Baptism of the Lord

In the new calendar of the Catholic Church, Christmas ends today. Our readings at Mass in the past several weeks have given us glimpses into the childhood of Jesus: little moments in His life with Mary and Joseph. Today the story takes a leap forward to the adult life of Jesus and the beginning of His public ministry.

This morning's Gospel reading (Mark 1:7-11) is the briefest account of Jesus' baptism in the Jordan River. Like the "hidden years" readings of the past several weeks, however, there is a lot to learn from the few words and actions we are given. Our pastor pointed out one lesson this morning by telling the story of the baptism of an adult who died unexpectedly the very next day.

Remembering the Baptism of the Lord reminds us of the importance of receiving the Sacraments. God has given us these avenues of grace in order to help us in our journey to heaven, and we do well to embrace them. We are reminded that Jesus, who is God, and therefore had no need of Baptism, received John's baptism anyway. And we know that we are to follow His example in all things.

To celebrate the Baptism of the Lord and our Baptisms, we lit all of our Baptismal candles at brunch this morning, along with the Christ candle we made during Advent and have been lighting throughout the Christmas season. We lit Tommy's candle for him, too, even though he is back in the U.S. now, visiting my sister and her family before returning to UD next week.


The light brought another table decoration to Joseph's mind. "Mom, when is Candlemas?" he asked. We are a people of feasts, after all, and Candlemas (Feb. 2) is the traditional end of the Christmas season. I like that he unconsciously made that connection. :-)

For some photos of the place of Jesus' Baptism in the Jordan, visit my friend Ammanmom and read her post about Bethany Beyond the Jordan. She and her family visited the site during Christmas break. Lucky!!