A new Philly family with freshly-baptized son, Alain Rene

Baptism of Jesus, Jan 11, 2025   Old St. Joseph Church

In my duties at Saint Joseph’s University I rarely have the opportunity to baptize babies.   But the last time I celebrated here at Old Saint Joseph’s, Father Frank asked me to take care of the baptisms on that Sunday afternoon.   I happily did that and was able to pour the water on two babies and one toddler all surprised by the liquid running across their foreheads.    I also quite recently baptized the new-born son of a couple in the process of seeking asylum here in Philadelphia. We certainly welcomed him as a member of the Church and I am hoping that his citizenship in the United States will not be questioned.  

In my own family we have a long standing tradition with a baptismal gown that first was hand sewn by my grandmother and worn by my uncle at his baptism in 1907 and last worn by my grand-nephew Bergen who was baptized 116 years later.  Bergen was the 56^th family baby to be baptized wearing this gown.   

But the gospel read today, of course, engages us in the meaning of baptisms for all the baptized. The word is based on classical Greek and means to dip as in the act of dying a piece of cloth in a solution of colored liquid or even to sink as a boat submerging in water.   The full symbol of Christian baptism includes the dipping of the body into water.   And I actually did this once with the help of her godparents, dipping a baby girl into a tub of water.  She is now about 35 years old and the most delightful person.  But, of course, to baptize in the rite of the Church today it is adequate to pour water on the head or even to sprinkle the head.

In our gospel reading today we feature John the Baptist.   He is a contemporary of Jesus and even known as his cousin.   He preaches not in the towns of Galilee and Judea as Jesus will do but rather he preaches in the desert area along the River Jordan, well east of Jerusalem.  John pleads with the Jews and their leadership to recognize and repent of their hypocrisy.  Jesus as he considers the beginning of his own public ministry confers with John the Baptist and in fact submits himself to the ritual of baptism that John practices, a ritual that John offers as a sign of repentance.   John says, however, to Jesus that, you, Jesus don’t need to repent and have no need of a baptism if repentance.  But for his part John wants to submit himself to the baptism that Jesus can offer.   John tells his own followers that his own baptism with water is different from Jesus’ baptism with water.   And the difference is this:  with John’s baptism the baptized acknowledge their sins and God forgives them in preparation for the judgement of the final days.  But Jesus, when he and then his disciples baptize, transforms the very meaning of baptism.   That is, today’s gospel tells us that when Jesus himself received John’s baptism “he came up from the water and behold, the heavens were opened for him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending.”  In accord with this baptism,  all baptisms in Jesus name confer the Holy Spirit.  Such a baptism accomplishes more than the forgiveness of sins about which John speaks. 

Well, father, what more? you ask.  Two things both important.   First the Spirit welcomes those baptized into the community of Love that is the Trinity, Father, Son and Spirit. So yes, Christian baptism, first of all, draws us into the Christian community. And second the Spirit offers us also a set of gifts that assist us in our lives of Community. Let me speak about community and then about these gifts.

Community:  After his own baptism Jesus’s public life unfolds.  He performs his works of preaching and healing, he engages with leaders of synagogue and Temple, he calls his disciples, he heals the sick and even raises the dead.  Baptism unleashes in him a public and community presence.  So it is for all of us baptized.   Baptism initiates in us not only a personal relationship with God but forms us in a community with all the baptized especially, of course, family and godparents.    And forms us, too, with a public mission in imitation of Jesus.   Today even the quasi-legal aspect of baptism, the inscription of the names of the baptized in the church records is a public gesture.   Baptism gives us a place in the People of God with rights to other sacraments especially the right to receive holy communion with all the other baptized. ….and also responsibilities.   The responsibilities of the baptized often run counter to individualistic ways of life that downplay active membership in a Christian community. Of course, God can save those individuals who create their own private ways of worship and service but such an individualistic life is not a fulfillment of baptism.

And the gifts of the Spirit?  We Christians have come to know the Spirit of God as the one who confers and then nourishes within us the seven gifts of the Spirit: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord (that fear understood as awe in the presence of the divine).   These dark days of this winter are filled with news of war and death, of political disarray and anger.  At the beginning of this new year we beg the Spirit to enkindle the gifts of our baptism in our hearts: especially the wisdom to know God’s will for us, the fortitude to speak the truth, and the counsel to find ways of uniting with others in the healing works of justice and mercy.   Always, always with an awesome sense of God’s glory and love for all of us.

Finally quotes from a short sermon related to baptism: we can take baptism for granted and not consider it as both foundational for our faith and also enriching our lives every day.   When I want to remind myself of the power of baptism, I remember a short story written by Flannery O’Connor, a devoted Catholic, who used the eccentricities of Southern Bible Belt Christians to startle us sedate Catholics with some unusual imagery.

We skip over the full story which Flannery titles “The River”.  But I read the words about baptism spoken by a preacher in the story, a preacher with a reputation as a healer. He speaks at a revival down at a river’s edge somewhere in one of our southern states.  Imagine the scene: The preacher stands knee deep in the slow flowing river along the shore and preaches to the congregation gathered on the beach.

In a twangy voice: “Maybe I know why you come, maybe I don’t.   If you ain’t come for Jesus, you ain’t come for me.  If you come to be healed by a baptism of river water and to leave your pain in the river, You ain’t come for Jesus.  You can’t leave your pain in the river.  You might as well go home if that’s what you come for.   Listen, people!  There ain’t but one river and that’s the River of Life, made out of Jesus’s blood. That’s the River that you have to lay your pain in, in the River of Jesus’s Blood.  In the River of Faith, in the River of Life, in the River of Love!   If you believe, you can lay your pain in that River and get rid of it….”

So the preacher standing in the current of fresh river water reminds us that the power of the grace of baptism by water has its source in another current, a current of blood, a river of the blood of Jesus.  This Jesus, a person with a divine nature, takes on also a human nature, takes on bloody human flesh and suffers bodily torture.   And when we believe, His bloody River washes away the pains of sin and the pains of body and soul.  In this one River of Christ’s Love for us we share all our joys and all our pains.   In this one River Christ gathers all of his sons and daughters together in mercy. 

O’Connor’s story with this image of a river of Christ’s blood startles us.  But we acknowledge, too: Christ’s own river of blood is the source of all the graces of baptism in the fresh waters of creation, the source of our community, the source of the gifts of the Spirit. 

 Lee Casaccio gave a copy of this art piece entitled "The Walk Home" 

On this Feast of Epiphany I think of the three as the Kings of Matthew's gospel led by the light into the presence of the Christ at his birth.   There follows here my homily to celebrate the day.

EPIPHANY   SJU Chapel  at 11 AM 2025 

 

The gospel writers Matthew and Luke, want to be sure we understand that the birth of Jesus, Our God in human flesh, has changed the very course of history.   In the gospel of Luke, angels reveal this to the shepherds and they recount what they had seen and heard about the child and “all who heard were astonished.”  Then Matthew goes further and introduces the Three Kings who journey from far away Kingdoms.  They find the new-born Child Jesus and worship Him as a Child King, as the New and Blessed Ruler over all.  These kings fulfill prophecies such as the one in Isaiah in our first reading today.    Isaiah predicts some extraordinary person who will come to lead Israel.  This person will attract world leaders to do him homage.  Isaiah writes: “kings are coming to your dawning brightness” and   “everyone in Sheba will come bringing gold and incense.”

So yes, angels, shepherds, wise men visit the newborn and his parents.   And
Jesuit-founder St. Ignatius of Loyola in his own imagination enhances the birth of Jesus in his personal prayer.  He considers that Joseph and the pregnant Mary on their journey to Bethlehem are accompanied also with “a maidservant leading an ox.”   And after Jesus is born in the stable, Ignatius uses his own imagination to pray in this way: “I behave myself as a poor and unworthy little servant, looking at father, mother and child and ministering to their necessities.”   In imitation of such imagination I recently read a contemporary description of ordinary persons paying attention to this family’s needs.  That is, a description of some more visitors who come after the three wise men had presented their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh and left the scene.   At that point into the stable to take their place walk three wiser women bearing their more practical gifts for Mary: diapers and casseroles for the week.

But, of course, back to the wise kings: we have no objective historic record of them and their extraordinary journey.    The first Christians came to know, however, as part of the experience of Jesus’ resurrection that his birth is to be celebrated because he is the one bringing wisdom and understanding to the whole world, Jew and Gentile.   The wise men are seekers of such wisdom traveling from a Gentile kingdom.  They travel from that part of the world that had often threatened the survival of the Jewish people.    The principal revelation in this scripture story?   God comes as a Jew to bring salvation not only to the Jews but also to Gentiles in a fulfillment of Jewish prophecy.

 

Two other points: First the contrast of power and wealth against the simplicity in this birth and finally our opportunity to protect children as the Kings protected Jesus.

 

Matthew’s story is inspiration for artists who welcome the clashing symbols of Royalty arriving at the stable.   The kings find there a baby born to parents who are nobodies.    This is the ultimate upper class-lower class drama.   Artistic illustrations of this event down through the centuries have gone out of their way to magnify the contrast.    The kings are clad in ermine and gold.    The kings have attendants holding their flowing garments, calming the camels draped in color and tending to the gifts the kings will present to the baby.   Jesus and his parents have a poorly clad farm hand tending to the simple farm animals.   The child lies in swaddling clothes on a straw bed.   The baby quietly glows in light while mother and father fix their gazes on him. The kings bend down and kiss the baby’s feet.   The artistic organization of image and light focuses solely on the little child.   The powers of the world bow to the wonder of the child. 

When we today see such a picture and hear this story we recall our own experiences of holding a very young baby, an experience that fills us with wonder, the baby’s eyes alight with hope and promise.    

The event as Matthew presents it clearly expresses the enthusiasm of the Christians for whom he writes.   He does not write exclusively for the powerful Romans or for the guardians of the Jewish Temple or the Torah.  He writes to express the fresh dignity that embraces everyone in every state of life.  His word and images express even among the kings a passing willingness to sacrifice their own kingdoms to enter the new kingdom of this child.

How can we join in the wonder that the three kings experience?   In some fleeting way they sense that they have found a new and lasting king.    Well, what is their first response?   They defend the child by their refusal to share their knowledge with that despot, King Herod, who surely would have killed this baby whom the three kings identify as the one who will overthrow all kings.  They defend human dignity by refusing to play by the rules of King Herod.   They risk his ire by sneaking away without telling him that they have found the child who is said to threaten his power. 

How can we share in their careful defense of the child?    Most of us are blessed to be surrounded by family and friends who welcome the birth of children and love them.   Babies before us beckon us, even urge us, to the work of defending life starting at a very early point in the womb and to make available whatever a pregnant woman needs to help her bear and raise her child. 

In a culture where abortion is so common, the Sisters of Life here in Philadelphia have a broad mission assisting struggling women to bear and care for their children.   I quote from one of the sisters’ presentations:  “There are a lot of people who are hurting, and we need to heal.   That healing can come from pro-life ministers, who can be the first ones to tell a scared pregnant woman that they matter and that someone is there for them.  Important it is, too, to offer the same message to a mother or father of an aborted baby that they, too, matter and are loved.”

Recently I had the privilege of baptizing the new-born son of immigrants who are seeking asylum.   The parents, because of the fresh ire aimed at immigrants without papers, have some financial struggles and the wise Sisters of Life are the ones helping them with the diapers and other things for this child.    

Further we ask the Spirit of God to lead us to be courageous in defending defenseless children who are threatened in so many ways.     Think of the threat of childhood hunger and disease in so many countries where power-hungry modern Herods value power and greed over the common good.   The World Health Organization in its review of mortality rates among children testifies to what is  happening now as 2026 dawns:  for the first time since 2000, the steady decline in child mortality rates has stalled or reversed.  

This situation is occurring not simply because children’s lives are lost directly in acts of war but more so because wars are disrupting food distribution and are causing millions of children to fall into malnutrition even at the same time as needed healthcare structures are destroyed.   If we in this country had as much commitment to feeding the hungry children of this world as we do to controlling oil reserves such as those in Venezuela, so many childrens’ lives would be saved, even millions over the years ahead.

Our own responsibilities to protect human life begin of course right at home among our families and friends, our neighborhoods and our workplaces.     None of us are kings or queens.   But all of us have the power of our own lives.   We witness to the truth by what we do and what we proclaim within the circles of life around us.   

Just as God helped the Wise Men to see and defend the Child Jesus, may God continue to inspire us in our care for the born and unborn, for all the children who can bring hope into the next generations.