Father Koch: John offers us a vision to celebrate the Jubilee Year
January 10, 2025 at 12:24 p.m.
A stained glass image depicting the Baptism of the Lord is found in St. Robert Bellarmine Co-Cathedral, Freehold. Monitor file photoGospel reflection for the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord
It is most fitting that as we end this Christmas Season we are challenged yet again by John the Baptizer. John also speaks across the centuries to offer us guidance and warning in understanding Jesus. As we end the Christmas Season and enter Ordinary Time preparing for Lent, we have from John two things to work on so that we might make this new year one in which we grow in holiness and faith. We can best do so as we open ourselves up to God’s mercy in a special way during this Jubilee Year focused on hope. We have received this time as an extraordinary gift from our Holy Father, let us use it wisely and well.
There are numerous ways in which we can celebrate our adoption as children of God through the mystery of our Baptism. Receiving the grace of the Sacrament is our first step in a journey of faith. It is, though, a step that we do not take on our own. Baptism comes, not by our initiative, but at the invitation of the Father. We are presented for Baptism – we do not present ourselves, which is why we need a sponsor – as an offering to God in thanksgiving for the gift of faith. It is this nascent faith, then present within the neophyte, that leads one to a deeper relationship with God and a more profound sense of God’s presence.
John baptized with water, calling the people to repentance. The popularity of his teaching was a result of the burning need within the people to find new pathways to holiness and to seek a deeper understanding of their relationship with God.
While the Church stands within a timeless tradition of transmitting grace and celebrating the Sacraments, each age also needs to forge new ways of encounter, experience and expression of that faith. The language and signs present within a culture are continually in flux, demanding new modalities of handing-on the faith.
The Jubilee Year provides a tremendous opportunity to connect with the depth of God’s mercy, and to do so in simple yet profound ways.
Pope Francis is calling us to a season of hope.
Hope is a gift, a virtue, that is less present in our world that we think or would like it to be. In a world that seems to ever stand on the brink of major war, with increasing hostilities around the world, hope seems quieted. The polarizing political language and vitriol can sap us of any sense of hope. The horrors of natural, accidental, and intentionally caused disasters throughout the world, can lead to a path of despair instead of hope.
It is into this world, a world transformed by the mystery and majesty of the Incarnation, that we are each adopted sons and daughters of God through the simple act of the pouring of water and the recitation of the Trinitarian formula. At our Baptism we are called by name – I baptize you, not generically, but specifically, intentionally, and by name.
This makes of us a new creation and places us on a journey to eternity. Yes, this journey is afflicted by sin – personal moral sin, and the general sin of the alienation of creation from its creator. Sin always leads us down a path of loneliness, sadness and despair. Sin always drains us of hope.
Jesus was baptized not for his benefit but for ours. His Baptism is the sign to us that hope is not only possible, but a necessary component of our relationship with the Father. We hope in the present, yes, but our hope draws us to the future and the realization of the Kingdom of God.
Cognizant of our own Baptism, let us take this opportunity to overcoming the disdain of the world and to live instead in the fullness of the hope that John proclaimed and that Jesus fulfilled through the mysteries we celebrate.
Father Garry Koch is pastor of St. Benedict Parish, Holmdel.
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A stained glass image depicting the Baptism of the Lord is found in St. Robert Bellarmine Co-Cathedral, Freehold. Monitor file photoGospel reflection for the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord
It is most fitting that as we end this Christmas Season we are challenged yet again by John the Baptizer. John also speaks across the centuries to offer us guidance and warning in understanding Jesus. As we end the Christmas Season and enter Ordinary Time preparing for Lent, we have from John two things to work on so that we might make this new year one in which we grow in holiness and faith. We can best do so as we open ourselves up to God’s mercy in a special way during this Jubilee Year focused on hope. We have received this time as an extraordinary gift from our Holy Father, let us use it wisely and well.
There are numerous ways in which we can celebrate our adoption as children of God through the mystery of our Baptism. Receiving the grace of the Sacrament is our first step in a journey of faith. It is, though, a step that we do not take on our own. Baptism comes, not by our initiative, but at the invitation of the Father. We are presented for Baptism – we do not present ourselves, which is why we need a sponsor – as an offering to God in thanksgiving for the gift of faith. It is this nascent faith, then present within the neophyte, that leads one to a deeper relationship with God and a more profound sense of God’s presence.
John baptized with water, calling the people to repentance. The popularity of his teaching was a result of the burning need within the people to find new pathways to holiness and to seek a deeper understanding of their relationship with God.
While the Church stands within a timeless tradition of transmitting grace and celebrating the Sacraments, each age also needs to forge new ways of encounter, experience and expression of that faith. The language and signs present within a culture are continually in flux, demanding new modalities of handing-on the faith.
The Jubilee Year provides a tremendous opportunity to connect with the depth of God’s mercy, and to do so in simple yet profound ways.
Pope Francis is calling us to a season of hope.
Hope is a gift, a virtue, that is less present in our world that we think or would like it to be. In a world that seems to ever stand on the brink of major war, with increasing hostilities around the world, hope seems quieted. The polarizing political language and vitriol can sap us of any sense of hope. The horrors of natural, accidental, and intentionally caused disasters throughout the world, can lead to a path of despair instead of hope.
It is into this world, a world transformed by the mystery and majesty of the Incarnation, that we are each adopted sons and daughters of God through the simple act of the pouring of water and the recitation of the Trinitarian formula. At our Baptism we are called by name – I baptize you, not generically, but specifically, intentionally, and by name.
This makes of us a new creation and places us on a journey to eternity. Yes, this journey is afflicted by sin – personal moral sin, and the general sin of the alienation of creation from its creator. Sin always leads us down a path of loneliness, sadness and despair. Sin always drains us of hope.
Jesus was baptized not for his benefit but for ours. His Baptism is the sign to us that hope is not only possible, but a necessary component of our relationship with the Father. We hope in the present, yes, but our hope draws us to the future and the realization of the Kingdom of God.
Cognizant of our own Baptism, let us take this opportunity to overcoming the disdain of the world and to live instead in the fullness of the hope that John proclaimed and that Jesus fulfilled through the mysteries we celebrate.
Father Garry Koch is pastor of St. Benedict Parish, Holmdel.