Homily for the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord
Note: This homily was delivered on the weekend of January 12-13, 2013

(Readings: Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11; Titus 2:11-14; 3:4-7; Luke 3:15-16; 21-22)

            The feast of the Baptism of the Lord is a feast of transitions. We are just finishing the joyous season of Christmas, and we are now beginning “Ordinary Time”. We are on the threshold of coming out of one time period and moving into another. This feast also marks the transition of Jesus from private life to public ministry. Jesus crosses the threshold in his Baptism from his life devoted to his family and his private expression of his faith to his public, outward expression of it.

            Over the next few weeks until we get into Lent, we will hear how Jesus celebrated a wedding with his friends; announced his mission to the poor, the captive, the blind, and the oppressed; how he was run out of town for his preaching. But it starts with this – his public baptism and the approval of the Father for his mission. He has moved from private prayer to public proclamation. He has crossed the threshold into another life.

            This feast should remind us as well that in Baptism we too are called to leave our old life behind – that our baptism, like that of Jesus, calls us to a commitment to continue the mission and the ministry of our Lord. We are called to cross that same threshold from private prayer to public proclamation of our faith.

            Each time we approach any threshold, we have a moment of decision. These are called “liminal” moments in spirituality lingo, moments when we are not quite in one place or another, like the transition between Christmas time and Ordinary Time. Each of these “liminal” moments is a moment of decision – we decide who we will be and what we will do when we cross that threshold.

            We have these liminal moments all the time. Each time we cross the threshold of our bedroom in the morning, we can choose what kind of person we will be to the people that live with us. We can choose to be a person of love, care, concern, or we can be focused on ourselves and our own problems of the day. Each time we cross the threshold into our office building or school or store where we work, we have a liminal moment – a moment of decision when we can choose what kind of person we will be as we interact with coworkers and customers. Will we be people who live temperately, justly and devoutly as our second reading says?

            Think of the liminal moment that you have when you come into and leave the Church today. The holy water that we have at the doors of the Church helps me to use those moments when I cross those thresholds to remember why I am entering and what kind of person I want to be when I leave. As I enter the Church, and I cross the threshold, I bless myself with holy water and remember with great gratitude my parents who brought me into the life of faith by bringing me to Baptism as an infant. On my way out, as I cross the threshold, I bless myself with holy water to remind myself that my Baptism calls me to be a public witness to my faith – to live a life as a faithful Catholic Christian in everything that I say and do.

            Each week when we cross that threshold to come into this Church, we are making a decision to hear the Word of God and to celebrate this Eucharist with everyone else who believes as well. By coming over that threshold, we are using that liminal moment to make the decision to express our faith together, to strengthen each other for our own journeys as we leave.

            And when we leave today, when we cross the threshold out into the world outside of our worship space, we have a decision to make. Are we going to leave our faith and our belief here in this space? Or are we going to witness to the mission and ministry of Jesus? Our baptism calls us to mission – to not leave our faith here, but to be a presence in the world, as our first reading says, who makes a straight highway for God in the wastelands of our lives, someone who will be a voice in the wilderness of our culture, someone who will fill in the valleys of the pain we see around us, and who will make the hills of greed and the mountains of power into a level plain.

            Today as you leave the Church, you will come to the threshold – you will have your liminal moment of decision to live out the Christian calling of your Baptism, or leave your faith behind in the walls of this worship space. My prayer for you, as I will say again as you leave, is that you go in peace to proclaim the Gospel of the Lord. 

Blessed Are the Peacemakers

(Note: This article appeared in the January 2013 issue of the Western New York Catholic, the Diocesan newspaper for the Diocese of Buffalo. I have become a regular columnist for the newspaper since November, and I am sharing this on here for those of you who may not have access to the Diocesan paper.)

This January 1^st was the 46^th World Day of Peace, and Pope Benedict XVI marked the occasion by issuing a message for the celebration titled “Blessed Are the Peacemakers”. The Pope has previously issued seven other messages for the World Day of Peace dealing with specific aspects of peace, such as the human family, the human person, fighting poverty, and protecting creation.

            In this year’s message, Pope Benedict deals with peace in a more general way, explaining the fullness and the diversity of the concept of peace, and encouraging all people to take responsibility for peace-building. His message highlights the 50^th anniversary of both the Second Vatican Council and the encyclical Pacem in Terris (Peace in the World) issued by Pope John XXIII in 1963. That encyclical urged Christians to live a unity of faith and action by taking an active role in public life, especially in the promotion of peace.

            Since Pacem in Terris, the teaching of the Church has taken a decidedly strong turn in promoting peace, condemning war and criticizing the arms race and nuclear weapons. Less than two years later, the Vatican Council issued Gaudium et spes (Church in the Modern World), which called for a “completely fresh appraisal of war”. This “fresh appraisal” did, in fact, lead Church teaching to give a new and stronger support to non-violent approaches in the struggle for justice.

            The Council also, for the first time, recognized conscientious objection to war as a legitimate position to be held by Catholics. This is remarkable when one considers that just nine years earlier Pope Pius XII made a statement that conscientious objection was not a position legitimately open to Catholics. The Council made it clear that unlike previous assumptions about the necessity or inevitability of war, the Church should expect peace to be the natural condition when people live in accord with the moral order. This orientation toward peace is the context of the Council’s praise of those who renounce violence.

            It also was the basis for the US Bishops to declare almost twenty years later that a Christian approach to the use of force must begin from a “presumption against war”. In their document The Challenge of Peace, issued in 1983, The Bishops also endorsed non-violent resistance to injustice, peace research, conflict resolution studies and peace education. Significantly, that document also sanctioned not only conscientious objection, but a commitment to non-violence and pacifism as a legitimate option for Christians.

            The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church sums up the issue of peace and war this way: “War is a scourge, and is never an appropriate way to resolve problems that arise between nations, it never has been and never will be.” Then, quoting Pope Paul VI’s address to the U. N. in 1965, “never again some peoples against others, never again! …no more war, no more war!”

            From Pacem in Terris, to the Vatican Council’s “fresh appraisal of war” and its disposition against the arms race, to Pope Benedict’s encouragement for all Christians to take personal responsibility for peace-building – all of these should have moved the issue of non-violence to a position high on the agenda of the Church. Yet it is still rare to hear a condemnation of war and violence and the promotion of peace-building from the pulpit, or in the classroom, or as an issue in parishes and organizations. What more will it take to finally make non-violence and peace-building central to the Church’s mission today?