strive with ever deepened trust for things eternal.”
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Ancestors
The gospel reading for the vigil Mass of Christmas is the opening of the Gospel according to Matthew, the genealogy of Jesus. Most parishes that I am familiar with do not use this reading. Instead they use the gospel reading for the midnight Mass, the account of Jesus’ birth from Luke.
The genealogy of Jesus from Matthew has four interesting women in it: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba who is identified only as Soloman’s mother who had been the wife of Uriah.
The footnote in the New American Bible says that these women “bore their sons through unions that were in varying degrees strange and unexpected.”
Perhaps the strangest to our way of thinking is the first, Tamar. She was the wife of Judah’s firstborn son. However, we read he “greatly offended the LORD; so the LORD took his life.” As was the custom the times, another of Judah’s sons, Onan, was married to Tamar to raise up children for his deceased brother. This was not to Onan’s liking and he, too, offended the LORD and died. Tamar had a right to marriage with another of Judah’s sons. However he put this off, for understandable reasons. As time passed and there was no forth coming marriage, Tamar took matters into her own hands. She disguised herself and plopped herself down by the roadside when she know Judah would be passing by. He, mistaking her for a prostitute, had intercourse with her, promising a goat in payment. She obtained his seal as a pledge and promptly returned home after Judah left. When she was reported to be pregnant, Judah’s response was: “Bring her out; let her be burned.” However, when Tamar produced Judah’s seal, identifying him as the father of her child, he recognized that he had wronged her.
The next woman is Rahab, a prostitute of Jericho, who protected the spies that Joshua had sent to recognoiter Jericho. In return she and her family were spared when Jericho fell to the Israelites.
The third is Ruth, who is well known for her loyalty to her mother-in-law, Noemi. Ruth was a Moabite, a foreigner, who became the great-grandmother of David.
The fourth woman is Bathsheba who gave birth to Solomon after her adulterous affair with David.
These are not four of the women mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus; these are the four women mentioned, the only ones, other than Mary.
Scripture is quite willing to provide examples of God working in unexpected ways. However in the accounts of the lives of the saints I find a tendency to sanitize the work of God.
I had to chuckle when I read that an account of Pope John XXIII’s visit with prisoners in Rome; he told them that he had a relative who had been imprisoned for poaching. L’Osservatore Romano edited that comment out when they reprinted his talk.
God can work wonders, with fallible even sinful people. That’s good news.
The genealogy of Jesus from Matthew has four interesting women in it: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba who is identified only as Soloman’s mother who had been the wife of Uriah.
The footnote in the New American Bible says that these women “bore their sons through unions that were in varying degrees strange and unexpected.”
Perhaps the strangest to our way of thinking is the first, Tamar. She was the wife of Judah’s firstborn son. However, we read he “greatly offended the LORD; so the LORD took his life.” As was the custom the times, another of Judah’s sons, Onan, was married to Tamar to raise up children for his deceased brother. This was not to Onan’s liking and he, too, offended the LORD and died. Tamar had a right to marriage with another of Judah’s sons. However he put this off, for understandable reasons. As time passed and there was no forth coming marriage, Tamar took matters into her own hands. She disguised herself and plopped herself down by the roadside when she know Judah would be passing by. He, mistaking her for a prostitute, had intercourse with her, promising a goat in payment. She obtained his seal as a pledge and promptly returned home after Judah left. When she was reported to be pregnant, Judah’s response was: “Bring her out; let her be burned.” However, when Tamar produced Judah’s seal, identifying him as the father of her child, he recognized that he had wronged her.
The next woman is Rahab, a prostitute of Jericho, who protected the spies that Joshua had sent to recognoiter Jericho. In return she and her family were spared when Jericho fell to the Israelites.
The third is Ruth, who is well known for her loyalty to her mother-in-law, Noemi. Ruth was a Moabite, a foreigner, who became the great-grandmother of David.
The fourth woman is Bathsheba who gave birth to Solomon after her adulterous affair with David.
These are not four of the women mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus; these are the four women mentioned, the only ones, other than Mary.
Scripture is quite willing to provide examples of God working in unexpected ways. However in the accounts of the lives of the saints I find a tendency to sanitize the work of God.
I had to chuckle when I read that an account of Pope John XXIII’s visit with prisoners in Rome; he told them that he had a relative who had been imprisoned for poaching. L’Osservatore Romano edited that comment out when they reprinted his talk.
God can work wonders, with fallible even sinful people. That’s good news.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Ineffable Word
Prayer for December 20th
O God, eternal majesty, whose ineffable Word, the immaculate virgin received through the message of an angel…
My dictionary defines ineffable as “incapable of being expressed in words: indescribable , unspeakable, not to be uttered (taboo)”
Strange combination: ineffable Word.
O God, eternal majesty, whose ineffable Word, the immaculate virgin received through the message of an angel…
My dictionary defines ineffable as “incapable of being expressed in words: indescribable , unspeakable, not to be uttered (taboo)”
Strange combination: ineffable Word.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Thomas Merton's Prayer
O Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going,
I do not see the road ahead of me,
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself,
And that fact that I think
I am following Your will
Does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe
That the desire to please You
Does in fact please You.
And I hope I have that desire
In all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything
Apart from that desire to please You.
And I know that if I do this
You will lead me by the right road,
Though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore I will trust You always
Though I may seem to be lost
And in the shadow of death.
I will not fear,
For You are ever with me,
And You will never leave me
\To make my journey alone.
I have no idea where I am going,
I do not see the road ahead of me,
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself,
And that fact that I think
I am following Your will
Does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe
That the desire to please You
Does in fact please You.
And I hope I have that desire
In all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything
Apart from that desire to please You.
And I know that if I do this
You will lead me by the right road,
Though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore I will trust You always
Though I may seem to be lost
And in the shadow of death.
I will not fear,
For You are ever with me,
And You will never leave me
\To make my journey alone.
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