Baptism of the Lord 2026 - Matter Matters

 

Homily for Baptism of the Lord

January 11, 2026

Matter Matters

 

            In 2020, a priest from Detroit named Fr. Matthew Hood was watching the old VHS of his own baptism as an infant. He was surprised to see that the deacon who baptized him said the words, “We baptize you…” instead of “I baptize you.” One little word, but did it make a difference? He wrote to his bishop, who wrote to the Vatican, and the Vatican ruled that…yes it mattered, and because of that one erroneous word, Fr. Hood had not been validly baptized! He needed to be re-baptized, re-Confirmed, and re-ordained a priest – this, for a man who had already been acting as a priest for three years!

            Crazy, right? But the definition of a Sacrament is “an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace”. The outward sign is important! It consists in two parts: the matter (which is the “stuff” of the Sacraments) and the form (the “words” used in a Sacrament). Both are essential for a Sacrament to be valid (which means that the Sacrament actually occurred). We can’t mess around with the “matter” – I can’t baptize with Coca-cola, I can’t celebrate Mass with Doritos – the Sacraments would be invalid. And we can’t mess around with the form – if you ever go to a Confession where a priest says, “I forgive you of your sins” or “God absolves you of your sins” – charitably but firmly correct him and ask him to give you the proper Absolution, which is “I absolve you of your sins…”. Otherwise, the Confession is not valid!

            Is the Church being picayune in such definitions? No – such precision is important for two reasons. First, because the Church has no power whatsoever to change what Christ has established – rather, the Church’s role is to faithfully hand on what He taught His Apostles. This is true in the moral realm (the Church can never redefine marriage, for example) and it is true in the sacramental realm as well. As much as the media may tell the Church to “get with the times”, it will never be possible to use raisin bread for the Eucharist or to ordain women to become priests. We must remain faithful to what Christ gave us – not come up with novelties on our own.

            But secondly, we must remember that while we are bound by the Sacraments, God is not bound by the Sacraments and can give His saving grace to whomever He wishes. There is a principle called ecclesia supplet – the Church supplies. This means that in case a Sacrament is accidentally done incorrectly, the person will still receive the grace as if the Sacrament had occurred. So in the case of Fr. Hood, even though he acted like a priest for three years and heard Confessions, his Confessions were not technically valid. But he didn’t know that and the penitents didn’t know that – so the sins really were forgiven because the Church supplied the grace. Or if you went to a Mass in the 1970s where the priest used corn bread – it wasn’t the valid Eucharist, but if you did not know this, then you received the grace you would have received as if the Eucharist were valid. So you don’t need to go panic about your own baptism – we can assume that it is valid unless you have video evidence to the contrary!

            I believe the Sacraments are uniquely important in our own day and age, when much of our world is digital and online. Jesus Christ established a fundamentally incarnational faith – where we experience God’s grace through visible, tangible realities. Our hearts yearn for a God Who is close enough to touch, see, and hear! Haven’t we all experienced the exhaustion and emptiness of living as a digital nomad? Why is it that Zoom calls, even if we can see and hear the person, seem so fake and wearying? There is a desire in our human hearts to live in the real world, not just the curated, algorhithmic dopamine-driven virtual world.

            A couple years ago at our parish’s annual chili cook-off, I came upon two young teens staring at their phones. So I told them, “Guys, put it away, we’re going to play cards.” Initially they were resistant, but soon warmed to the idea and we had a rousing game. At the end, one of the boys said to me, “Wow, it’s been a while since I felt so…human.” We need the real world to make us feel human.

            Which is why Christ established an incarnational faith – one that can be sensed and touched, one in which His invisible love comes through concrete Sacraments. We can taste His goodness in the Eucharistic Host placed on our tongue; we can hear the healing words “I Absolve You”, in our darkest hours we feel the olive oil on our heads in Anointing of the Sick and it brings us great comfort. We humans are both body and soul, and things only enter our soul by means of our bodies. Hence, invisible grace enters our soul by means of bodily actions – aka, the Sacraments.

            I believe that in our world and our Church is in great need of rediscovering the wisdom and value of these incarnational Sacraments. They are a perfect antidote to the soul-emptying digital gulag in which we are all enslaved. Let us hunger for and deeply appreciate all of our beautiful Sacraments, for with them we are made fully human…and filled with divine grace.