Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

“After all the people had been baptized and Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”” (Luke 3:21-22.)

Saint Ambrose of Milan offers the following insight on these verses from today’s Gospel proclamation:

"Now let us consider the mystery of the Trinity. We say, “one God,” but we confess the Father, and we confess the Son. For although it is written, “You shall love the Lord thy God and serve him alone,” the Son denied that he is alone, saying, “I am not alone, for the Father is with me.” Nor is he alone now, for the Father bears witness that he is present. The Holy Spirit is present, because the Trinity can never be separated from Itself. Then “heaven was opened, the Holy Spirit descended in bodily shape like a dove.”

“Why like a dove? For the grace of the washing requires simplicity, so that we may be innocent like doves. The grace of the washing requires peace, as in an earlier image the dove brought to the ark that which alone was inviolable by the flood. He of whom the dove was the image, who now deigned to descend in the form of a dove, taught me that in that branch, in that ark, was the image of peace and of the church. In the midst of the floods of the world the Holy Spirit brings its fruitful peace to its church. David too taught, he who perceived the sacrament of baptism and said with the Spirit of prophecy, “Who will give me wings like a dove?”

We saw the Spirit, but in bodily form, let us also see the Father. Because we cannot see, let us hear. Our merciful God is present. He will not forsake his temple. He wishes to build up every soul, he wishes to mold it for salvation, he wishes to convey living stones from earth to heaven. He loves his temple. Let us love him. If we love God, let us keep his commandments. If we love him, we shall know him. He who says that he knows him and keeps not his commandments is a liar. For how can he who does not love Truth love God, for God is Truth? Therefore let us hear the Father, for the Father is invisible. Yet the Son is invisible according to his divinity, for no one has seen God at any time. So, while the Son is God, he is not seen as the Son, insofar as he is God. Yet he wished to show himself in the body. Because the Father did not wear a body, therefore the Father wished to prove to us that he is present in the Son, saying, “You are my beloved Son. In you I am well pleased.” If you wish to learn that the Son is always present with the Father, read the voice of the Son saying, “If I go up into heaven, you are there. If I go down into the grave, you are present there.” If you seek evidence of the Father, you have heard it from John. Believe him by whom Christ believed he must be baptized, to whom the Father entrusted his Son, saying with a heavenly voice, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”” (Exposition on the Gospel of Luke, 2.)

Collect

Almighty ever-living God,
Who, when Christ had been baptized in the River Jordan
and as the Holy Spirit descended upon Him,
solemnly declared Him Your Beloved Son,
grant that Your children by adoption,
reborn of water and the Holy Spirit,
may always be well pleasing to You.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.


- OR -

O God, Whose only Begotten Son
has appeared in our very flesh,
grant, we pray, that we may be inwardly transformed
through Him Whom we recognize as outwardly like ourselves.
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

The Baptism of Christ

Saint Gregory Nazianzen

Bishop and Great Eastern Father of the Church

An excerpt from Oration 39: On Holy Light

Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

Christ is bathed in light; let us also be bathed in light. Christ is baptized; let us also go down with him, and rise with him.

John is baptizing when Jesus draws near. Perhaps he comes to sanctify his baptizer; certainly he comes to bury sinful humanity in the waters. He comes to sanctify the Jordan for our sake and in readiness for us; he who is spirit and flesh comes to begin a new creation through the Spirit and water.

The Baptist protests; Jesus insists. Then John says: I ought to be baptized by you. He is the lamp in the presence of the sun, the voice in the presence of the Word, the friend in the presence of the Bridegroom, the greatest of all born of woman in the presence of the firstborn of all creation, the one who leapt in his mother’s womb in the presence of him who was adored in the womb, the forerunner and future forerunner in the presence of him who has already come and is to come again. I ought to be baptized by you: we should also add, “and for you,” for John is to be baptized in blood, washed clean like Peter, not only by the washing of his feet.

Jesus rises from the waters; the world rises with him. The heavens like Paradise with its flaming sword, closed by Adam for himself and his descendants, are rent open. The Spirit comes to him as to an equal, bearing witness to his Godhead. A voice bears witness to him from heaven, his place of origin. The Spirit descends in bodily form like the dove that so long ago announced the ending of the flood and so gives honor to the body that is one with God.

Today let us do honor to Christ’s baptism and celebrate this feast in holiness. Be cleansed entirely and continue to be cleansed. Nothing gives such pleasure to God as the conversion and salvation of men, for whom his every word and every revelation exist. He wants you to become a living force for all mankind, lights shining in the world. You are to be radiant lights as you stand beside Christ, the great light, bathed in the glory of him who is the light of heaven. You are to enjoy more and more the pure and dazzling light of the Trinity, as now you have received—though not in its fullness—a ray of its splendor, proceeding from the one God, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

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Saturday after the Solemnity of Epiphany

“And we have this confidence in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us... ” (1 John 5:14.)

In commenting on these verses from today’s First Reading, Didymus the Blind writes:

“Those who possess technical skills and know how to repair things are fully confident that when the need arises they will be able to do so. Similarly these holy men, John and the other apostles, knew from their own experience that if they asked God for what was pleasing and acceptable to him, they would obtain it. For God is most generous to those who have this knowledge and will grant the requests of those who ask according to his will.” (Commentary on 1 John.)

Collect

Almighty ever-living God,
Who through Your only Begotten Son
have made us a new creation for Yourself,
grant, we pray, that by Your grace
we may be found in the likeness of Him,
in Whom our nature is united to You.
Who lives and reigns with You in the
unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 

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The marriage of Christ and the Church

Saint Faustus of Riez

Ancient Christian Writer

An excerpt from his Sermon 5: On Epiphany

Saturday after the Solemnity of Epiphany

On the third day there was a wedding. What wedding can this be but the joyful marriage of man’s salvation, a marriage celebrated by confessing the Trinity or by faith in the resurrection. That is why the marriage took place “on the third day,” a reference to the sacred mysteries which this number symbolizes.

Hence, too, we read elsewhere in the Gospel that the return of the younger son, that is, the conversion of the pagans, is marked by song, and music and wedding garments.

Like a bridegroom coming from his marriage chamber our God descended to earth in his incarnation, in order to be united to his Church which was to be formed of the pagan nations. To her he gave a pledge and a dowry: a pledge when God was united to man; a dowry when he was sacrificed for man’s salvation. The pledge is our present redemption; the dowry, eternal life.

To those who see only with the outward eye, all these events at Cana are strange and wonderful; to those who understand, they are also signs. For, if we look closely, the very water tells us of our rebirth in baptism. One thing is turned into another from within, and in a hidden way a lesser creature is changed into a greater. All this points to the hidden reality of our second birth. There water was suddenly changed; later it will cause a change in man.

By Christ’s action in Galilee, then, wine is made, that is, the law withdraws and grace takes its place; the shadows fade and truth becomes present; fleshly realities are coupled with spiritual, and the old covenant with its outward discipline is transformed into the new. For, as the Apostle says: The old order has passed away; now all is new! The water in the jars is not less than it was before, but now begins to be what it had not been; so too the law is not destroyed by Christ’s coming, but is made better than it was.

When the wine fails, new wine is served: the wine of the old covenant was good, but the wine of the new is better. The old covenant, which Jews follow, is exhausted by its letter; the new covenant, which belongs to us, has the savor of life and is filled with grace.

The good wine, that is, good precepts, refers to the law; thus we read: You shall love your neighbor but hate your enemy. But the Gospel is a better and stronger wine: My command to you is: love your enemies, pray for your persecutors.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 

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Friday after the Solemnity of Epiphany

“... but he would withdraw to deserted places to pray.” (Luke 5:16)

Saint Cyprian of Carthage comments on this verse from the Gospel proclaimed at Mass today:

“Not by words alone, but also by deeds has God taught us to pray. He himself prayed frequently and demonstrated what we ought to do by the testimony of his own example. As it is written: “But he himself was in retirement in the desert, and in prayer,” and again, “He went out into the mountain to pray and continued all night in prayer to God.” But if he who was without sin prayed, how much more ought sinners to pray, and if he prayed continually, watching through the whole night with uninterrupted petitions, how much more ought we to lie awake at night in continuing prayer!” (The Lord’s Prayer, 29)

Collect

Grant, we ask, almighty God,
that the Nativity of the Savior of the World,
made known by the guidance of a star,
may be revealed ever more fully to our minds.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

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The mystery of the Lord’s baptism

Saint Maximus of Turin

Bishop and Father of the Church

An excerpt from Sermon 100: On Holy Epiphany

Friday after the Solemnity of Epiphany

The Gospel tells us that the Lord went to the Jordan River to be baptized and that he wished to consecrate himself in the river by signs from heaven.

Reason demands that this feast of the Lord’s baptism, which I think could be called the feast of his birthday, should follow soon after the Lord’s birthday, during the same season, even though many years intervened between the two events.

At Christmas he was born a man; today he is reborn sacramentally. Then he was born from the Virgin; today he is born in mystery. When he was born a man, his mother Mary held him close to her heart; when he is born in mystery, God the Father embraces him with his voice when he says: This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased: listen to him. The mother caresses the tender baby on her lap; the Father serves his Son by his loving testimony. The mother holds the child for the Magi to adore; the Father reveals that his Son is to be worshiped by all the nations.

That is why the Lord Jesus went to the river for baptism, that is why he wanted his holy body to be washed with Jordan’s water.

Someone might ask, “Why would a holy man desire baptism?” Listen to the answer: Christ is baptized, not to be made holy by the water, but to make the water holy, and by his cleansing to purify the waters which he touched. For the consecration of Christ involves a more significant consecration of the water.

For when the Savior is washed all water for our baptism is made clean, purified at its source for the dispensing of baptismal grace to the people of future ages. Christ is the first to be baptized, then, so that Christians will follow after him with confidence.

I understand the mystery as this. The column of fire went before the sons of Israel through the Red Sea so they could follow on their brave journey; the column went first through the waters to prepare a path for those who followed. As the apostle Paul said, what was accomplished then was the mystery of baptism. Clearly it was baptism in a certain sense when the cloud was covering the people and bringing them through the water.

Bur Christ the Lord does all these things: in the column of fire he went through the sea before the sons of Israel; so now, in the column of his body, he goes through baptism before the Christian people. At the time of the Exodus the column provided light for the people who followed; now it gives light to the hearts of believers. Then it made a firm pathway through the waters; now it strengthens the footsteps of faith in the bath of baptism.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 

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Thursday after the Solemnity of the Epiphany

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor.” (Luke 4:16.)

Origen of Alexandria (part 2 of Pope Benedict’s reflections on Origen) comments on this verse from the Gospel proclaimed at Mass today:

He says, “He sent me to preach the gospel to the poor.” The “poor” stand for the Gentiles, for they are indeed poor. They possess nothing at all: neither God, nor the law, nor the prophets, nor justice and the rest of the virtues. For what reason did God send him to preach to the poor? “To preach release to captives.” We were the captives. For many years Satan had bound us and held us captive and subject to himself. Jesus has come “to proclaim release to captives and sight to the blind.” By his word and the proclamation of his teaching the blind see. Therefore his “proclamation” should be understood not only of the “captives” but also of the “blind.”

“To send broken men forth into freedom.” What being was so broken and crushed as man, whom Jesus healed and sent away? “To preach an acceptable year to the Lord.” But all of this has been proclaimed so that we may come to “the acceptable year of the Lord,” when we see after blindness, when we are free from our chains, and when we have been healed of our wounds.” (Homilies on the Gospel of Luke, 32.)

Collect

O God,
Who through Your Son
raised up Your eternal Light
for all nations,
grant that Your people may come
to acknowledge the full splendor
of their Redeemer,
that, bathed ever more in His radiance,
they may reach everlasting glory.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

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The gift of the Holy Spirit to all mankind

Saint Cyril of Alexandria

Bishop and Father of the Church

An excerpt from his Commentary on the Gospel of John, Book 5.

Thursday after the Solemnity of the Epiphany

In a plan of surpassing beauty the Creator of the universe decreed the renewal of all things in Christ. In his design for restoring human nature to its original condition, he gave a promise that he would pour out on it the Holy Spirit along with his other gifts, for otherwise our nature could not enter once more into the peaceful and secure possession of those gifts.

He therefore appointed a time for the Holy Spirit to come upon us: this was the time of Christ’s coming. He gave this promise when he said: In those days, that is, the days of the Savior, I will pour out a share of my Spirit on all mankind.

When the time came for this great act of unforced generosity, which revealed in our midst the only-begotten Son, clothed with flesh on this earth, a man born of woman, in accordance with Holy Scripture, God the Father gave the Spirit once again. Christ, as the first fruits of our restored nature, was the first to receive the Spirit. John the Baptist bore witness to this when he said: I saw the Spirit coming down from heaven, and it rested on him.

Christ “received the Spirit” in so far as he was man, and in so far as man could receive the Spirit. He did so in such a way that, though he is the Son of God the Father, begotten of his substance, even before the incarnation, indeed before all ages, yet he was not offended at hearing the Father say to him after he had become man: You are my Son; today I have begotten you.

The Father says of Christ, who was God, begotten of him before the ages, that he has been “begotten today,” for the Father is to accept us in Christ as his adopted children. The whole of our nature is present in Christ, in so far as he is man. So the Father can be said to give the Spirit again to the Son, though the Son possesses the Spirit as his own, in order that we may receive the Spirit in Christ. The Son therefore took to himself the seed of Abraham, as Scripture says, and became like his brothers in all things.

The only-begotten Son received the Spirit, but not for his own advantage, for the Spirit is his, and is given in him and through him, as we have already said. He receives it to renew our nature in its entirety and to make it whole again, for in becoming man he took our entire nature to himself. If we reason correctly, and use also the testimony of Scripture, we can see that Christ did not receive the Spirit for himself, but rather for us in him; for it is also through Christ that all gifts come down to us.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 

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Saint John Neumann, Bishop (Feast in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia USA)

“They had all seen him and were terrified. But at once he spoke with them, “Take courage, it is I, do not be afraid!” (Mark 6:50)

Prudentius (formally known as Aurelius Clemens Prudentius) comments on this verse from the Gospel proclaimed during today’s Mass:

Thus I by my loquacious tongue
From the heaven of silence am led
Into perils unknown and dark.

Not as Peter, disciple true,
Confident in his virtue and faith,
I am as one whose unnumbered sins
Have shipwrecked on the rolling seas.

How easily can I be shipwrecked,
One untaught in seafaring arts,
Unless you, almighty Christ,
Stretch forth your hand with help divine.

(Against Symmachus, 2.)

Collect

O God,
Who called the Bishop
Saint John Neumann,
renowned for his
charity and pastoral service,
to shepherd Your people in America,
grant by his intercession
that, as we foster the
Christian education of youth
and are strengthened
by the witness of brotherly love,
we may constantly increase
the family of Your Church.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

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I have labored with all my powers to fulfill the duties of my office

Saint John Neumann

Fourth Bishop of Philadelphia (USA)

An excerpt from his A Letter to Cardinal Barnabo

Feast of Saint John Neumann, Bishop (Philadelphia USA)

Indeed, I have apparently delayed too long in writing to the Holy See the letter promised by the Archbishop of Baltimore in the name of the council. However, this delay was not without reason. For the council was scarcely finished and I was discussing the division of Diocese of Philadelphia and my translation to a new see with one of the Fathers of the council, when the Father intimated to me [that he did not know] whether that could more probably be hoped for, since the Holy See thought that I would resign from the episcopate, or wished to resign. In the same way when the Archbishop of Baltimore informed me of the designation of a coadjutor, he added that in the event that I should persevere in the desire to resign, the Holy See would permit me to give the title of the ecclesiastical property to the same coadjutor.

I was no little disturbed by the fear that I had done something that so displeased the Holy Father that my resignation would appear desirable to him. If this be the case, I am prepared without any hesitation to leave the episcopacy. I have taken this burden out of obedience, and I have labored with all my powers to fulfill the duties of my office, and with God’s help, as I hope, not without fruit. When the care of temporal things weighed upon my mind and it seemed to me that my character was little suited for the very cultured world of Philadelphia, I made known to my fellow bishops during the Baltimore council of 1858 that it seemed opportune to me to request my translation to one or the other see that was to be erected (namely in the City of Pottsville or in Wilmington, North Carolina). But to give up the episcopal career never entered my mind, although I was conscious of my unworthiness and ineptitude; for things had not come to such a pass that I had one or the other reason out of the six for which a bishop could safely ask the Holy Father permission to resign. For a long time I have doubted what should be done.

Although my coadjutor has proposed to me that he would take the new see if it is erected, I have thought it much more opportune and I have asked the Fathers that he be appointed to the See of Philadelphia, since he is much more highly endowed with facility and alacrity concerning the administration of temporal things. Indeed, I am much more accustomed to the country, and will be able to care for the people and faithful living in the mountains, in the coal mines and on the farms, since I would be among them.

If, however, it should be displeasing to His Holiness to divide the diocese, I am, indeed, prepared either to remain in the same condition in which I am at present, or if God so inspires His Holiness to give the whole administration of the diocese to the Most Reverend James Wood, I am equally prepared to resign from the episcopate and to go where I may more securely prepare myself for death and for the account which must be rendered to the Divine Justice.

I desire nothing but to fulfill the wish of the Holy Father whatever it may be.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

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