Ecce Agnus Dei

John the Baptist
"Behold the Lamb of God"

Amici, Americani, Compatriotae,

Earlier this evening I went to the Saturday Vigil Mass at Our Lady of Grace for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time. The Scripture readings included the following:

• The Servant's Mission in Isaiah 49:3-6
• Thanksgiving for Deliverance in Psalm 40:2-10
• St. Paul's Salutation to the Church at Corinth in 1st Corinthians 1:1-3
• The Lamb of God in John 1:29-34

Father Kirby as usual gave an excellent homily. He opened with a little story from one of his previous experiences. He had been in a small town with an assortment of Protestant ecclesial communities: Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran, etc., as well as his Catholic Parish. This town was infested with a growing squirrel population about which something had to be done. One Protestant community decided to hire an exterminator and the result was dead squirrels everywhere, and that turned out to be not such a good public relations move. Another tried to understand what was causing the population outbreak and its efforts were equally fruitless. So finally it was up to the Catholic Parish to try something. The pastor thereof one day arrived back with super soaker water guns. Everyone there thought that a little strange. So someone asked the Pastor, "Why, Father, all these super soakers?" Father responded, "I thought we would baptized the little critters. In that way we would only have to worry about them showing up on Christmas and Easter as most of the rest of the Catholics normally do."  The point in all this is that sadly many of us Catholics do not bother to live out our Baptism but once or twice a year.

Now while I cannot recall all that Father Kirby said (I really need to start taking notes!), the gist of it was in the selected Scripture passages below. I think what may have prompted him to go along this line was today's Gospel from the first chapter of St. John where John the Baptist sees Jesus and declares:

I did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘On whomever you see the Spirit come down and remain, he is the one who will baptize with the holy Spirit.’

Concerning Baptism St. Paul says in Romans 6:3-4:

Or are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.

And again in Colossians 2:11-13 St. Paul explains:

In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not administered by hand, by stripping off the carnal body, with the circumcision of Christ. You were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. And even when you were dead [in] transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he brought you to life along with him, having forgiven us all our transgressions...

1st Peter 3:18-22 goes on to explain:

For Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, that he might lead you to God. Put to death in the flesh, he was brought to life in the spirit. In it he also went to preach to the spirits in prison, who had once been disobedient while God patiently waited in the days of Noah during the building of the ark, in which a few persons, eight in all, were saved through water. This prefigured baptism, which saves you now. It is not a removal of dirt from the body but an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him.

The point in all this is that Baptism is the Sacrament which opens up to us all the other graces that God has to bestow on us. But if we do not live out our Baptism in our lives, then we will be incapable of receiving those graces. Indeed, just as we look at our priests as being an example of piety and holiness, so does the unbaptized pagan look upon us who are but members of the Laity, and the reason why is because of that indelible mark which Baptism places on our souls. We are therefore called to be a witness in deed and in word, acting and speaking the truth with humility and kindness and mercy and grace. Our Catholicism is not to be relegated to just Christmas and Easter. It is to be a daily exercise of faith stemming from that first Sacrament, our Baptism.