Saints of God…
…the Lord be with you!
Today begins the week of prayer for Christian Unity. In the opening prayer for today’s Mass we prayed, “…hear the pleading of your people and bestow peace in our times.” Given the division going on is our world, our country, and our church, I can’t think of any more urgent prayer: “Peace in our times.” But what would this peace look like.
First, peace is NOT defined as the absence of war or conflict. Peace (in the Biblical sense) is that we live in RIGHT RELATIONSHIP with God, one another, creation, and ourselves. It seems to me that this notion of right relationship is the reason why the Church has selected the Gospel according to John’s account of the Baptism of Jesus only one week after we celebrated the Solemnity of the Baptism of the Lord.
Baptism is a defining event in most, if not all Christian denominations. If a person seeks full communion with the Catholic Church, we more often than not do not rebaptize as long as the baptism was done with water and the words “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit” were said. But what exactly does Baptism do, and why did Jesus need to be baptized if He was/is sinless?
I like to say that Jesus entered the waters of the Jordan river clean and symbolically took upon Himself the sins of humanity. His was not a baptism of repentance (since He had no sin to repent of) but rather was a Baptism of solidarity with sinners which all of us are. We are baptized into Christ’s baptism of solidarity, and at the same time cleansed of original sin. As we say in the Creed, “…one baptism for the forgiveness of SINS.” Sin divides us; the grace of Christ heals and unites us.
All of us need the healing, forgiving grace of Christ. And with that healing and forgiving comes the mandate to live as a healed forgiven person in the world. Our primary identity is Christ…not following any particular political leader or party; not defining ourselves through the lens of gender or sexual identity. As St. Augustine wrote, “Rejoice O Christian, for by your baptism YOU are more than a Christian, YOU are CHRIST Himself.”
This week let’s look on all the people we encounter as other Christ’s. If we begin to look at one another differently then maybe we will begin to treat each other differently. This week, when we plead for the unity of all who call themselves Christian, let’s ACT like Christ Himself.
– Fr. Steve
