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More than a Pinky Promise

Pinky Promise

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.


“This is the time of fulfillment,” says Jesus. The fulfillment of what? A promise? What promise?

Today’s second reading can be seen as a sort of axis around which the first reading and gospel revolve. In it St. Peter reveals profound symbolism: The ark of Noah prefigures baptism.

Both involve salvation by water, he says. In the time of Noah, water cleansed the earth of sin. It was also destructive, however.

We cannot expect the impact of baptism to be any different as it cleanses, not the earth, but our souls. What does the spiritual “water”–sanctifying grace–destroy? If we allow that grace to act and facilitate it through prayer and regular reception of the other sacraments, it destroys our old selves, those carried along by the comfortable inertia current of our sinful tendencies. It destroys selfishness which, though evil, is sweet and cherished.

But the result is a profound, radical cleansing; the result is a new person, alike to a person bathing in clear, clean water after wallowing in a swamp.

God seals His promise never to flood the earth again with the sign of the rainbow. He will never have to wipe out humanity again. His Son comes to fulfill the post-flood promise by instituting a sacrament of water that does not need to wipe away the human person in order to wipe away sin.

This is the fulfillment Jesus came to bring. And Lent is the special time to take full advantage of the waters that poured over us at baptism by taking frequent and rich advantage of the cleansing sacraments, especially Penance, and practicing self-denial to uproot the deeper sources of sin in our lives.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Think of the day you were baptized as a small, helpless infant (or perhaps later, as a child or adult). Imagine the water pouring gently over you in the simplest of ceremonies. Consider the profound effect this sacrament has had in your life, by introducing you into friendship with Christ. Give thanks to God for this unmerited gift, and for those (for example, your parents) who had the insight and generosity to help ensure that you received it.

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Anointing

Confirmation

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.


What we see at the Baptism of Jesus, momentous as it is, is the tip of the iceberg. We can well focus on the supernatural manifestations, whereby the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus visibly in the form of the dove, and God the Father proclaims Him His Son, in whom He is well pleased.

But there is a lot of depth to what is going on here. Per usual, the Old Testament sheds deep light on what is happening in the broader context of the economy of salvation, as we see in our first reading.

Of course, we know that Jesus was born to carry out the mission of our salvation–for no other purpose. Still, it is at the critical moment of His Baptism–which He with good reason insists upon, in the face of the Baptist’s protests–that Jesus as man formally accepts this mission, the mission of salvation described for us in the first reading. Or rather, as the second reading from Acts describes, He accepts His anointing for this mission. It is God the Father who does the anointing, and the oil of anointing is the Holy Spirit Himself. By accepting God’s will for Him to be baptized by John the Baptist, Jesus formally accepts His own divine anointing for His mission of salvation.

Why at this moment does the Father decide to manifest Himself, and state that He is pleased with His Son? As Jesus says elsewhere, the Father is always pleased with Him, because Jesus always does what pleases Him. But here, we may confidently infer that the Father is specifically saying that He is particularly pleased with what Jesus has just done, for the first time formally as God-Man, in taking on His difficult mission.

Following Christ, all the way into eternal life, is costly. He demands from us core transformation, for the sake of radical exaltation. But today we espy one consequence of our acceptance of His invitation to this radical gift of self to Him that may otherwise elude us. Since in His saving act, Jesus has made of us adopted children of God, we inherit with Him the ability to please the Father by accepting His mission for us, by accepting His will.

And so, we may confidently affirm that when we say “yes” to the life that God is asking from us, the Father, in all His solemnity, is saying of us as well that He is “well pleased.”

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Imagine one of the moments when it was challenging for you to say “yes” to God, and imagine the true joy that your “yes” brought to God the Father, the sovereign of the universe. Marvel that He would ordain things such that He could derive authentic joy from you, and ask Him never to let you be parted from the path of pleasing Him.

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