Baptism of the Lord

Today the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Baptism of Our Lord which ends the season of Christmas.  The Church recalls Our Lord's second manifestation or epiphany which occurred on the occasion of His baptism by John in the Jordan River.  It was John who said of Jesus that, “He must grow greater and I must become less.”  These are among the strongest words and most moving testimony with regard to the identity of Christ: his greatness compared with our littleness.

John teaches his disciples, and us, that we are called to make ourselves less and allow Jesus to become more.  How unlike most of us who strive constantly to become more: to gather more possessions, to become greater than those around us.  We are students who think we are teachers; workers who act like we are bosses; servants pretending to be masters.

John the Baptist knew well that the original sin was pride.  It’s dangerous for us to forget the nothing that we are, and the everything that God is.  That original temptation seems ever on the ready to rise in our soul.  How good it is for us to acknowledge now and then, that the Lord alone is everything!  Right at the beginning of her spiritual journey, the Lord said to Catherine of Sienna: “do you know daughter, who you are and who I am? If you know these two things, you will be happy:  You are not, and I am who is.”

Although with different words, John the Baptist offered his disciples the same teaching: “He must grow greater and I must grow less”; in order to make way for the Everything God is, we who are nothing must forget ourselves. This is the extraordinary conversion announced by John the Baptist and repeated by Jesus: lose oneself in order to find God, become little in order to be great, be the least in order to become the first in the Kingdom of Heaven!

The path of humility teaches us to see a sign of the goodness God pours into the hearts of ourselves and in others.  When we follow the example of John the Baptist, we will be open to the joyous testimony of God's gifts and remove from our souls all trace of jealously and rivalry, envy and ambition.   It’s only in emptying ourselves that we can begin to understand that true greatness lies in allowing God to be in charge.