Baptism of the Lord

     With our celebration of the “Baptism of the Lord” we come to the end of our formal celebration of Christmas.  Greens will come down and decorations put away over the coming days.  The one exception should be our manger scenes (créches) which are traditionally kept up until February 2: The Feast of the Presentation of the Lord.

     It’s a wonderful tradition to allow our observance of the Mystery of Incarnation to linger.  Too often our celebrations are a “one-and-done” affair.  By leaving out our créches and allowing them to continue as a focus for prayer we find ourselves taking deeper into our hearts the particular points of reflection that arose over the Christmas season and extending them into our daily lives – including in our ability to take these points of reflection and put them into practical action.

     Indeed, this is an element that is too often missing in our own baptism: is it more than a nice ceremony making us members of this institution known as the Catholic Church?  We need to recognize that the graces (indwelling of the Holy Spirit) given to us in baptism are still in us.  What we need to do is activate them, shake them up and let them inform / color our every thought, word, and action.

     I would also point out that we are not done with hearing in the Gospels about those epiphanies of the Lord.  This is important because one of the principle reasons we allow our baptismal grace to lie dormant is a lack of real, internal, activating belief in the unique place of our Lord, Jesus Christ plays in the salvation of the human race; or possibly even the need for salvation.

     Moving forward it is very important that we keep our recognition of Christ’s unique, divine power in the eternal life we have been offered.  It is also important that we recognize our need to continuously activate that salvific grace received in baptism and in all of the sacraments we have each, thus far received, as well as those graces that are showered upon us everyday as we find ourselves cooperating with the will of God.

     “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?  Trial, or distress, or persecutions, or hunger, or nakedness, or danger, or the sword?  Yet in all this we are more than conquerors because of Him Who has loved us.”  (Romans 8:35, 37)