Second Sunday of Lent

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Father Daniel Schomaker

Guest

On this, the Second Sunday of Lent, we hear the account of the Transfiguration of our Lord on Mt. Tabor. As Jesus converses with Moses and Elijah, Peter, in awe and shock of what is happening, says to the Lord: “It is good that we are here.” In this encounter had by the Lord, we see the fullness of the Church — the Old Testament and the New Testament — brought together through the teachers of the faith of old (Moses and Elijah) and the “new” teachers of the faith (Peter, James and John), with the Lord in their midst.

This made me start to reflect on when the Lord Jesus is most in our midst — at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. It is there that we encounter the Lord in four ways:

  1. In the community gathered at prayer.
  2. In the minister who is in persona Christi capitis (in the person of Christ the head).
  3. In the proclamation of the Sacred Scriptures.
  4. And most importantly, in his Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity really and truly present in the Eucharist.

We believe that when we participate in the celebration of Holy Mass, we are partaking in a Divine Mystery — where the whole Church, across space and time, gathers in worship. So, not only do we get to have an encounter with Jesus, but with the Church. Therefore, we should echo the words of St. Peter: “It is good that we are here!”

Our beloved Catholic faith is very personal, but it is not individualist — it is communal. I need you, and you need me, and we need each other in order to get to heaven. In a real way, we NEED to be here at Mass!

That personal relationship with the Lord is developed primarily at Holy Mass through its twofold end — the glorification of God and the sanctification of his people. And it’s not a one-off. Every time we go to Mass, we glorify God in our worship of him, and hence we are made holy. The more we are made holy (sanctification), the greater the desire one has to enter into worship (glorification). This then leads to holiness and then back to worship, and on and on and on and on until we stand before the throne of the Almighty. It’s kind of the Church’s version of the chicken and the egg.

So, let us be sure this Lent we are showing up so that we can express like St. Peter: “It is good that we are here!”

Father Daniel Schomaker is pastor, Blessed Sacrament Parish, Ft. Mitchell and director, Office of Worship and Liturgy for the Diocese of Covington, Ky.

First Sunday of Lent

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Father Phillip W. DeVous

Guest

At the outset of Lent, we are brought into the cosmic confrontation between Jesus Christ and the devil. This is a spiritual reality revealed to us: the state of spiritual combat we are always within, but which is brought to the fore during this penitential time. As St. John Chrysostom noted concerning Jeus’s battle with Satan: “Jesus’s victory sets an example for Christian obedience. Earthly life is a wilderness trial for God’s people en route to the land of heaven … God wills the faithful to overcome temptations from the world, the flesh and the devil. Triumph is possible through penance and obedience to God’s word. Rather than earthly bread and power, the faithful must desire the food of God’s will and the humility of Christ.”

In tempting Jesus with the things of the flesh, symbolized by the bread, we are shown the “night of senses.”  If we resist the temptation to indulge our bodily appetites without reference to the order of creation and grace, there is no reason for the devil to keep tempting us in this way. Jesus shows us the necessity of ascetism and fasting in the face of the temptations emanating from the unruly cravings of the flesh. Our Blessed Lord shows us how fasting is a prayer of the body, as well as how it can fortify us against powerful temptations of this sort, bringing our flesh under subjection to grace and truth.

Moving from the lower to the higher in the order of temptation, the devil tempts Jesus to living according to the spectacle and approval of the world. If Jesus would only grandly manifest himself, then people would fear and follow him! He could become a showman instead of the savior. As we contemplate this temptation of Jesus, we consider how often we are tempted by the attractions and entertaining things of the passing world. We can begin to see how we seek consolation and affirmation, not in God and spiritual things, but in material things, always wanting more and better stuff and higher quality experiences. Consequently, we lose sight of what lasts because we are blinded by what does not.

Failing to tempt Jesus with the blinding lights of the world’s approval, the devil moves to tempt Jesus to reject his identity as the Son God. Satan encourages Jesus to embrace an earthly and political mission to rule over the kingdoms of the world. The evil one is trying to prompt Jesus to forgo his mission as the suffering servant of the Kingdom of God.

As we consider this temptation of Jesus, we see the heart of the temptation is to substitute truth for the simulacrum of truth, which we think can be realized in power. This is pride. Pride, wherein we assume and assert “our truth” is what must be thought and our will is what must be done. When we fall to this species of pride, our hearts become hardened to the Eternal Word of God. Then, the way of Christ, which is the way of the Cross, is deemed impossible, undesirable and unnecessary. We end up living a self-enclosed, self-referential, selfish way of life. The result: we become possessed by the world and miss the mark of communion with Christ and heaven.

The diabolic illusion is always one of Godless self-sufficiency, personal aggrandizement and self-justification. In essence, the devil’s proposition to humanity is this: I will give you everything you think you want, and I will make you feel you will “be like gods.” And in so doing, the devil will make you forget that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

In the face of these primordial temptations to relentless worldly satisfaction, to self-sufficiency and to that of personal aggrandizement, we take up with the Lord the spiritual combat of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. These disciplines of the soul and weapons of the spirit are given to us so that hardened hearts can be cracked open to the grace and the glory of God. These weapons of the spirit must be wielded so that we might learn anew to worship the Lord, our God, serving him alone with undivided hearts. The goal of this spiritual combat is to move us from vice to virtue, from sin to sanctity, from death to life, Himself — the one who is the “joy of our salvation.”

Father Phillip W. DeVous is the pastor of St. Charles Parish, Flemingsburg and St. Rose of Lima Parish, Mayslick, Ky.

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

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Father Stephen Bankemper

Guest

In the Gospel for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, we continue through what we call Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. In the section of the sermon we hear this Sunday, Jesus addresses various commandments — about murder, adultery, divorce and oath-taking — but the key to understanding his teaching about these and other commandments is three sentences from what we could call his introduction to his teaching.

Jesus begins this part of His sermon saying, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” It is clear from this statement that Jesus is not positioning himself against the law of Moses, which only makes sense, as God cannot be divided against himself. Remember that the evangelists record Jesus as saying, “I and the Father are one,” (Jn 10:30) and “… no city or house divided against itself will stand.” (Matt 12:25)

It might seem obvious what Jesus means by juxtaposing ‘abolish’ and ‘fulfill,’ but it is worth risking the obvious to discuss it. Abolishing “You shall not kill” would mean, of course, that Jesus is making murder legal, that we could do less than the Mosaic law. Fulfilling the law implies that there is more to the commandment than the words on the page (or the stone), that our goal should be to do more than the letter of the law, and not more quantitatively, so to speak, but qualitatively; not more as in more things to do, but more as to go more deeply into the commandment. So to insult and vilify and blast someone with my anger, but say, “I did not kill her,” is to miss the point of the law.

A third sentence in Jesus’ introduction makes this even more clear. Jesus tells his disciples, “I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” We might ask ourselves how this can be: the scribes, and especially the Pharisees, were highly respected as the ones who observed the law to the highest degree. In fact, they were so careful to observe the law that scripture scholars describe their approach as “building a fence around the law,” referring to their practice of adding oral regulations that were stricter than the law to prevent accidental transgressions of the law.

What Jesus could mean is that the Pharisees were so focused on obeying the mandates of the law — bodily obedience, we might say — that they did not allow the law to change their hearts. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith; these you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.” (Matt 23:23) “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of extortion and rapacity. You blind Pharisee! First cleanse the inside of the cup and of the plate, that the outside also may be clean.” (Matt 23:25)

Jesus could also be referring to the fact that the law itself cannot save. There are many passages in St. Paul’s letters that comment on this, but here is how he expressed it to the church in Rome: “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.” (Rom 3:21-22)

We might express all this by saying that mere obedience to dictates of the law is not the purpose of our Christian faith. Becoming “good” is not the purpose. Placating God by being perfect is not the purpose. The purpose of our Christian faith is to be transformed, to become like Christ. There was a book published in the 1970s with a chapter entitled, “How Far Can We Go?” referring to how much sexual activity can an unmarried couple engage in before they sin. The question itself is Pharisaic. The true Christian attitude is the opposite: not how little can I do and still say I belong to God, but how much of myself will I allow to be transformed, how much like Christ can I become?

Notice the passive tense of the last part of that last sentence: how much of myself will I allow to be transformed. Obeying the letter of the law will not transform us, because we are still in control. Obeying the law in its fullness — fulfilling the law — transforms us because we allow God to be in control, because we have handed ourselves over to him. It is interesting that obeying the law is easier than fulfilling the law; that is because we can obey the law by our own strength, our own willpower, but to live the law in its fulness, we need God’s grace.

Notice one final and lovely thing. Jesus does not say that he has come to get us to fulfill the law; he uses the word ‘I’: “I have come to fulfill the law.” Jesus asks nothing of us that he does not do. He leads, in obedience and humility, in fulfilling the law, and then invites us to follow. Let us accept his invitation. Let us follow him, not disregarding God’s law but living it to its fulness, allowing it to transform us into the likeness of our Savior, bringing us finally to love.

And let us pray for each other and help each other in that endeavor.

Father Stephen Bankemper is pastor, St. Catherine of Siena Parish, Ft. Thomas, Ky.

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

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Father Michael Elmlinger

Guest

Last Sunday, we entered into Jesus’s famous Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), and we did so by hearing the equally (if not more so) famous Beatitudes. What the Beatitudes ultimately serve for the remainder of Jesus’s sermon is a sort of framework or foundation upon which and around which he delivers the rest of his teaching. We see this especially in our Gospel for this weekend, where Jesus tells his disciples that they are “the salt of the earth” (5:13) and “the light of the world” (5:14).

To really understand what Jesus is telling his disciples by calling them the “salt of the earth,” we need to think about what salt is used for. Salt on its own is not really useful. In fact, some people can even find salt on its own to be overpowering. Instead, salt is added to food to give it more flavor, as well as to help preserve the food by helping to draw out the moisture so as to prevent the growth of bacteria, thus extending the lifespan of food.

With this in mind, we can begin to see what Jesus is getting at by calling his disciples the “salt of the earth.” What the disciples are meant to preserve in the world is not food, but goodness. How do they do this? By living according to the Beatitudes that Jesus just delivered, all of which show a different aspect of the life of Christ, who himself was and is poor in spirit, meek, righteous, merciful, clean of heart, a peacemaker, mourns and was persecuted for the sake of righteousness.

By living in the same way that Christ lived on earth, the disciples of Christ are also preserving goodness in the world by drying up evil in the world just as salt dries up the moisture in food. In a world where there is constant war, violence, oppression, and many other evils, the disciples of Christ are to be the very ones through whom goodness continues to live by living according to the way Christ, who is goodness itself, lives.

That then leads us to Jesus telling his disciples that they are “the light of the world.” One of the vocations of Israel through the Old Covenant established through Abraham and Moses was that Israel was to be “a light to the world” (cf. Isaiah 60:1-3). The way they are to be so is by the very instruction that we see in our first reading from Isaiah: “share your bread with the hungry, shelter the oppressed and the homeless; clothe the naked when you see them, and do not turn your back on your own. Then your light shall break forth like the dawn…” (58:7- 8). As we just discussed previously about the salt of the earth, there is much evil in the world, and this shows that the Kingdom of Darkness still reigns in the world. Christian disciples, however, are to be the light that shines in the darkness, showing to the world the love that God has for us by loving one another as he has loved us (cf. John 13:34).

To conclude this reflection, I would like to share a quote from a homily by St. John Chrysostom that I came across during my research for this passage which I believe sums up what it means for Christians to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world beautifully: “Assuredly there would be no heathen, if we Christians took care to be what we ought to be; if we obeyed God’s precepts, if we bore injuries without retaliation, if when cursed we blessed, if we rendered good for evil. For no man is so savage a wild beast that he would not run forthwith to the worship of the true religion, if he saw all Christians acting as I have said.”

Father Michael Elmlinger is a priest of the Diocese of Covington, Ky. Father Elmlinger is currently studying Canon Law at the University of St. Paul, Ottawa, Canada.

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

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Father Daniel Schomaker

Guest

On the Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time, the Church begins our journey through the Sermon on the Mount with the proclamation of the Beatitudes. The Latin word beatitudo, translated in the Lectionary as “blessed,” can also be rendered as “happy.” The Beatitudes therefore describe not abstract ideals, but concrete attitudes and practices that lead to the longing of every human heart — true, authentic, lasting happiness.

Question number six of the Baltimore Catechism asks: “Why did God make me?” The answer: “God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this life, and to be happy with Him forever in the next.”

The world in which we live urges us to seek beatitudo now — immediate happiness, comfort and self-satisfaction. The Lord, however, desires beatitudo for eternity. Because of this, what the world promises as happiness often stands in sharp contrast to what the Church teaches. Indeed, the way of Jesus frequently runs counter to what seems natural or instinctive. For this reason, the Beatitudes often conflict with commonly accepted ideas of success or fulfillment.

Jesus begins by saying, “Happy are the poor in spirit!” This is a call to let go of ego and self-importance, making room for God and for others. True happiness begins when the self is no longer at the center.

“Happy are the sorrowful!” This is not an endorsement of sadness, but an invitation to honest sorrow — especially sorrow for sin and other bad choices which isolate us from God and each other. Such sorrow opens the heart to receiving and more importantly, accepting forgiveness.

“Happy are the meek (the lowly)!” Meekness is rooted in humility. The humble person is not consumed by the ego or pride, and is therefore free to attend to what is truly important.

“Happy are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness!” sometimes translated as holiness. For what do we truly long? St. Teresa of Calcutta once said: “There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.” Holiness — friendship with God — is the ONE priority that satisfies every other desire. Only God will satiate the hunger of the human heart; other “goods” may be important, but they will ultimately fade away.

“Happy are the merciful!” Mercy reveals the very heart of God. The word compassio — compassion – means “to suffer with.” If we want to be happy forever in the next life with God, we have to be willing to identify in love with those who suffer now — think of Jesus on the Cross.

“Happy are the clean of heart or Happy are the single-hearted!” A divided heart cannot find happiness. When Jesus becomes THE priority — in work, in family, in community — everything else finds its proper place.

“Happy are the peacemakers!” A true disciple is one who makes peace. We were created through an act of nonviolence. After the Resurrection, Jesus returns not with judgment or vengeance, but with the words, “Peace be with you.” Violence, hatred, and division breed fear, and fear is the enemy of love.

Finally, “Happy are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness!” Gospel values will inevitably clash with the values of the world. At some point, living faithfully to the Lord and to His Church will invite opposition and criticism. If that never occurs, it is worth asking: “Am I truly living the will of God?”

Heaven is a gift freely offered by the Lord. God never coerces; He invites. Each of us will one day face death, but eternal bliss is promised to those who, in this life, choose the ways of Jesus … the ways that lead not to momentary happiness, but to everlasting beatitudo.

Father Daniel Schomaker is pastor, St. Augustine Parish, Covington and director, Office of Worship and Liturgy for the Diocese of Covington, Ky.

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

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Father Phillip W. DeVous

Guest

Not long ago I had a jarring epiphany when studying and praying on the question and the reality of Heaven. During my course of study and prayer, I was hit between the eyes with an insight from the biblical scholar, N.T. Wright, who pointed out a profound truth in his marvelous little book, “Revelation for Everyone.” It caused the scales to fall partially from my eyes.

Wright points out that our Jewish brethren were careful to never abuse or profanely utter the Holy Name of God. As a result, they developed practices for avoiding this sin while laboring to honor the holiness and otherness of God in their speech and references. So, when you read the Word of God and you encounter the word “heaven” or “kingdom,” understand that it refers not a place, but to God, to his Presence and to his reign among us, right here and now, as well as his future coming.

How often in our worship, preaching, and scripture reading have we heard “repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand?” Probably more than we can count or remember. A more probing question is, how often have I grasped its meaning and its urgency? I cannot speak for the saints among us, but as for me the answer is not often enough. And therein lies the problem.

Jesus’ call to repentance at the outset of his public ministry reveals the urgency of the act of repentance. He is with us now. We are staring him in the face. He is speaking to us. He is fulfilling his promise to be Emmanuel, God-is-with-us, in the inseparable realities of Word and Sacrament. It is precisely because of God’s presence to us in the Holy Communion of presence, truth and grace, that we can exclaim with the Prophet Isaiah, “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” As we make our pilgrim journey through this life, with its blessings and its burdens, the inseparable realities of Word and Sacrament reveal to us the way and give us the grace to live in imitation of Christ and towards his Kingdom.

Absent our deep and personal engagement with the Presence of God in the Word and Sacrament, we find ourselves dwelling in that “land of gloom” referred to by Isaiah. Much of the modern, technologized, anti-human, anti-theist world gives every appearance of being a land of gloom. We see soaring rates of anxiety, depression, personal disintegration, and despair. I think this situation has much to do with a deficient conception of ourselves as human persons, a conception that has closed us off from the “bounty of the Lord.”

In the first half of the 20th century, the theologian and spiritual writer, Monsignor Romano Guardini, perceived the drift of the emerging “technological civilization,” now nearly fully realized, which would reduce man’s dignity and culminate in a totally enclosed self; a self and a society closed off from God. He tirelessly reminded his readers and congregants, “the nature of Christianity is not just an idea, or a program-the nature of Christianity is Christ. When we lose him, no longer want to know, only shadows remain.”

Decades later, the philosopher, Charles Taylor, spoke of the “type” or concept of the human person that has come to exist in our age. He described it is as the “buffered self.” This type of person senses themselves as self-contained, self-enclosed, and not needing any input from outside the self. For such a self, reality consists solely of their interior feelings and their interior, totally individualistic renderings of reality. In this rendering of existence, life is understood as having no independently existing reality outside of one’s feelings about it. This closing of the self to ultimate Reality is a quick path to life in the shadowlands.

It is against this backdrop of the buffered, enclosed self of our contemporary shadowlands that we hear anew the command of Jesus, “repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”

We have every opportunity to take up the Word of God and lets its truth enlighten us. It is that Word that leads us to the house of Lord where we “may gaze on the loveliness of the Lord and contemplate His temple” in the Most Holy Eucharist. It is only through our Eucharistic Communion with the Lord in Spirit and Truth that we can break out the land of gloom and escape the shadowlands. For in the Holy Eucharist, the Kingdom of Heaven-God-is at hand. Let us repent of our unbelief.

Father Phillip W. DeVous is the pastor of St. Charles Borromeo Parish, Flemingsburg, and St. Rose of Lima Parish, May’s Lick.

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

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After Christmas (another afterword)

The readings for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time — Cycle A — are: Isaiah 49:3, 5–6, 1 Corinthians 1:1–3 and John 1:29–34.

In the Gospel for the solemnity of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we heard the story of Mary and Joseph searching for Jesus, and his response to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”

Luke tells us that “his mother kept all these things in her heart.” This is not the only time that Luke says this about Mary. A few verses earlier (the Gospel for Christmas Mass at Dawn), Luke writes that the shepherds came and “made known the message that had been told them about this child,” and that “Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.”

In 1935, G. K. Chesterton wrote an article for The Illustrated London News which he entitled After Christmas (An Afterword). He wrote, “One of the strangest things about our own topsy-turvy time is that we all hear such a vast amount about Christmas just before it comes and suddenly hear nothing at all about it afterwards … Everybody writes about what a glorious Christmas we are going to have. Nobody, or next to nobody, ever writes about the Christmas we have just had.” And then comes the most important sentence in the article: “I am going to plead for a longer period in which to find out what was really meant by Christmas; and fuller consideration of what we have really found.”

One of the strengths of our American culture is that we accomplish things; we get things done. One of the weaknesses of our culture is that we spend very little time reflecting on the meaning of what we have done, or of what was done or said to us. We tend to think that what is important is what happened and miss the importance of what “what happened” means.

If we took seriously what the Scriptures tell us, we would learn this. We read in Revelation 21:1, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more;” and in 2 Peter 3:10, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up.” In these and other passages, Scripture reminds us that “things” will pass away.

What will be left, then? “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away,” Jesus says in Matthew’s Gospel (24:35). The Greek word here for “words” is logoi. Logos can mean word, but it can also mean “meaning.” Think of how often we say something like, “She is like that because such and such happened to her when she was a child.” Or how often do we note that two people come from the same neighborhood or the same family, and one succeeds in life but the other fails. Events pass away; their meaning is what remains.

The Christmas season has passed away, but what meaning was there in it for us? What did we learn, or could we have learned? Did it change us? How? Could it have changed us if we allowed it? What did Jesus want to do with us, for us, to us, this Christmas? Did we allow Him to do it? What insights came to us as we celebrated Jesus’ birth, as we heard the stories in holy Scripture again? What did we hear in homilies that we should ponder a little longer? Were there any “holy moments,” to use a phrase of Matthew Kelly’s, in the Christmas season? Perhaps we should go back to them and savor them more.

Some people by personality are more reflective than others, and contemplation comes more easily to some than to others, but everyone can learn to think about what happens to them, and the more we think about the meaning of things, the richer our lives will be. Just as if we eat too fast, we miss the full taste and enjoyment of a meal, if we simply “wolf down” the events, songs, Scriptures, conversations, correspondence and homilies of Christmastime and jump back into Ordinary Time, we will miss the richness and lessons of the season. We must let go of the season; it has passed but let us continue to ponder its meaning.

We have mentioned Mary; there is another image we can take from the Christmas story. Two of the creatures of the story — the sheep and the ox — are ruminants, animals that eat rapidly, but then expel harvested forage for further chewing and digesting. Ruminants typically spend one-third or more of their time eating but can spend almost that much time chewing their cud. We can learn a lesson from them: reflecting on what we have heard and learned is a way of garnering all the spiritual nutrition, or meaning, possible.

Whether we use the image of Mary or of the ox and sheep, let us not let Christmas have been just a passing pleasant escape from life, but a season that has changed our lives. Let us respond to Chesterton’s exhortation and take “a longer period in which to find out what was really meant by Christmas; and fuller consideration of what we have really found.”

Let us pray for each other.

Father Stephen Bankemper is pastor, St. Catherine of Siena Parish, Ft. Thomas, Ky.

Baptism of the Lord

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Father Michael Elmlinger

Guest

As we celebrate the end of the Christmas season, we turn our attention to the event that marks the beginning of Jesus’s public ministry: His baptism at the Jordan River by John the Baptist (Matthew 3:13-17). While this gospel is rather brief, it contains so many important realities that help to reveal to the world who Jesus is and what he has come into the world to do. By this baptism, God reveals to John the Baptist that Jesus is indeed his own Son, and that he has come into the world to “fulfill all righteousness.”

That said, this scene can be a little confusing. Why is Jesus being baptized to begin with? What does it mean for Jesus to be baptized to “fulfill all righteousness”? After all, Jesus, being the Son of God, has no sin, and John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance (cf. 3:11), meaning those who were coming to him were doing so to turn their backs on the sins that they had committed. Why would Jesus need to do this when He has not committed any sin? He certainly is tempted throughout His life, but not once does He ever fall into sin. When we keep this in mind, I think that we can all understand and maybe even share in John’s confusion when he says to Jesus, “I need to be baptized by you, but you are coming to me?” (3:14). So what righteousness is Jesus fulfilling by being baptized by John?

The righteousness that Jesus is fulfilling is that He is identifying himself with us, who are sinners. This is an aspect of God’s plan for salvation, for Jesus’s kingly mission. He is to identify Himself with us, become one of us and he is to take on our own sins as a sacrifice to the Father in the Holy Spirit in order to reconcile us to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. What Jesus is showing here is His solidarity with sinful Israel, with each of us, who are sinners, by undergoing the same baptism as sinful Israel. This is a foreshadowing of what He is going to do on the Cross. “For our sake [the Father] made [Christ] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God,” (2 Corinthians 5:21). “Sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh” (Romans 8:3). His very mission as the Messianic King of Israel, anointed by the Holy Spirit and proclaimed by the Father Himself to be His “beloved Son, with whom [He is] well pleased” (3:17) is to identify himself with us in order to reconcile us to the Father.

By doing so, the Father has given us a wondrous gift: to become his adopted children through the Son and in the Holy Spirit. At our baptism, whenever it may have been, we are joined to the Paschal Mystery of Christ, where our old selves die in the waters of baptism, and we are reborn as the beloved sons and daughters of the Father. This is all accomplished for us by the fact that Christ was and is willing to identify Himself with us, by the fact that He, though never having committed sin, becomes the Paschal Lamb, Who was slain (cf. Revelation 5:12). This is the very reason that he was born into the world: to die, so that we might live. As Pope Benedict XVI says in Jesus of Nazareth, “Jesus loaded the burden of all mankind’s guilt upon his shoulders; he bore it down into the depths of the Jordan. He inaugurated his public activity by stepping into the place of sinners. His inaugural gesture is an anticipation of the Cross.” By this wondrous gift, the Father has given us all the opportunity to hear the same words that he proclaimed to Jesus: “You are my beloved son. You are my beloved daughter. With you, I am well pleased.”

Father Michael Elmlinger is a priest of the Diocese of Covington, Ky. Father Elmlinger is currently studying Canon Law at the University of St. Paul, Ottawa, Canada.

Fourth Sunday of Advent

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Father Stephen Bankemper

Guest

“Pour forth, we beseech you, O Lord,

your grace into our hearts,

that we, to whom the Incarnation of Christ your Son

was made known by the message of an Angel,

may by his Passion and Cross

be brought to the glory of his Resurrection.”

Those who pray the Angelus with any regularity will recognize the Collect of the Mass this weekend as its closing prayer. One of the interesting things about this prayer is the way it connects us to Holy Week, interesting in part because there is no parallel prayer in Holy Week that refers so specifically to Jesus’ birth. The reason for this is probably historical – the Church had been remembering Jesus’ Passion, Death, and Resurrection for three or so centuries before she began formally to celebrate his birth — but it also makes theological sense. Jesus took our human nature to himself and was born for a specific reason, to accomplish something, and that something was accomplished on the cross, in the grave, and by his Resurrection and Ascension. Read the prayer without the reference to the Incarnation: Pour forth, we beseech you, O Lord,/ your grace into our hearts,/ that we may by his Passion and Cross/ be brought to the glory of his Resurrection. For those who know the prayer, this version is certainly diminished, but if one did not know something was left out, one could think that it was a perfectly good prayer for the beginning of Holy Week.

The connection between Christ’s birth and death has been noted by many. Some of the Church’s great homilists have remarked on it. A few of our Christmas carols, especially in the tradition of the spiritual, sing of the baby who “was born to die.” The artists who created most of the stained-glass windows in our own Cathedral make the connection in a subtle but unmistakable way. In the Eucharistic Chapel there is a window that depicts the Passover. One of the family holds the platter carrying the Passover lamb, lying on its side with its legs bound. A woman looks down on it, seeming to pray silently. Likewise, in the Nativity window (south side of the nave), we notice a lamb in similar pose, feet bound together. Mary may at first seem to be gazing upon Jesus in the manger, but as we look with more attention, we see that she is actually gazing, hands folded in prayer, upon the lamb. This baby Jesus will be our sacrificial lamb.

Does this remembrance of Jesus’ death lessen our enjoyment of Christmas? If Christmas is Santa Claus and reindeer, perhaps, although it is more likely simply to be ignored. But for those who desire to celebrate the fullness of the Incarnation and birth of our Lord, remembering why he was born makes the most sense of the story. Christ’s birth is not a stand-alone event but is the beginning of something.

Another interesting thing about this prayer is the plea for God to pour his grace into our hearts. It suggests to us that Christmas is not something we fit into our lives, rather, God’s grace pulls us into Christmas. The story of Christ’s life is the world into which we are invited to enter. Beginning with our baptism and continuing through the various sacraments and observances of succeeding liturgical years, God’s grace draws us into his story. Christmas without this kind of observance may be pleasant, but allowing ourselves to be drawn more deeply into Christ’s life is transforming. Remember that in this Collect we are praying to be “brought” somewhere.

May your celebration of the birth of Jesus the Christ bring you joy now, and also forever.

Father Stephen Bankemper is pastor, St. Catherine of Siena Parish, Ft. Thomas, Ky.

Third Sunday of Advent

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Father Michael Elmlinger

Guest

As a kid, I always found the rose candle of the Advent wreath to be the most interesting. It was always a sign that Christmas was so close, building the anticipation. I never understood the meaning of the color rose at the time, but even then, it still gave that sense of anticipation and joy that December 25 was just around the corner.

That is exactly what rose is meant to represent on the Advent wreath. What is interesting about the color rose is that it uses the same dyes as violet (red and blue), but it tones down the blue and focuses more on the red in the product, bringing out the rose color, which essentially means that it is a toned-down version of violet, but violet nonetheless.

What this is meant to represent for us on this Gaudete Sunday is the very fact that the Advent season (short as it is) is drawing to a close, building up that joy that we feel on Christmas Day as we draw closer to it. However, it also shows that the season is still not over, that there is still time to prepare our hearts for the coming of the Lord. It is similar to how early in the morning, just before the sun is about to break the horizon, it gives off a rose color into the sky sometimes, indicating the night is nearly over, but not quite yet.

In our second reading this weekend from the Letter of James, the Apostle tells us, “You too must be patient. Make your hearts firm, because the coming of the Lord is at hand” (5:8). During the hustle and bustle of the Advent season, we get this simple exhortation from the cousin of Jesus to take a step back, to recognize the present time that we are in, the time of waiting and preparation.

Christmas Day is indeed close upon us, one of the holiest days of the year, where we celebrate the mystery of the Incarnation of Our Lord Jesus Christ, our God becoming Man. However, that day is not here yet, and because it is not here yet, we are to still take this time to make our hearts firm.

What is interesting about this command is that this is the same activity as when Jesus turns his face towards Jerusalem and “makes his face firm.” (Luke 9:51) Once he does this, his focus is entirely shifted towards one thing: fulfilling the will of his Father by his sacrificial act of love that he will perform on the Cross. Nothing makes him waver from this determination. He is single-minded in this regard, his heart firm.

During these final days of the Advent season, anticipation is indeed building as we get closer to Christmas, but we must always keep our minds and hearts firm, fixed on Christ. So, we are to be patient, and to continue to journey during this Advent season in the present, preparing our hearts to receive the Lord.

If we are willing to journey with the Lord during these final days, it does not take away the joy of the Christmas season. Rather, it enhances the joy, because our eyes will have been fixed intently upon him, whose birth we celebrate. This Gaudete Sunday is an invitation to recenter ourselves on Our Lord Jesus Christ, so that we may joyfully greet Him when he comes into our hearts at Christmas and when he comes on the Last Day. As St. James says, “Be patient, brothers and sisters, until the coming of the Lord … Make your hearts firm, because the coming of the Lord is at hand.”

Father Michael Elmlinger is a priest of the Diocese of Covington, Ky. Father Elmlinger is currently studying Canon Law at the University of St. Paul, Ottawa, Canada.