This is my Son, the Beloved.
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Matthew 3:13-17New International Version |
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3:13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him.
3:14 John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” 3:15 But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. 3:16 And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 3:17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” |
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Please make sure you read the notes before you join our prayer
Open this page for some helpful questions that may guide you pray the Lectio Divina
Are you baptized? Are you a Catholic?
Everybody who is baptized call him/herself Catholic.
Today being a Catholic is just part and parcel of the European culture.
We have people defending the cross in class rooms not because the believe
in what it represent, but because it is part of the “Catholic” identity of their country.
Somebody spoke to me of some Muslim foreigners who intend to stay in our country
and therefore decided to baptize their children just to be like all the others.
To call oneself Catholic but leaving catholic teaching outside from decisions that affect your family life, your business, your ideology or politics, has become a normal thing to do.
That is why today it is ever more important to ask:
What is baptism? Is it just a way of becoming Catholic?
Has Jesus become Catholic at His baptism?
Maybe we are missing something in the baptism of Jesus… or rather three things:
1. The baptism of John was an expression of penitence and repentance of sin. Jesus was without personal sin, but, as St Paul tells us, He became sin for us. Therefore, baptism implies the recognition at least of some mistakes and some determination not to repeat them, in other words: conversion.
2. This is confirmed by the voice of the Father, saying: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Therefore, baptism is not just to become Catholic, but to become a person with whom God is well pleased. By just being or calling yourself Catholic does not necessarily mean anything!
3. The fullness of baptism is not the rite of immersion in water, but the descent of the Holy Spirit of God. Today the Church, under the guidance of Pope Francis, is realizing the anomalous situation we have around us: there are people who are not Catholics but who have the Spirit of God (with whom we need to enter into dialogue and promote every ecumenical effort); and there are people who boast of their Catholicism (amongst whom you can find even priests and bishops) but who lack any Spirit of God, but taken up by the spirit of this world.
If that is what is meant by being Catholic, making your own way, caring less about pleasing God, and conforming to the spirit of this world, then Jesus must have been baptized without becoming Catholic!