20180108
MAKING FULL USE OF THE GIFT OF BAPTISM
08 JANUARY, 2018, Monday, Baptism of the Lord
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First reading
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Isaiah 55:1-11 ©
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Thus says the Lord:
Oh, come to the water all you who are thirsty;
though you have no money, come!
Buy corn without money, and eat,
and, at no cost, wine and milk.
Why spend money on what is not bread,
your wages on what fails to satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and you will have good things to eat
and rich food to enjoy.
Pay attention, come to me;
listen, and your soul will live.
With you I will make an everlasting covenant
out of the favours promised to David.
See, I have made of you a witness to the peoples,
a leader and a master of the nations.
See, you will summon a nation you never knew,
those unknown will come hurrying to you,
for the sake of the Lord your God,
of the Holy One of Israel who will glorify you.
Seek the Lord while he is still to be found,
call to him while he is still near.
Let the wicked man abandon his way,
the evil man his thoughts.
Let him turn back to the Lord who will take pity on him,
to our God who is rich in forgiving;
for my thoughts are not your thoughts,
my ways not your ways – it is the Lord who speaks.
Yes, the heavens are as high above earth
as my ways are above your ways,
my thoughts above your thoughts.
Yes, as the rain and the snow come down from the heavens and do
not return without watering the earth, making it yield and giving growth to
provide seed for the sower and bread for the eating, so the word that goes from
my mouth does not return to me empty, without carrying out my will and
succeeding in what it was sent to do.
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Responsorial Psalm
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Isaiah 12 ©
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The rejoicing of a redeemed people
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With joy you will draw water from the wells of
salvation.
Truly, God is my salvation,
I trust, I shall not fear.
For the Lord is my strength, my song,
he became my saviour.
With joy you will draw water
from the wells of salvation.
With joy you will draw water from the wells of
salvation.
Give thanks to the Lord, give praise to his name!
Make his mighty deeds known to the peoples!
Declare the greatness of his name.
With joy you will draw water from the wells of
salvation.
Sing a psalm to the Lord
for he has done glorious deeds;
make them known to all the earth!
People of Zion, sing and shout for joy,
for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.
With joy you will draw water from the wells of
salvation.
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Second reading
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1 John 5:1-9 ©
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Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ
has been begotten by God;
and whoever loves the Father that begot him
loves the child whom he begets.
We can be sure that we love God’s children
if we love God himself and do what he has commanded us;
this is what loving God is –
keeping his commandments;
and his commandments are not difficult,
because anyone who has been begotten by God
has already overcome the world;
this is the victory over the world –
our faith.
Who can overcome the world?
Only the man who believes that Jesus is the Son of God:
Jesus Christ who came by water and blood,
not with water only,
but with water and blood;
with the Spirit as another witness –
since the Spirit is the truth –
so that there are three witnesses,
the Spirit, the water and the blood,
and all three of them agree.
We accept the testimony of human witnesses,
but God’s testimony is much greater,
and this is God’s testimony,
given as evidence for his Son.
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Gospel
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Mark 1:7-11 ©
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In the course of his preaching John the Baptist said:
‘Someone is following me, someone who is more powerful
than I am, and I am not fit to kneel down and undo the strap of his sandals. I
have baptised you with water, but he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit.’
It was at this time that Jesus came from Nazareth in
Galilee and was baptised in the Jordan by John. No sooner had he come up out of
the water than he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit, like a dove,
descending on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved;
my favour rests on you.’
MAKING FULL USE OF THE GIFT OF BAPTISM
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [ ISAIAH 55:1-11; 1 JOHN 5:1-9; MARK 1:7-11
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“Oh, come to the
water all you who are thirsty; though you have no money, come! Buy corn without
money, and eat, and, at no cost, wine and milk. Why spend money on what is not
bread, your wages on what fails to satisfy?” Indeed, many are
seeking meaning and fulfillment in life. We know that the things of
this earth cannot satisfy us, no matter how much we have. We might have a
luxurious life. We might have plenty. Yet, our lives are empty and
meaningless. Money, food, luxury alone and even career cannot give us
real happiness in life.
Who, then,
can give us fullness of life? St John wrote, “God gave us eternal
life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son
of God does not have life.” (1 Jn 5:11f)
Faith in Christ is the key to the fullness of life. This faith renders us
a share in Christ’s sonship. “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ
has been begotten by God; and whoever loves the Father that begot him loves the
child whom he begets.” The way to share in Christ’s sonship is
through baptism which is given through faith.
Indeed,
today, when we celebrate the Baptism of our Lord, we are reminded of our own
baptism. The baptism of Jesus is the basis for Christian baptism. Christ Himself did
not need to be baptized for the forgiveness of sins because He was
sinless. Yet, He insisted on John the Baptist baptizing Him for our sake.
In being baptized with the waters of the Jordan, rather than being sanctified,
Jesus sanctified the waters of the Jordan. By extension, He sanctified
all the waters for the use of baptism. Through the symbol of water, the
Lord saves us from our sins by His death and resurrection, since baptism is a
call to being immersed in the water and to rise up a new person. Baptism
is a commitment to die to our old selves and rise to a new life in Christ.
But water is
also a symbol not just of death and newness of life, it is also a symbol of the
Holy Spirit.
We are reminded of the Samaritan Woman who asked for the living water.
Jesus said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying
to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given
you living water.” (Jn 4:10) Christ is the living water and the one who will
baptize us in the Holy Spirit. John the Baptist said, “Someone is
following me, someone who is more powerful than I am, and I am not fit to kneel
down and undo the strap of his sandals. I have baptised you with water, but he
will baptise you with the Holy Spirit.” Consequently, the psalmist
invites us, “Truly, God is my salvation, I trust, I shall not fear. For the
Lord is my strength, my song, he became my saviour. With joy you will draw
water from the wells of salvation.”
Cleansed of
our sins and given a new rebirth in the Holy Spirit, we are made sons and
daughters of God. It is the Holy Spirit living in us that makes us children
of God. It is the Holy Spirit living in us that gives us the experience
of being sons and daughters of God, loved and empowered by Him. This was
the experience of our Lord. “No sooner had he come up out of the water
than he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit, like a dove, descending on
him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; my favour
rests on you.’” It was this consciousness of His sonship that propelled
Him to begin the mission of proclaiming His Father’s unconditional love and
mercy. St Paul affirmed this fact when he wrote, “For all who
are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not
receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a
spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is that very
Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of
God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with
Christ.” (Rom 8:14-17)
Becoming a
son and daughter of God entails that we are brought into complete union with
Christ through the Sacraments of Initiation, namely, Baptism, the Eucharist and
Confirmation. It is through the Sacraments of Initiation that we are made
truly sons and daughters of God, sharing in the life of Christ. For this
reason, St John wrote, “Who can overcome the world? Only the man who believes
that Jesus is the Son of God: Jesus Christ who came by water and blood, not
with water only, but with water and blood; with the Spirit as another
witness – since the Spirit is the truth.”
Baptism is
but a necessary gateway to all the sacraments of the Church. Baptism itself is not
sufficient to save us. It only gives us the grace and the possibility to
grow to adult manhood in Christ. St Paul makes is clear that the gifts He
gave us are meant “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building
up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and
of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full
stature of Christ. We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and
blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their
craftiness in deceitful scheming.” (Eph 4:12-14)
After baptism, we must make full use of the means to sanctification
provided by the Church of Christ, the other sacraments, the Eucharist,
devotions, instructions and service to the community and to the poor.
Through these means, we can grow in our discipleship.
Unfortunately,
many of us are born again in baptism but never grow to full maturity! We
do not take our dignity as sons and daughters of God seriously. St John wrote, “We can
be sure that we love God’s children if we love God himself and do what he has
commanded us; this is what loving God is – keeping his
commandments.” If we do not live the life of Christ, then we are
just children of God in name, not in fact. A nominal faith in Christ will
not save us. In the commissioning, Jesus told His disciples, “Go
therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey
everything that I have commanded you.” (Mt 28:19f)
The truth is
that parents do not instruct their children in the faith, or lesser still, show
the way of faith by their examples and their Christian way of life. This explains why many of
our children lose their faith, or their faith never truly grows. A number
of them do not go to church, or for catechism classes and for the sacraments
because their parents either do not bring them or discourage them from going.
They would wait till it is the time to receive their First Communion or
Confirmation, then they might bring them to Church. Of course, with such
half-baked Catholics, many would leave the Church after Confirmation as they do
not have a personal encounter with the Lord Jesus, and a relationship with Him.
Prophet
Isaiah invites us to “seek the Lord while he is still to be found, call to him
while he is still near.” We are called to nurture ourselves in the Word
of God. God’s
word is effective and efficacious if we take the Word of God which we read,
“not as a human word but as what it really is, God’s word, which is also at
work in you believers.” (1 Th 2:13)
Indeed, “as the rain and the snow come down from the heavens and do not return
without watering the earth, making it yield and giving growth to provide seed
for the sower and bread for the eating, so the word that goes from my mouth
does not return to me empty, without carrying out my will and succeeding in
what it was sent to do.”
Through our
love for the Word of God and the Eucharist as the Bread of Life, we will be
able to nurture ourselves in the faith, strengthen our relationship with the
Lord and with His body, the Church. Because many of us hardly pray the Word of God and meditate
on it, we are not directed in our lives by the Spirit of Christ but by the
spirit of the world. In addition, because we do not reinforce
ourselves as members of the body of Christ through the celebration of the
Eucharist, our link with the Church is weak. Thus, when tempted by the
world, we are easily deceived by the world. Without a love for the Word
of God and the Eucharist, we cannot be enlightened in the truth or be more
incorporated into the life of Christ.
One sure way
we can grow in our faith is to be His witnesses. The Holy Spirit is
given to us not just to build the Body of Christ and our personal faith but
also to be His witnesses in the world. Only by testifying to Christ by
our words and deeds, can we draw others to the Lord as we grow in our faith and
love for Him. Indeed, baptism is the beginning of mission as was in the case of
Jesus. It was His conscious experience of His sonship and the love of His
Father that enabled Him to go about proclaiming the love of His Father.
So too we cannot say that we are baptized and yet not be His witnesses.
The failure to be His witnesses means that our baptism is just a ritual,
a nominal faith. If we really believe that we are God’s children, that
God loves us and that Christ is the Son of God, we will not stop sharing Christ
with the world and those who are seeking fullness of life. So let us take
to heart the exhortation of Isaiah “See, I have made of you a witness to the
peoples, a leader and a master of the nations. See, you will summon a nation
you never knew, those unknown will come hurrying to you, for the sake of the
Lord your God, of the Holy One of Israel who will glorify you.”
Written by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of
Singapore © All Rights Reserved
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