Sunday Homily: Baptism of the Lord - Union with God

This homily is four months in the making. It contains some thoughts and reflection from my sabbatical. Since it is now in print form in this blog, I am not constrained by time, so have developed certain parts a little further.

Because I kept a journal, I can tell you exactly how it went down. On September 17^th, I received an email blast from Dr. Scott Hahn, a Catholic Bible scholar who used to be a Protestant minister. He wrote about two things in the email blast: 1) Holiness; and 2) the question: Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus?

He wrote: “As a Protestant, I must have asked people that question a thousand times. And not once did I doubt what the answer should be. If a person didn’t have a personal relationship with Jesus, then they needed a personal relationship with Jesus. A personal relationship with Jesus, I believed, was that for which every one of us was made. Then I became Catholic. And I realized God was calling us to so much more than a personal relationship with Himself. …God isn’t calling us to a mere relationship. He’s calling us to union. He’s calling us to be filled with His own life. He’s calling us to become partakers of His divine nature. That sounds radical. But it sounds even more radical as we grow in our understanding of the holiness of God. When Christians use the word “holy,” we usually mean someone who is good, who is prayerful, charitable, and long-suffering. But God’s holiness is a consuming fire. It surpasses what our minds can comprehend. And yet, that’s the holiness we’re called to possess.” (Bold emphasis in original; italicized emphasis mine)

Pope St. John Paul II encouraged us to add the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary to our prayer lives. The first Mystery is all about today’s feast: the Baptism of the Lord Jesus in the Jordan. As Christians, we imitate Jesus and follow his command to be baptized. This is when our union with him begins. We are made new as sons and daughters of God. We receive the life of God, active in us, which we call grace. St. John Paul II gave us these mysteries because it’s exactly what we need. We have forgotten the power of baptism. Some people even wait to have their children baptized as if something better is going to come along. All that does is decide that the child will not have faith. Nothing better is coming. Union with God is the best thing. It’s why we were made. And it begins with baptism.

In talking about union with Jesus, I sometimes use the word “relationship,” but I use it with caution. We have hundreds of human relationships. But in every one of them, I’m over here and you’re over there. No human relationship will ever be like the union that Jesus wants with us: union on a soul-deep level where we partake in His divine nature. Therefore, this is an important part of the answer to another question many of us likely hear from our friends: “Why do I feel so much better when I leave the big box church than when I leave Mass?”

Feel? Is it about how we feel? Or is it about Jesus whom we know with our intellect? St. Teresa of Calcutta had a 40-year dry spell. She didn’t feel good about Jesus for decades. But she knew she received him in the Eucharist every day. Read St. Paul, who wrote about 2/3 of the New Testament. Did he ever write about the importance of feeling good? On the contrary: He wrote about the multiple times he was whipped with 39 lashes, the times he was stoned, shipwrecked, starved, etc. St. Paul did not feel good, but he knew he had union with Jesus from the moment Ananias baptized him. He knew it was Jesus he was receiving as he offered Mass. Then when he did get the chance to stop and pray, did he feel good in prayer? He said he had concern for all the churches on his heart. Could he focus or was he distracted? He probably was not feeling good consolations in prayer.

Let’s not forget about the related topic of holiness, which I mentioned at the beginning. At the same time I was reflecting on these things, I was also reading St. Josemaría Escrivá. He wrote: “There is no such thing as second-class holiness. Either we put up a constant fight to stay in the grace of God and imitate Christ, our Model, or we desert in that divine battle.”

Plus, my meditation that day from In Conversation with God by Fr. Francis Fernandez ended with this: “All roads that lead to God have to pass through prayer and sacrifice.” Moreover, in the Gospel that day, Jesus used a parable to talk about those who follow quickly with joy and then fall away. Fr. Fernandez added: “At the moment of truth they succumb because their allegiance to Christ has been rooted solely in feeling and not in prayer.”

Prayer is difficult! Are we seeking ourselves, or are we seeking God? St. Augustine pointed out: “Few look for Jesus for the sake of Jesus.” Will we follow Jesus in prayer, sacrifice, in His footsteps, even if the path is difficult? The Lord Jesus calls the pleasures of the world “thorns.” St. Basil the Great points out: Pleasures don’t seem like thorns at the time, but we end up with bloody hands. The bottom line is: prayer and mortification bring fruit; focus on feeling good is sterile.

It is worth pointing out here in print something I did not take time to expand in the homily in my desire to keep it short and streamlined. Feelings are gifts from God and can be quite useful. They are neither good nor bad in themselves but need to be used appropriately. We just need to be careful not to be misled by our feelings, or to make decisions based on feelings alone without the use of intellect. “Mot” is the root of both the words “emotion” and “motivation,” so we can see they are related. It is possible to have an emotional experience from a certain type of music, for example, or to be fired up by a motivational speaker, and think we are having a spiritual experience. It certainly may be a spiritual experience, but maybe not. And we certainly should not forget what we know with our intellect.

When it comes to worshiping God and entering into union with Jesus, we don’t need a motivational speaker that makes us feel good. And even though we do our best to praise God in song, our music will never be to the same level as the entertainment industry. What we do need is a generous yes to share in the divine nature of the Lord Jesus. We need a real union with Him, which we know He brings about in the Sacraments of His Church.

So, what do we do now? Love demands that we invite others to the best thing, which is union with Jesus. I tried it just the other day. I assured a friend, who is a fallen-away Catholic, that I am praying for his mother, who is declining in health. But I also revealed that I am praying for his return to Sunday Mass. Much to my delight, he said it has already been on his mind and he is making plans for his return. Thank you, Jesus!