My dear friends, in these Sundays that are leading to the beginning of the season of Lent, the Church is giving us an opportunity to relearn, to remember what discipleship really means. And the scripture readings will give us, each Sunday, a different lesson.
But today we have the privilege to have two lessons at the hands of the master teacher Saint John the Evangelist. And as you heard from the Gospel, he relates to us the story of the baptism of the Lord Jesus in a very interesting way.
For unlike Saints Matthew, Mark, and Luke, John never says directly that Jesus is baptized – he implies it. Because his interest is not so much on telling the story the early christians already knew, but rather to begin to position them and prepare them for the response that the baptism asked.
And so where are these two lessons?
They come from John the Baptist, that enigmatic cousin of Jesus who preached a message of repentance, that did not apply to the Lord in the least. But when Jesus went into the waters of the Jordan to be baptized, John says that it is John the Baptist who recognized who he was, precisely because of the coming of the Holy Spirit literally in the form of a dove.
And that my dear friends are the two lessons.
The first, when Jesus was baptized, the Holy Spirit appeared – not for His sake but for our sake. For truly as He was the Son of God, the Eternal Word, He has and will ever forever have a communion with the Holy Spirit.
But in His humanity, the Spirit came because the Spirit is the bridge, my friends, between the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, and you and me. For all that Christ was able to bring into the world, all the graces that He wishes to offer could not come to you or me without the Holy Spirit, precisely in your baptism and mine, when we become temples of the Holy Spirit; and if one could say the Spirit hovered over us so that we might become the children of God.
So what’s the first lesson? If you and I wish to be Disciples of Jesus, to go out into the world, we must remember that we can do nothing without His grace. That each day and every day of our lives, you and I must take the time to place ourselves before the power of the Holy Spirit and to ask for the strength to do what we could not do without Him. Particularly in this crazy world in which we live, where everything out there is guiding us, molding us, to walk away from the Lord who will give us the fortitude, the courage, and the strength; who will give us the wisdom and clarity of mind, who will allow us to be reassured when we’re suffering and opposed if not the Holy Spirit?
We oftentimes make the mistake to think that discipleship is in our hands, forgetting that before we even do a thing, it’s the Spirit that wishes to hover over us, to give us the grace that only Christ can give.
And what’s the second lesson?
John, having seen the Spirit, what does he do? He proclaims who Jesus is before He does anything. Behold the Lamb of God! The Lamb of God who, in the Old Testament, in the Covenant of our elders in faith, was the One to be sacrificed for the remission of sins.
Only God can forgive sins. So John saying Behold the Lamb of God, he is saying behold the One who can forgive sins. And only that could be God himself.
So the first act of discipleship, having received each day the grace of the Holy Spirit, is to proclaim who He is. And who is He to the world? Who is He to our families? Who is He for you or for me?
He is our savior, our master, our redeemer, the one who forgives your darkest secrets and mine, the one in whom we have hope of grace and joy, and has prepared a place for us beyond our wildest imagination in a life of perfect love that will never end. That is who we proclaim in word and in witness. And in the coming weeks we will have an opportunity each week to learn a bit more about what that witness in action is all about. But none of that will matter unless we are clear who it is that calls us into mission, and who it is to whom we owe our allegiance.
Allow me to end by simply reminding you, my friends, in about 20 minutes I will be at this altar and I will have the privilege to repeat the words of John the Baptist. Behold the Lamb of God! Behold Him who takes away the sins of the world.
My friends, allow those words this coming week to sit in your mind and heart so that you and I may have the fire of the Holy Spirit burning ever more deeply for the work that the Lord asks us to do.
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Bishop’s Sunday Mass: Bishop Frank J. Caggiano has begun celebrating Mass at St. Augustine Cathedral on Sundays at 8:30 am, and the faithful throughout the diocese are welcome to join him. For those who plan to attend in person, St. Augustine Cathedral is located at 399 Washington Avenue in Bridgeport. The live-stream will be available Sundays at 8:30 am on the St. Augustine Cathedral website (www.thecathedralparish.org), while the replay will be available on the Diocese YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/c/BridgeportDiocese/streams) once Mass concludes.
