BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

MASS AND BAPTISM RITE
Feast of the Baptism of our Lord


Libretto cover: Baptism of Jesus, Raphael, ca. 1520, 13th vault, Loggia di Raffaele, Vatican Apostolic Palace.




At 9:45 on Sunday morning, the Holy Father presided at Holy Mass in the Sistine Chape, during which he administered Baptism to 20 babies born recently to the families of Vatican employees.

In his homily, Benedict XVI said that “The joy arising from the celebration of Christmas finds its completion today in the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord” which marks the end of the liturgical season of Christmas.

“To this joy is added another reason for those of us who are gathered here: in the Sacrament of Baptism, which will soon be administered to these infants, the living and active presence of the Holy Spirit is manifested, enriching the Church with new children, enlivening and making them grow, and we cannot help but rejoice.”

The ceremony, which took place in the Sistine Chapel, follows a tradition begun by Blessed John Paul II to mark the Feast of the Lord's Baptism.

Here is a translation of the Pope's homily:

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Dear brothers and sisters:

The joy deriving from the celebration of the Holy Nativity finds its completion today in the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. To this joy is added the other reason for us to be gathered here today: in the Sacrament of Baptism which I will administer shortly to these newborn babies, the living and working presence of the Holy Spirit is manifested. who. by enriching the Church with new children, enlivens her and makes her grow, for which we can only rejoice.

I wish to extend a special greeting to you, dear parents and godparents, who will testify to your faith today by asking Baptism for these babies, so that they may be generated into a new life in Christ and become part of the community of believers.

The Gospel account of the baptism of Jesus. that we heard today in the version of St. Luke, shows the life of abasement and humility that the Son of God freely chose in order to keep to the plan of the Father, obedient in everything to his will of love towards man, up to his sacrifice on the Cross.

Now an adult, Jesus began his public ministry by going to the river Jordan to receive from John a baptism of penitence and conversion. And what happens can seem paradoxical to our eyes. Does Jesus need penitence and conversion? Of course not.

But he who is without sin showed up among sinners to be baptized, to fulfill that gesture of penitence. God's Son joined those who knew that they needed forgiveness and asked God for the gift of conversion - namely, the grace to return to him with all their heart, in order to be totally his.

Jesus wanted to be among sinners, to be one with them, to express the nearness of God. Jesus showed his solidarity with us, with our efforts to be converted, to leave behind our selfishness, to detach ourselves from our sins, in order to tell us that if we accept him in our lives, he can lift us up and lead us to the height of God the Father.

And this gesture of solidarity by Jesus was not, so to say, a mere exercise of mind and will. Jesus truly immersed himself in our human condition - except in sin, he lived it in full to the very end, except in sin, and was able to understand its weakness and fragility.

That is why he was moved to compassion, he chose to 'suffer with' men, to be a penitent among us. This was the work of God that Jesus would fulfill: the divine mission to heal those who are wounded and to cure those who are sick, by taking upon himself the sins of the world.

What happened when Jesus asked to be baptized by John? In the face of this act of love by the Son of God, the heavens opened and the Holy Spirit manifested visibly in the form of a dove, while a voice from on high expressed the pleasure of the Father who acknowledged his only begotten Son, the beloved one.

It was a true manifestation of the Holy Trinity which testified to the divinity of Jesus, that he was the promised Messiah, he whom God had sent to liberate his people so that they may be saved (cfr Is 40,2).

Thus was realized the prophecy of Isaiah that we heard in the First Reading: the Lord God comes with the power to destroy the works of sin, and his arm would exercise dominion to disarm Evil. But let us keep in mind that his arms were also extended on the Cross and that Jesus's power is the power of he who suffered for us. This is the power of God, different from worldly power. This is how God came to destroy sin.

Indeed, Jesus acts as the Good Shepherd who pastures his flock and gathers them together so they may not be dispersed (cfr Is 40,10-11), and offers his own life so that they may have life.

It is through his redemptive death that man is liberated from the dominion of sin and is reconciled with the Father, It is through his Resurrection that man is saved from eternal death and triumphs over evil.

Dear brothers and sisters, what will happen at the Baptism that I will shortly administer to your children? They will become united profoundly and for always to Jesus, immersed in the mystery of his strength and of his power, the mystery of his death which is the source of life, in order to take part in his resurrection, to be reborn to a new life.

This is the miracle that repeats itself today. This is the miracle that repeats itself for your babies: Receiving Baptism, they are reborn as children of God, participants in the filial relationship that Jesus has with the Father, able to address God and call him with full confidence and trust 'Abba, Father'. To your babies, the heavens open, and God says: These are my children, children in whom I am well pleased.

Placed into this relationship and freed from original sin, they become living members of the one body that is the Church, to be able to live fully their calling to holiness, and thus be able to inherit eternal life which is obtained for us by the resurrection of Jesus.

Dear parents, in asking Baptism for your children, you are manifesting and bearing witness to your faith, to the joy of being Christians and of belonging to the Church. It is the joy that comes from the consciousness of having received a great gift from God - the faith - a gift that none of us could earn but which is given to us freely and to which we have responded with a Yes.

It is the joy of knowing we are children of God, of finding ourselves in his hands, of feeling ourselves welcomed in an embrace of love, the same way a mother supports and embraces her baby.

This joy, that orients the journey of every Christian, is based on a personal relationship with Jesus, a relationship that orients the entire human existence. He is, in fact, the sense of our life, he on whom it is worthwhile keeping our gaze to be illuminated by his Truth and be able to live fully.

The journey of faith that begins today for these children is therefore founded on a certainty, on the experience that there is nothing greater than to know Christ and to communicate to others this friendship with him.

It is in only this friendship that the great potentialities of the human condition are disclosed and we can experience all that is beautiful and free (cfr Homily at the Holy Mass for the beginning of the Pontificate, April 24, 2005). Whoever has experienced this will not renounce his faith for anything in this world.

You, dear godmothers and godfathers, have the important task of supporting and helping the educational work of the parents, alongside them in the transmission of the truths of the faith and in bearing witness to the values of the Gospel, so that these children can grow up having an ever more profound friendship with the Lord.

You must offer them your good example through the exercise of the Christian virtues. It is not easy to manifest openly and without compromises that in which we believe, especially in the context in which we live today, in a society that often considers those who live in the faith of Jesus as being outmoded and anachronistic.

Caught up in the wave of this mentality, there is even the risk that Christians themselves will think a relationship with Jesus is limiting, as something that can frustrate our self-fulfillment: "God is seen as a limit to our freedom, a limit to be eliminated so that man can be totally himself" (L’infanzia di Gesù, 101). But it is not so!

Such a view shows that nothing has been understood about the relationship with God, because one can proceed along the journey of faith only hand in hand, understanding how Jesus exercises over us the liberating action of God's love that makes us emerge from our selfishness, from being closed in on ourselves, in order to lead us to a full life, in communion with God and open to others.

“'God is love, and he 'ho abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him' (1 Jn 4:16). These words from the First Letter of John express with remarkable clarity the heart of the Christian faith: the Christian image of God and the resulting image of mankind and its destiny." (Deus caritas est, 1).

The water with which these babies will be blessed, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, will immerse them in that fountain of life that is God himself and which will make them truly his children.

And the seeds of the theological virtues infused by God - faith, love and charity - seeds that are now placed into their hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit, must always be nourished by the Word of God and the Sacraments, so that these Christian virtues may grow and reach full maturation to make each of them a true witness to the Lord.

As we invoke upon these little ones an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, we entrust them to the protection of the Blessed Virgin - may she always guard them with her maternal presence and accompany them in every moment of their life. Amen.

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NB: As Mons. Marini did not post a photo for this Mass libretto but identifies the cover, I had to go online to find a photo of Raphael's 'Baptism of Jesus'. This is the only color photo I could find - the two B&W photos available have the faces of Jesus and John the Baptist too dark. The color photo itself shows a near-monochrome palette in red-browns that is unlike the more familiar Raphaels..