Homily for Baptism of Our Lord
January 9, 2022
Sacraments: Source of Living Water
An old
grandmother, right before her death, spoke to her granddaughter and promised to
give her a great treasure. “My dear granddaughter, I had the great fortune in
my life to visit the Holy Land and collect some water from the Jordan River,
which I have preserved in a fancy bottle to give to my grandchildren. As you
are the oldest granddaughter, I want you to have it. You can find it up there,
on the shelf.” The granddaughter was overjoyed at such a sacred, powerful gift
as this – to have water from the very river where Jesus Himself stepped foot!
She got a stepstool and grabbed the bottle and brought it to her grandmother,
but noticed something odd.
“Grandma,
the bottle is empty!” she exclaimed.
“Well,
yes, I spilled the water out some years ago…but you can keep the bottle!”
Quite a
dubious gift – and not exactly what was promised to be handed down! And yet
this is exactly what we have been given, thanks to Original Sin. Our
First Parents were created by God as beautiful, exquisite containers to hold a
magnificent gift. They were created with a body and a soul, an intellect and a
free will – but the body and soul were just meant to hold a far more
magnificent reality: the grace of God. What is grace? It is God’s Divine Life
within us. He wanted us to literally be living, breathing, walking outposts of
God’s divine presence, radiance, holiness, and power.
But
something happened. The gift of grace was lost. And now we inherit from our
parents just the vessel – the body and soul – without the connection with God.
It would be like if you inherited a vintage record player…without the power
cord, or a ’59 Mustang without an engine. Nice thought, but it’s missing
something vital to make it function. Without the plug or the engine, it just
kinda sits there and doesn’t do what it was made to do!
But God
did not want this to be our fate, so He provided a way to have our empty
bottles filled at the source of Living Water. The Source, of course, is the
Sacraments.
But the
Sacraments look so ordinary! Icebergs also look pretty ordinary, and of course
we all know that 90% of an iceberg is underwater. In the same way, what we see
in the Sacraments is only 10% of what’s really going on, in the
invisible, spiritual world. For example, in Baptism, we see water poured over a
baby’s head. No big deal – happens every time you give that kid a bath. But in
the spiritual realm, this child is filled with God’s divine life for the first
time. Their soul becomes marked with an indelible, unchangeable character that
marks their soul as property of Jesus Christ. They become sons or daughters of
Almighty God, heirs to the Kingdom of Heaven, members of the Church. They
receive the Holy Spirit and every grace and blessing to save their own soul.
Sometimes
in modern America we think that if we can’t measure it, it’s not real, so we
think grace is just a nice myth, a warm fuzzy feeling that comforts us at
funerals when we sing Amazing Grace. My friends, grace is not like that at all.
Rather, grace is an objective reality. Either you have grace within your soul,
or you don’t. Much like a light bulb either has electricity running through it
(and it’s lit up) or it doesn’t (and it’s dark), you either have God’s grace or
you don’t. It’s not something you can feel or measure, but here’s how it works:
You
receive God’s grace at Baptism. You increase God’s grace first of all through
the Sacraments, through other good works, prayer, and through the prayers of
others. God’s grace is diminished if we neglect our faith or commit venial sin.
We lose God’s grace entirely through mortal sin. Mortal sin, such as
intentionally missing Mass on Sunday or other Holy Days of Obligation,
intentionally getting drunk or doing drugs, sexual sin including pornography
and any sexual activity outside of marriage, doing occult things like psychics
or tarot cards are all mortal sins. If we find ourself having any of these on
our soul, our soul is damaged – we must come to our soul’s Maker in the
Sacrament of Confession for repairs. In fact, we cannot receive any other grace
if we are in the state of mortal sin – it is like trying to fill your bottle
with living water while the bottle has a hole in it – futile until the hole is
patched up. From the vantage point of God, He sees all of our souls and
recognizes those souls that are darkened and empty because they have no grace,
those who are only dimly lit because of little grace, and those who shine with
His radiance. And what a beautiful thing it is to shine with grace – St.
Theresa of Avila said that if we could see a soul in the state of grace, we
would be tempted to worship it!
Grace is
not something we earn, though. It’s a free gift, leading into a deeper
relationship. We come to the Sacraments, not to buy our way into Heaven, but as
launching-points to a deeper daily friendship with Jesus Christ, Who gave them
to us. In fact, Jesus thinks the Sacraments are so important that the Church
teaches in the Catechism that “God has bound grace to the Sacraments.” If
someone said, “I will give you the key to your very own mansion at
such-and-such a day at this time and place,” would we respond, “Eh, can’t you
just mail it to me? Can’t I just Zoom call in?” Not if someone is being so
generous! When God wants to give us His greatest gift of grace, we should be
grateful to receive it in the way He has designed! – the motor to our Mustang,
the power cord to our antique record player, the Divine Life that fills and
radiates our soul.
Why did
God bind grace to the Sacraments, though? Three reasons. First, because we are
both body and soul, we need to encounter His invisible love in a very tangible
way – through the water of baptism, the Host in Communion, those healing words
in Confession. Grace gets to our soul through our body! Second, because
the Sacraments gather us together as a Church. A single match is quickly blown
out, but when a match lights a stick which lights a log, it becomes a bonfire.
When a soul is apart from the Church, their faith is quickly snuffed. But
surrounded by other Christians, our faith becomes ablaze! Finally, the
Sacraments continue what Jesus did on earth. Jesus forgave sins – He now does
that through His priests. He gave us His Body and Blood at the Last Supper, and
He continues to do so at every Mass. He told His disciples to baptize, and for
twenty centuries the Church has fulfilled His commands.
So this
is why the Sacraments are so vital – they are our strongest connection to
grace. Never stay away from the Sacraments! I hear so many people who think
they can have a relationship with God apart from the Sacraments – they are
missing out! He instituted these Sacraments as the seven faucets where we can
be filled with His Divine Life! We are empty vessels who can only do good works
– who can only get to Heaven – by God’s free gift of grace, which we find in
Baptism and all the other Seven Sacraments.
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