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Baptism of the Lord – 2005 (Year A)
When the priest takes bread and wine from those who bring them to
the altar and offers them in what we used to call the “offertory” (now called “the Presentation of the Gifts”),
he is setting them aside for a special purpose. He prays on behalf of all, “it will become for us the bread of life
… our spiritual drink.” Now, if you consider that the human body and blood of Jesus were to become the bread and
drink of eternal life, then you could say that the baptism of Jesus is akin to that offering of the bread and wine. In his
baptism, Jesus, in his humanity and divinity, is set aside for the sacrifice of Calvary. But just as, at the offertory, the priest does not yet consecrate the bread and wine, so the baptism of Jesus is not
yet his real consecration. His real baptism is his death and resurrection; indeed, put another way, his real baptism is the
Eucharist or the Mass, because in the Mass we really make present in sacramental form the sacrifice of Calvary and the
resurrection from the dead. Underlying the external rite we perform day in and day out, is the actual reality of Jesus’ sacrifice and exaltation. Jesus is baptized that we might be fed his body and blood.
We are baptized that we might become his body and blood, which is the meaning of the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ.
Alas, much of this means nothing to many Catholics today. The talk of eating
Christ’s body and drinking his blood sickens them; it has become as scandalous to them as it was for the Jews who rejected
Jesus, because they fail to think in terms of faith. What has caused this failure and why? I offer one inadequate response.
Today more than ever at least two forms of idolatry weaken and even destroy a heartfelt and faith-felt appreciation for Christ’s
way of dealing with us. The first is rationalism, the second is materialism. Rationalism means that only those things which
human reason understands or invents can be true or real. Materialism means that reality is seen only in terms of those things
we can see, touch, taste, smell or hear. Rationalism idolizes the mind; materialism, the senses. Rationalism was born around
the time of the Reformation and was an angry reaction against any truth being given from on high: it abhors all that would
suggest that the human mind is not infallible in and of itself. Materialism was born later and, strangely, is in part a reaction
against the rationalists and in part an expression of rationalism. The materialist aims lower than the rationalist by stating
that the senses and the needs of the senses are all that matters. He is like the rationalist in exalting the absolute independence
of the human being from any superior being.
The practical result of these two forms of idolatry is the exaltation of
science and human philosophy as the new dogma, or the exaltation of material possessions and satisfaction of the senses as
the new morality. These two ways of thinking and living have replaced the dogma of God’s truth in Christ and the morality
of obeying God’s commandments: modern man claims that he can know everything and have everything, and therefore needs
nothing and no-one, certainly not God, Church or sacraments. As is obvious, these attitudes repress the deepest truth and
spiritual longings of the human heart. They are self-sufficient and narrow and create an atmosphere of intellectual arrogance
as well as an obsessive greed for more and more material possessions or experiences. They alienate the human being, not just
from God, but from fellow and self.
To such people, talk of religion, God, prayer and spiritual virtue
is all nonsense. Indeed, it is more than nonsense: it is dangerous because it would suggest that science and the human mind
must be controlled by higher values, and it would seek to deprive people from indulging every and any sensual impulse. Religion
is seen by them as contrary to freedom as they understand it. The sad thing is that the people who are affected, if not infected,
by rationalism and materialism are not all atheists, non-Christians or non-Catholics. Because they live and work in a world
whose law and social intercourse are permeated by these idolatries, Catholics too bring them to bear within their own homes
and also within the Church, in small ways and big ways. For example, the loss of the sense of the real presence of Christ
in the Eucharist leads to a loss of an atmosphere of prayerfulness in the church and a sense of prayerful attention during
the Mass. Many no longer even know why they genuflect, if indeed they do genuflect. While
there can often be good reasons for it, many people come to Mass late and leave early. It is difficult not to wonder if perhaps
this is a sign of how much they begrudge giving time to God – “let’s get it over with quickly!” “I
shouldn’t be here listening to all this, but at home sitting at my computer or TV, or out at a sports game: this Mass
business has become an annoying interruption of my week!” Baptism, first communion and marriage are often no more than
social customs, become more important for the clothes bought and the parties celebrated than for the supernatural grace and
commitment they entail. In homes, crucifixes and holy water fonts are less and less seen, perhaps because they are an embarrassment
to “sophisticated” guests or, even worse, because no one even remembers any more what they are or signify. Prayer
is no longer taught or practiced at the fireside; God is not only far from the heart, but even from the lips; lips have become
frozen because hearts have first. Parents are embarrassed to pray with their children – perhaps because they never pray
with each other, or even at all? And what of our Catholic education system? Has it not sometimes become an accomplice to rationalist
and materialist culture which manipulates the Catholic name, once so significant and obtained by the sweat and sacrifice of
former generations of zealous Catholics?
What can be done to counter these losses of deep and convinced faith among
ourselves? Whatever it is, it must begin at the beginning and it must begin with “me”: it must lead to a rediscovery
of the meaning of baptism, my baptism. In a crisis, go back to first principles, to basics. This does not just mean reading
the Catechism again to understand the doctrine on baptism. That would already be something. It means somehow taking a pause,
setting up a red stop light, and keeping in check the mad rush of modern life. Imagine –and I know it may not be possible,
but it illustrates my point- imagine you and your family just blocked off a week from the calendar and said, “This week
we are going to stay home, turn off the phones and the TV and computers. We are going to take a long hard look at what our
goals are as family and individuals; we are going to ask ourselves honestly if they are worthy of God; we will try and understand
what it is that is exhausting us, making us edgy, bad-tempered, heedless of God and of one another’s true and beautiful
selves. We are going to go to Mass every day this week, prepare for it, receive communion, take our time to listen to the
Lord and to talk to him, ask his guidance and light and strength; we can even invite the priest over to share our spiritual
concerns with him, work out what we need to change and how, and begin again with new resolve to live out our baptism, confirmation,
holy communion and marriage; we can try to be more vigilant about bad influences on us and keep them in check, develop a culture
of forgiveness in our home by regular confession, and live with more time and loving words for each other.” Imagine
every family in this parish did this once a year! We would need to build a new church and have 10 priests on the staff! There
would be fewer problems of the wrong kinds, and other people would begin to say, “show us, too, how to be free of the
slavery of life’s relentless rush and its pagan idolatry of the human mind and senses.” We would have become witnesses!
Is that really so hard to imagine? Maybe, rather than a week, a weekend would be enough, maybe one day. Call it a Jesus Day,
a Jesus-with-us Day. Maybe you could get together and work out how to develop a model which would help other struggling marriages
and families.
At any rate, the change will not happen unless each of us makes it
happen. No priest has the magic staff of Moses to part the Red
Sea for you. The Pope could write an Encyclical, and already
has, but I wonder who reads them. So each one, each marriage, each family, holds the key. God can do the impossible with you
if, like Mary, you say individually and together, “let me, let us do what you say, Lord.” Summon with courage
the ongoing grace of your baptism and of your matrimony to seek the will of the Holy Spirit in your lives.
The Baptism of the Lord, then, can be the basis, not just of a New Year
resolution, but of almighty grace and strength to free us all from inadequate understandings of life which steal our hearts
from God and which alienate society from him. Should we not all want to hear the voice of the Father over us, “You are
my beloved son, daughter, couple, family. In you, I am well pleased”?
The longest journey begins with the smallest of steps. Listen, please listen,
to the voice of Jesus speaking to you through me today and make your way back, humbly, patiently and perseveringly to the
baptismal font. Let yourselves be thus set aside as bread and wine for consecration so that you may in reality be the body
and blood of Christ for the spiritual hunger of our world today.
Msgr. Peter Magee
Sunday, January 9th, 2004: St. Andrew’s, Silver Spring: 5.00 Vigil & 11.30 am
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