Jesus Was Baptized For Our Merits

 

Deacon Kevin Gingras

January 12, 2025

The Baptism of the Lord

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/011225.cfm

Isaiah 42:1-4, 6-7     Psalm 29:1-2, 3-4, 3, 9-10

Acts 10:34-38    Luke 3:15-16, 21-22

Okay, after Mass today, we can all go home and take down our Christmas decorations. Today is the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, which concludes the Christmas season, and starting Monday we move back into Ordinary Time.

John the Baptist, Jesus' cousin, knew his place in the family, John famously quipped: “He must increase; I must decrease”.  He knew that he was not the son of God but his cousin was. Today he tells the people gathered around that:

one mightier than I is coming. I am not worthy to loosen the thongs of his sandals.

Then Jesus Himself walks up to the Jordan river and insists that John baptize Him with all the other people there.  Why?  If Baptism removes original sin then the Catholic Church tells us there are only two people who did not need baptism - Mary, the Immaculate Conception, conceived without original sin, and Jesus the Son of God who was like us in everything but sin, including original sin.  Yet here is Jesus doing just that - getting Baptized!  Now I’m a big fan of logic and reason and Jesus getting baptized goes against reason and logic as far as I am concerned!  I had to figure out why!

The Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks on why Jesus was baptized:

Jesus' public life begins with his baptism by John in the Jordan. … Then the Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, comes upon Jesus and a voice from heaven proclaims, "This is my beloved Son."This is the manifestation ("Epiphany") of Jesus as Messiah of Israel and Son of God. The baptism of Jesus is on his part the acceptance and inauguration of his mission as God's suffering Servant. He allows himself to be numbered among sinners; he is already "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world".  Already he is anticipating the "baptism" of his bloody death.

Jesus is revealed in his baptism as a new type of Moses. As Moses went through the waters of the Red Sea, he created an escape route for God’s people. Christ now goes through the waters to give us an escape route from the rule of sin and death.  Combine our baptism with frequent Confession and we can’t lose!

Pope Benedict explained in his book “Jesus of Nazareth”:

 Jesus inaugurated his public activity by stepping into the place of sinners. By accepting baptism, Jesus accepted his coming death for the sins of all mankind. He anticipated his submission to his Father's will during the agony in the garden, and he pointed us toward his suffering and death on the cross. Just as he would in those more painful moments, Jesus began his ministry by saying yes to his mission as the Savior of the world. 

At His baptism, Jesus’ divinity was confirmed and after his baptism, the three persons of the Trinity were revealed for the first time.  God the Father’s voice proclaims:

“You are my beloved Son; with you, I am well pleased.”

Jesus the Son is the one being baptized, and the Holy Spirit descends on him like a dove. To summarize, Jesus was baptized not for His own merits but our merits!

 

Reflecting on today’s readings brought me back to May 1, 1966. That was the day of my baptism, my second birth—my birth into the Catholic Church! As baptized Catholics we don’t simply follow Jesus or imitate Jesus - we should do those things of course - but as baptized Catholics, we are grafted onto Christ and we become members of his Mystical Body.

Back to the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

Through Baptism, the Christian is sacramentally assimilated to Jesus, who in his own baptism anticipates his death and resurrection. The Christian must enter into this mystery of humble self-abasement and repentance, go down into the water with Jesus in order to rise with him, be reborn of water and the Spirit so as to become the Father's beloved son in the Son and "walk in newness of life":

We must become the new creation we were meant to be when we were baptized. Saint Gregory of Nazianzus instructs us what to do as folks who are baptized with Christ:

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

This Advent we need to become vulnerable for Jesus

 

Deacon Kevin Gingras

December 15th

Third Sunday of Advent

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/121524.cfm

Zep 3:14-18a      Is 12:2-3, 4, 5-6.

Phil 4:4-7     Lk 3:10-18

Today is Gaudete Sunday, and we are almost there, less than two weeks away from remembering the day the Word became Flesh!  

John the Baptist is telling his followers:

one mightier than I is coming. I am not worthy to loosen the thongs of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 

Gaudete is Latin for rejoice as our entrance antiphon reminds us:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice.  Indeed, the Lord is near.

The prophet Zephaniah speaks of rejoicing and being filled with joy - why?  

the LORD is in your midst, you have no further misfortune to fear … he will rejoice over you with gladness, and renew you in his love, he will sing joyfully because of you, as one sings at festivals.

We are in the season of Advent that should take us spiritually back over two thousand years, before Jesus was born - back to a time of waiting, waiting for our salvation, our Messiah, however, we also know the rest of the story and that is what should bring us joy.

We decorated the inside of our houses, and put up our trees, the manger, and lights on the outside and all over the yard.  We are cleaning in preparation for our guests (if you are anything like me that involves multiple days of work) so all of our exterior work is moving along nicely, at least at my house.  What about the interior work that needs to be done to prepare the way of the Lord, how is that going?

We must prepare our hearts, and our souls as well right?  Remember Jesus was born but also remember he died for us and our sins.  Let me explain visually what I want to say using what I like to call: “The theology of the Holy Family Sanctuary”.  This is where we can visually see Jesus in his three most vulnerable places.  (See picture above for what our Sanctuary looks like)

First - the stained glass window above it all, Jesus as a child with Holy Mary and St. Joseph.  He is the King of the Universe yet came to us as a small baby, vulnerable and reliant on parents who were not wealthy but poor.  Mary conceived through the Holy Spirit and became the Ark of the New Covenant.  Her husband Joseph a righteous man but not the biological father had to be told in a dream that all was well, there was no need to divorce Mary:

Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home, for it is through the holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her. She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus because he will save his people from their sins.

The Gospel of Matthew tells us Joseph did as the Lord had commanded.  He took in Mary and became the protector of the Blessed Mother and Jesus, the son of God.  

Second - Just below we see Jesus on the cross.  He could have stopped the torture he endured at any time if He wanted as we see in the Gospel of John:

Jesus answered [to Pilate], “My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants [would] be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not here.”

Jesus’ kingdom is not here on Earth, His kingdom is a Heavenly kingdom yet he took on our humanity and took on our sins head-on, with the sacrifice of his own life.  The sins of Adam and Eve which brought death and suffering into the world were atoned for by Jesus suffering and death on the cross.  A death he tolerated by making himself completely vulnerable to his accusers.  In the end, Jesus even won the battle over death itself.

Third - Lastly we have the altar here.  The altar itself is not how Jesus becomes vulnerable but it is where he becomes vulnerable in the Eucharist.  The King of kings allows himself to be kept in this earthly host, this simple and humble bread.  Due to the ontological change of all priests during their ordination and the Sacrament of Holy Orders, the priest now has a supernatural power, he becomes Christ Himself, or “in persona Christi”, during the consecration and changes the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. Once this happens we need to treat the Eucharist with the care and respect Jesus deserves and do everything in our power to avoid sacrilege or the mistreatment of Jesus in the Eucharist because in this simple host that was once bread Jesus is again very vulnerable.

So this Advent we need to become vulnerable for Jesus. I tend to organize my life into boxes.  I have a dad box, a husband box, a deacon box, and an employee box, and within those boxes, I have many other boxes as well.  This advent, to prepare the way of the Lord we need to open up all those boxes and find out what ones we haven’t let Jesus into.  Perhaps it’s certain boxes we have family in?  Most certainly for me, it’s a lot of my work boxes where I don’t let Jesus in.  Spend some time in adoration, before Jesus, and ask him to shine a light into the boxes of our life where we have left him out. Pray about how we can open ourselves, and make ourselves vulnerable by allowing Him, the King of the Universe and the King of our hearts, into those spaces by making our entire lives open to Jesus this year.  Get ready when you do this, things will change, and they will change for the better!

When feeling vulnerable as we open our minds, hearts, and souls for Christ, as we reflect on all the good and the bad, remember the words of Saint John Paul II:

We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures.  We are the sum of the Father’s love for us. 

Pray boldly yet humbly.

 

Deacon Kevin Gingras

October 27th, 2024

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/102724.cfm

Jer 31:7-9   Ps 126:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 6

Heb 5:1-6  Mk 10:46-52

Today I wonder if we can pray both boldly and humbly.   We see that in today’s Gospel when Bartimaeus boldly and humbly brings his petition to Jesus:

"Jesus, son of David, have pity on me." And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent.  But he kept calling out all the more, "Son of David, have pity on me." Jesus stopped and said, "Call him." …  Jesus said to him in reply, "What do you want me to do for you?"  The blind man replied to him, "Master, I want to see." Jesus told him, "Go your way; your faith has saved you."

He was humble in calling to Jesus using his messianic title “Son of David”  He was bold in continuing to call out even when others told him to be silent.

Last week we heard from James and John the sons of Zebedee who boldly petitioned Jesus but with very little humility.  They were praying for earthly things.  Jesus could not grant that one sits at His left and the other at His right when he enters into His glory.  He did however tell them they would drink the same cup - they would also die as martyrs.

James and John never read the Catechism, especially paragraph 2559 which reads:

"Prayer is the raising of one's mind and heart to God” ... But when we pray, do we speak from the height of our pride and will, or "out of the depths" of a humble and contrite heart? He who humbles himself will be exalted; humility is the foundation of prayer, Only when we humbly acknowledge that "we do not know how to pray as we ought," are we ready to receive freely the gift of prayer. "Man is a beggar before God."

To be fair to James and John, the Catechism of the Catholic Church hadn’t been written out yet.  However, it appears Blind Bartimaeus got it right with his prayer - Jesus, son of David, have pity on me, as the Catechism, paragraph 2631 reads:

The first movement of the prayer of petition is asking forgiveness, like the tax collector in the parable: "God, be merciful to me a sinner!" It is a prerequisite for righteous and pure prayer. A trusting humility brings us back into the light of communion between the Father and his Son Jesus Christ and with one another, so that "we receive from him whatever we ask." Asking forgiveness is the prerequisite for both the Eucharistic liturgy and personal prayer.

One of the prayers I pray a lot in the Morning Prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours is an antiphon that reads:

"I lift up my heart to you, O Lord, and you will hear my morning prayer."

I always feel odd telling God that He will hear morning prayer!  It just doesn’t seem right, it makes me uncomfortable, like I’m demanding that God will hear me.  Of course he hears me!  We need to be ok with praying like Bartimaeus, boldly yet humbly.

This was the case when it came to praying for my daughter Faith and her scoliosis.  The initial prognosis was to get her fitted with a brace that would only stop the curvature from getting worse and then when she finished growing she would have surgery.  My wife Allison and I began to pray.

I won’t bore you with all the details but after two different braces, a lot of anxiety, and some tears it struck me that I needed divine help.  I looked up the patron saint of back problems.  I found St. Gemma Galgani and a novena to St. Gemma asking for her intercession.  This novena consisted of praying special prayers for nine consecutive days.  Allison and I began to pray this prior to our next appointment.  We also began to discover how perfect St. Gemma was for Faith’s cause.  At a young age, St. Gemma was orphaned, just like Faith, and had spinal tuberculosis that caused her to not only need an iron back brace but also caused her to become deaf as the disease progressed, just like Faith.  This was a good Saint to ask for intercession on Faith’s behalf!

We finished the novena a few days prior to the visit to Boston Children’s in Waltham.  We went in for a brace check and an X-ray.  At the end of the appointment, the doctor came in amazed at the result of the X-ray, her scoliosis not only stopped progressing but her curvature had been reduced!  This wasn’t supposed to happen but it did!  We prayed humbly but I wish we prayed more boldly during the nine-day novena.  I wish our prayer was that Faith would be completely cured!  St. Gemma presented our prayer to God just as we had prayed it and, praise God, surgery is off the books for Faith now!

St. Alphonsus Maria de Ligouri tells us 

The prayer of a humble soul at once penetrates the heavens and presents itself before the throne of God, and will not depart thence till God regards it and listens to it. 

Is Jesus Worth Giving 100% of Yourself to?

 

Deacon Kevin Gingras

September 15th, 2024

Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091524.cfm

Is 50:5-9a    Ps 116:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 8-9

Jas 2:14-18    Mk 8:27-35

I saw a post the other week on social media.  It was a picture of a famous person with words emblazoned over him that he probably never said:

Give People as much as they give you, don’t waste your 100% for their 10%

Regardless of whoever said it, this quote goes against today’s readings.

"Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well, "but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it? So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead 

When we give to those who are in need do we expect anything back?  I should hope not, so when we give to them, we give one hundred percent of what we offer for zero percent return,  that is the essence of charity.  To give and expect nothing in return.

Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it

I tried to imagine if Jesus gave his one hundred percent to only those who gave Him back one hundred percent of themselves.  Well, the martyrs would do ok with this math.  Perhaps some others around the world might do ok, those like Mother Theresa.  I certainly know if this is the math Jesus used I’d be in big trouble.

On the other hand, imagine if Jesus Himself only gave ten percent.  We certainly wouldn’t be here today talking about him, he would have surely been considered just a false prophet or charlatan.  Jesus had to give us more than ten, or 50, or even 99 percent.  Jesus had to provide us with one hundred percent of Himself to make up for Original Sin and the sins of the world until the end of time.  

Shouldn’t we do the same for Jesus?  Give Him one hundred percent of ourselves? It’s hard, even Jesus’ closest friends had trouble with this in the beginning.  Judas gave nowhere near one hundred percent back, instead, he betrayed Jesus. Even Peter came up short.  Jesus was telling the disciples how the Son of Man must suffer and die and rise again.  Well, typical Peter, talks before thinking and tells Jesus that this is unacceptable to him.  Jesus responds to him with a different rebuke that must have cut Peter to the heart:

Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do

How do we think - as humans or as God? The Gospel begins with that great question - “Who do you say that Jesus is”?  A good question for all Christians - who is Jesus to you?  Who do you say he is? Is He someone worth one hundred percent of you? We need to think of God in everything we do.  Not easy. How do we make everything we do a prayer?

I was in confession once and I told the priest that I sometimes give God only the last moments of my day, when I’m tired and only have a little left to give.  Based on my other sins he knew I was married, worked, and had children.  He asked me what I did for my kids during the week.  I told him I was a soccer coach, scout leader, baseball coach, youth minister, and other things; he wanted a full list.  Then he mentioned how I worked to provide for my family as well.  The priest told me that is my prayer to God.  If instead of doing these things I prayed all day I would be neglecting my duties as a father and that, in itself could be considered sinful.  I still struggle to keep all that I do during the day a prayer, with God always in mind, but the more I pray about it, the easier it gets.

So pray!  Pray often, pray hard and mighty prayers asking the Holy Spirit to guide you to always have a prayer on your mind, no matter what task you are trying to accomplish at that moment from cleaning the house to attending Mass!

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton once said, 

“We must pray without ceasing, in every occurrence and employment of our lives – that prayer which is rather a habit of lifting up the heart to God as in a constant communication with Him.”

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life

Deacon Kevin Gingras

August 18, 2024

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/081824.cfm

Prv 9:1-6     Ps 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7

Eph 5:15-20    Jn 6:51-58

I came across a photo of me from long ago.  It was very long ago.  At that time I was in great shape, I had, what you would call, six-pack abs.  I worked out every day and ran three to four miles daily and it showed.  Now, not so much.  Now I fish.  I try to convince myself that fishing is a sport but I don’t look like what I used to so it’s difficult to convince people I’m still an athlete!  

Like any sport or endeavor, if you want to advance, you have to practice. You have to keep up with the work, which, clearly, I did not!  This is also true for our faith and that brings us to today’s readings.

Jesus was trying to advance their faith, to get them to level up in their understanding of who He is and what it is He is about to do.  This was going to be a difficult workout for them, for some of them it would be too hard.

Jesus begins by telling them that He is the bread from Heaven and that:

whoever eats this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.

Well, that’s kind of shocking, I can understand why the Jews began to quarrel among themselves.  Eat his flesh?  But Jesus doubles down:

Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life,

Now you have to go back to the original Greek that this was written in to fully understand what Jesus was saying.  The first word Jesus used to describe eating his flesh was “phago” which simply means to eat like a human normally would.  After the Jews quarreled among themselves the word Jesus used was “trogo” which means to munch or to gnaw, as an animal would do!  This statement would be much more graphic!  It was indeed a hard saying.  It was meant to grow their faith in Jesus Christ himself and prepare them for the Eucharist He would establish at the last supper that lasts even until today.

Some were ready for that workout as the early church truly believed in the real presence. Back in 112 AD Pliny the Younger, the governor of a Roman province went to look into what these Christians were doing, thinking, perhaps, that they were cannibals! He wrote a letter back to the Emperor Trajan and in the letter, Pliny describes the practices of these alleged “criminals”:

“They were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up; after which it was their custom to separate, and then reassemble to partake of food–but food of an ordinary and innocent kind.”

What stands out is that the letter states that they partake of food of an ordinary and innocent kind.   Pliny stressed that it was ordinary food because back then Christians were thought to be cannibals since they ate the flesh and drank the blood of Jesus Christ!  Yes, the early Catholics, just like we do today, eat the true flesh of Christ at the Eucharistic feast.

I think Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel challenge us to the same spiritual workout.  They call us to level up our faith in the Eucharist.  As St Paul told the Ephesians:

be filled with the Spirit … giving thanks always and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father

And we can thank Him personally, here today at Mass, present in the Eucharist.  We need to level up our faith in Jesus ever present in the Eucharist.  Our gym is the Church and the Adoration Chapel.  Spend time in adoration, face-to-face with Jesus Himself. Our workout should include praying to the Holy Spirit to strengthen our belief.  One of our tougher gym workouts is Confession, but don’t skip Confession Day!  Try to go often, at least monthly.  That will strengthen you more than you can imagine!

All of this is to give us the spiritual muscle to fight the demons Satan will send our way during our time on Earth.  All this is to help keep us strong when the temptations of life come our way.  This way when we have finished the Earthly race we can spend eternity.  St. Ambrose gives us a great workout plan:

 “Let your door stand open to receive Him, unlock your soul to Him, offer Him a welcome in your mind and then you will see the riches of simplicity, the treasures of peace, the joy of grace. Throw wide the gate of your heart, stand before the sun of the everlasting light.”