Validating
Our Baptism
St.
Alphonsus Maria de Ligouri called it a vision. It was a moment of
clarity and decision when he knew exactly what God wanted him to do
and felt ready and willing to do it. Alphonsus was a young brilliant
and successful lawyer in seventeenth Century Naples. He was handling
an important and certain case for the Duke of Tuscany. But, most likely
because the judge was influenced, the judgment was given against him.
For three days he did not leave his room. Then he began to visit the
Hospital of the Incurables, the equivalent of our AIDS patients today.
There he had the vision. He heard the Lord say to him "leave
the world and give yourself to me." He interpreted this as telling
him to leave the social class to which he belonged and to become a
pastoral priest.
Other
people have such moments. They call them moments of decision, or conviction
or of discernment. A married man realized that his relationship with
one of his employees was becoming a threat to his fidelity in marriage.
It then became absolutely clear to him what he should do. A young
priest was pretending to be advising a young lady but the relationship
had changed drastically from that of counselor/counselee. One day
it suddenly hit him that to be an authentic person he must make a
radical decision either to leave her or leave the priesthood.
In
Jesus time the moment of decisive action was called Baptism. In today's
Gospel we meet the 30 year old Jesus emerging from his hidden struggle
to be his authentic self. He had looked around for a model to follow.
He came all the way from Galilee to Judea because the best example
he could find was John the Baptizer. John was a simple honest man
who demanded a letting go of all that was false and inauthentic. Jesus
came and lined up with sinners to be baptized by John. This marks
a radical option and a definite decision. By this story Mark tells
us that a new time begins.
The
baptism marks a significant time for Jesus personally. As he experiences
his call to mission he is grasped by the Spirit of God and is recognized
as the chosen servant of God. The baptism also says that a time of
waiting has been ended and a new time of salvation has begun. Jesus'
new beginning is God's new beginning; through the person of Jesus
God will reach out to people in a new way. Whatever Jesus does will
be accomplished by the power of God's spirit in him. This is the significance
of his baptism.
Though Jesus was always in the Trinity, the Spirit empowered him in
a special way at his baptism. This same Spirit empowered us and makes
a dwelling place in us in a special way at our baptism. We spend our
lives catching up with our beginning. Our baptism needs to be validated
by our daily personal decisions great and small.
Many
of us are afraid of the challenge of our baptism. We try to seek God
in churchgoing or religious activities. We run around in circles and
become like doughnuts that have no centers. Yet the Spirit is there
in the stillness of the center. It is when we can be still at that
center that we can hear our own inner wisdom and the wisdom of the
spirit blend. It is by being still at that center, letting go of all
asking or planning or directing of God, that God speaks to our hearts
and tells us what he really wants us to do.
For
most of us the 20 or 30 minutes of meditation each morning and evening,
when we try to say the prayer word, is an experience of total frustration.
The mind hops about from one thought to another. But because of the
discipline of trying to say the prayer word attention is taken off
oneself, and at some time maybe later in the day truth will surface
from the Spirit within, like a bubble rising to the surface revealing
that there is a diver below. Our prayer disposes us to accept our
baptism and its consequences, just as it disposed Alphonsus to hear
the truth within, and it empowered Christ to seek and do the will
of his Father no matter what the cost was for himself.
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Taken
from Sundays
into Silence - A Pathway to Life. Copyright © 1998 by Claretian
Publications
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