Then Jesus arrived from Galilee and came to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. 14 John tried to dissuade him, saying, “Why do you come to me? I am the one who needs to be baptized by you.” 15 But Jesus said to him in reply, “For the present, let it be thus. It is proper for us to do this to fulfill all that righteousness demands.”[ Then he acquiesced. 16 After Jesus had been baptized, as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened and he beheld the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17 And a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
Meditation
From his article, "The Ecological Significance of the Eucharist," by Daniel Horan OFM
One of the distinctive features of the second person of the Holy Trinity is that the eternal word — and only the word, not the Father nor the Spirit — enters into creation as part of creation. God freely and lovingly surrenders the trappings of divinity in order to become one with and part of the material world (Philippians 2:6-11).
Our liturgical calendar marks a number of moments when we acknowledge this profound truth of faith. At Christmas, we celebrate the incarnation, when God the son becomes flesh of the world (sarx in Greek) and makes a home among humanity and the whole family of creation. Ordinary time recounts the preaching and deeds of Christ, as well as his miraculous engagement with the natural world. During Holy Week, we commemorate the last days of the Lord's life, recall the real precariousness and vulnerability of his passion and death and rejoice in his bodily resurrection from the dead.
But the presence of Christ in the world is not a one-time-only event marked by the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth, as if it were a historical marker merely worthy of post-factum commemoration. Rather, God's continued presence to us in the material world is precisely what the sacramental life of the church is all about. This is especially true at Mass.
When we gather at Eucharist, we celebrate the manifold ways Christ continues to enter into the concrete reality of creation. The Second Vatican Council's dogmatic constitution on the liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, reminds us that Christ is "always present in His Church" and that during the celebration of the Mass, Christ is present in the presider, the assembly of the baptized, the holy Scriptures proclaimed and the Eucharistic species of bread and wine shared. Whether we consider the presence of Christ in our neighbor or the sacramental presence of Christ in the gifts of the altar, both reflect God's continued self-offering and closeness to all creation.
Pope Francis echoes the profundity of God's choice to communicate God's self to us in the ordinariness of time and space. Writing in "Laudato si, On Care for Our Common Home, he says: "Encountering God does not mean fleeing from this world or turning our back on nature."
Furthermore, the pope highlights that the sacraments are themselves significant not only as a means of God's grace to the human family, but to all of God's creation.
Musical Selection (lyrics in video)
Prayer