{"id":2622,"date":"2018-01-07T08:00:31","date_gmt":"2018-01-07T06:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/?p=2622"},"modified":"2021-01-09T16:31:26","modified_gmt":"2021-01-09T21:31:26","slug":"baptism-of-the-lord-cycle-b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/2018\/01\/07\/baptism-of-the-lord-cycle-b\/","title":{"rendered":"Baptism of the Lord, Cycle B"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today is the end of the Christmas season. God himself is celebrating what is taking place in the Gospel: the Baptism of his Son in the river Jordan at the hands of St. John the Baptist.<\/p>\n

In the First Reading, God speaks of Jesus as his servant who is about to begin something wonderful: his public life.\u00a0He\u2019s going to bring justice to the world, be a light for the nations, open the eyes of the blind, and free prisoners. God is keeping his promise through Jesus\u2019 mission on earth: God is sending out the Savior today to get to work. During Christmas we celebrated the birth of the Savior. On today\u2019s feast, the Baptism of the Lord, we\u2019re celebrating him finishing his silent years in Nazareth and going out to preach salvation to the world.<\/p>\n

In the Second Reading St. Peter rejoices that salvation is not just for the people of Israel, but for everyone who respects God and acts uprightly.\u00a0When Jesus is baptized in the Jordan, he institutes a new kind of baptism. John talks about that baptism in the Gospel today as different from his: it is a baptism of the Holy Spirit. St. Peter in the Second Reading is speaking to Cornelius, who was the first non-Jew to be baptized in the history of the Church. The Jews thought originally that the Savior would only come for the Jews. But then the Holy Spirit revealed to Peter and the Church through Cornelius\u2019 situation that the Savior was coming for everyone who feared God (respected God) and acted uprightly (acted in a good way).<\/p>\n

The Holy Spirit always works little by little. Cornelius had heard about Jesus and his promise of salvation, and had been praying for a sign. Peter was praying too, and they didn\u2019t know each other at all. Then an angel came to Cornelius and told him to send men to find and bring Peter. Cornelius was a Roman centurion, and since he wasn\u2019t a Jew, Peter wouldn\u2019t have visited him unless the Holy Spirit had said it was okay in a dream, since the Jews didn\u2019t enter the houses of non-Jews. As Peter rejoices that the Savior has come for everyone, he recalls Jesus\u2019 baptism in the Jordan as the beginning of doing good and healing all those who were oppressed by the devil.<\/p>\n

So we celebrate today with God, with Peter, with Cornelius, and with everyone who has become Christian since. We celebrate that Jesus began to go out and do good, heal the sick, give sight to the blind, and free those who are imprisoned by sin.<\/p>\n

So as we begin a new year, and the Christmas season draws to an end, Jesus\u2019 private and public life show us it is time for us to get to work as well.\u00a0In the Christmas season we\u2019ve spent more time at home, resting, being with family and friends, receiving so many gifts, and getting ready to live the New Year better. It\u2019s not a time for gloom and doom as we return to work, to school, to the daily grind: it\u2019s time to show Our Lord we appreciate all He\u2019s given us over the last year, and all He\u2019s given us during the Christmas season. It\u2019s time for us to get to work and get the word out about salvation. Cornelius heard about salvation from someone, long before he met St. Peter, and there are lots of Cornelius\u2019 out there who are looking for what our faith has to offer. They are hungry for God.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s thank Our Lord for the Christmas Season and the New Year that has just begun.\u00a0Let\u2019s keep moving forward on those New Year\u2019s resolutions as a way to show gratitude to Our Lord for all the blessings He has poured out on us. Let\u2019s pray for those who are suffering from hunger and war, so that they too can be blessed. Let\u2019s pray for all those Cornelius\u2019 out there to find and love God, to do good, and to find salvation.<\/p>\n

Readings:\u00a0Isaiah 42:1\u20134, 6\u20137; Acts 10:34-38; Mark 1:7\u201311.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today is the end of the Christmas season. God himself is celebrating what is taking place in the Gospel: the Baptism of his Son in the river Jordan at the hands of St. John the Baptist. In the First Reading, God speaks of Jesus as his servant who is about to begin something wonderful: his … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[145,19,120,45,15],"class_list":["post-2622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-baptism-of-the-lord","tag-cycle-b","tag-first-week","tag-ordinary-time","tag-sunday"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p65qtw-Gi","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2622"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2623,"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2622\/revisions\/2623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}