Fr. Carlo Di Sopra, SX
BAPTISM OF THE LORD SUNDAY
Last year because of Ebola we had a very poor Christmas in Sierra Leone with all gatherings suspended. There were no joy. This year is different: churches are full for the celebrations and activities everywhere: everybody is out to meet others and to have fun. Indeed “the sense of expectancy” for joy and friendship, the need to break isolation, that isolation experienced at the time of Ebola, are deep rooted in each person. It was as if people wanted to make up for what they lost last year.
But like in today’s gospel, this deep “expectancy” for something good and durable in life is often misunderstood and misplaced. Jesus was there already, but some still thought the Messiah was John, maybe attracted by his personality. Until John declared openly that attention should switch from him to Jesus. For those who were more attentive, a voice from heaven came to indicate where the real fulfillment of that “expectancy” was: Jesus with his new baptism that gives Spirit and fire.
It is this Spirit and fire that can in a more radical way break our isolation and fulfill the “expectancy” that everybody feels for a life, where individualism and isolation are gone forever, but it is often sought in fast-passing, little joys.
We receive It, or better Him, the day we are baptised. That day we are enabled to have a filial relationship with God and as a consequence, a brotherly relationship with our neighbours. Through the Spirit we receive the ability to love in a new way, a way that is similar to how God loves, and so becoming part of a new community that is the Church.
Many times I have tried to understand in which way the Spirit we receive in baptism enables us to relate with others in a different way. I have also found some answers.
The Spirit enables the Christians to look at others as brothers and sisters, being sons and daughters of the same God. The Christian does not make difference between good and bad, nice and ugly, small and big, rich or poor, belonging to this nation or the other, to one tribe or the other. Everybody is a brother or a sister. The heart of a Christian is open to universality. For this reason the church is made up of people from all nations, tribes, languages and ways of life.
The Spirit enables the Christians to go out to meet the others without expecting anything in return. As God sent Jesus when we were still far from Him, taking thus the initiative, in the same way the Christians do not wait to be recognised in order to act, but are the first to go out and meet those in need. They are active, they know how to take the first step.
Finally the Spirit makes the Christians able to rejoice with those who rejoice and cry with those who cry. Like St. Paul, they make themselves one with others so as to live what they live, to experience what they experience, to feel what the others feel, forgetting about themselves.
These are simply words, but capable to bring about big changes, if taken seriously: changes in the family, in the school, in the market place, in economy and politics. They could bring about new heavens and new earth, especially if we consider the many divisions in today’s world, at the many people who suffer because of injustice and wars.
These simple ideas are also able to fulfill our “sense of expectancy” for good and joy, and the presence of God in our life.
Every year there are new people who receive the baptism in our communities. It is the greatest joy for the church to open wide the doors for them and continue to offer them the Spirit of God, which is the seed of a new humanity. This is also what makes the missionaries happy to go everywhere, to all distant villages, to bring this very Good News.
BAPTISM OF THE LORD SUNDAY
Last year because of Ebola we had a very poor Christmas in Sierra Leone with all gatherings suspended. There were no joy. This year is different: churches are full for the celebrations and activities everywhere: everybody is out to meet others and to have fun. Indeed “the sense of expectancy” for joy and friendship, the need to break isolation, that isolation experienced at the time of Ebola, are deep rooted in each person. It was as if people wanted to make up for what they lost last year.
But like in today’s gospel, this deep “expectancy” for something good and durable in life is often misunderstood and misplaced. Jesus was there already, but some still thought the Messiah was John, maybe attracted by his personality. Until John declared openly that attention should switch from him to Jesus. For those who were more attentive, a voice from heaven came to indicate where the real fulfillment of that “expectancy” was: Jesus with his new baptism that gives Spirit and fire.
It is this Spirit and fire that can in a more radical way break our isolation and fulfill the “expectancy” that everybody feels for a life, where individualism and isolation are gone forever, but it is often sought in fast-passing, little joys.
We receive It, or better Him, the day we are baptised. That day we are enabled to have a filial relationship with God and as a consequence, a brotherly relationship with our neighbours. Through the Spirit we receive the ability to love in a new way, a way that is similar to how God loves, and so becoming part of a new community that is the Church.
Many times I have tried to understand in which way the Spirit we receive in baptism enables us to relate with others in a different way. I have also found some answers.
The Spirit enables the Christians to look at others as brothers and sisters, being sons and daughters of the same God. The Christian does not make difference between good and bad, nice and ugly, small and big, rich or poor, belonging to this nation or the other, to one tribe or the other. Everybody is a brother or a sister. The heart of a Christian is open to universality. For this reason the church is made up of people from all nations, tribes, languages and ways of life.
The Spirit enables the Christians to go out to meet the others without expecting anything in return. As God sent Jesus when we were still far from Him, taking thus the initiative, in the same way the Christians do not wait to be recognised in order to act, but are the first to go out and meet those in need. They are active, they know how to take the first step.
Finally the Spirit makes the Christians able to rejoice with those who rejoice and cry with those who cry. Like St. Paul, they make themselves one with others so as to live what they live, to experience what they experience, to feel what the others feel, forgetting about themselves.
These are simply words, but capable to bring about big changes, if taken seriously: changes in the family, in the school, in the market place, in economy and politics. They could bring about new heavens and new earth, especially if we consider the many divisions in today’s world, at the many people who suffer because of injustice and wars.
These simple ideas are also able to fulfill our “sense of expectancy” for good and joy, and the presence of God in our life.
Every year there are new people who receive the baptism in our communities. It is the greatest joy for the church to open wide the doors for them and continue to offer them the Spirit of God, which is the seed of a new humanity. This is also what makes the missionaries happy to go everywhere, to all distant villages, to bring this very Good News.