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Devotion

Understanding the Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and What it Means

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When I was a child, a beautiful picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus hung in my parents’ bedroom. A warm, smiling Jesus lovingly pointed to His heart, pierced and…

When I was a child, a beautiful picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus hung in my parents’ bedroom. A warm, smiling Jesus lovingly pointed to His heart, pierced and crowned with thorns, in an eternal gesture of invitation. Whenever I looked at that picture, I felt good — embraced, loved, cared for — as if the Lord were inviting me to step into His joy and peace. My mother had a great devotion to the Sacred Heart; every First Friday, we would consecrate our lives anew to His love and mercy.

Each summer — usually in June — we celebrate the solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and draw near to the tender mercy and forgiveness of the Lord. Poetically, the heart is a symbol of the human center — our emotions, loves, passions, desires, the force of the will. In his book “The Sacred Heart of the World,” David Richo explains: “Our heart is the soft center of the egoless self and it has one desire: to open. The heart is the capacity to open.… It contains our ability to reach out so it is the antidote to despair.… Contemplation of Jesus’ Heart shows us how deep we really are, how vast our potential for love, how high our aspiration for the light.”

In the Gospels, Jesus’ heart is moved with pity for the crowds (see Mt 9:36) and He tells us that He is gentle and humble of heart (Mt 11:29). The Sacred Heart of Jesus that began beating in the womb of the Blessed Virgin more than 2,000 years ago still beats today in the glorified humanity of the Risen Christ. And it will pulsate forever, pumping out the grace, mercy and life of God to all of humanity. In the Heart of the Lord, we experience the overwhelming mercy of God and His infinite desire to be in relationship with us.

Over the centuries, many Christians developed harsh images of God and Jesus as fearsome judges, distant from human affairs, ready to impose punishment for moral failure. The Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints became the friendly, approachable intercessors who would go to God for us, pleading for sinful and erring souls. Jansenism, particularly prevalent in France in the 16th and 17th centuries, overemphasized the wrath of God, the unworthiness of human nature and fear as a fundamental response to the divine.

Viewed in this context, the apparitions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque manifest a need for a theological correction and a spiritual balance regarding popular perceptions of Christ. Jesus revealed to the saint His heart, burning with love for humanity. Pierced and crucified — offering salvation and mercy — Jesus’ heart longs for us to offer our love and devotion in return. If some distorted forms of spirituality focused only on God’s punishment, the Sacred Heart emphasized mercy. If many believers inordinately feared God, here divine love and joy were manifest. If Jesus had seemed distant and unapproachable before, the Sacred Heart beckons us to enter into the divine furnace of charity.

St. Margaret Mary described her experience of the Lord: “My divine Heart is so passionately fond of the human race and of you, in particular, that it cannot keep back the pent-up flames of its burning charity any longer. They must burst out through you and reveal my Heart to the world, so as to enrich mankind with my treasures.” Following this revelation, Jesus united her heart with His in a fusion of mystical love and joy.

As St. John reminds us, God is love (see 1 Jn 4), the One who empties himself out for others, desiring our eternal salvation, seeking out the lost and carrying the wandering sheep home. The whole Christ event is a mission of mercy, as the Son, in radical obedience to the Father, becomes incarnate in our flesh — preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom, healing the sick, forgiving the sinner, feeding the hungry and, ultimately, offering His life on the cross. Every word, action, gesture and attitude of Jesus manifests a perfect, pure and selfless love for each human person. If love means willing the good of the other, completely free of self-interest, we see the perfection of such charity in the burning heart of Christ.

Lest we think that such a love is naive, simplistic or easy, the Sacred Heart shines forth, crowned with thorns, pierced and bleeding. The crucifixion of Christ is the terrifying path through the valley of darkness and evil which God himself walks, embracing everything sinful, broken and dead that ensnares and destroys us. By remaining silent before His persecutors, praying for His killers, loving a dying thief and asking forgiveness for sinners, Jesus shows that the unconditional, infinite and divine love of His heart is the only force that can heal the world of its hatred, sin and rejection of God. By taking upon himself the totality of human evil committed by every person of every time, Christ refracts this overwhelming darkness into the light of the Resurrection.

Radical Act

In this radical act of redemption, the Lord serves like an aikido wrestling artist. Aikido is a form of martial arts in which the goal is to leave one’s opponent disarmed, unhurt and lying on the ground laughing! By absorbing and deflecting the aggressive negative energy of the attacker, the aikido wrestler disarms the other by turning violence into a gentle yet firm force that hurts no one, but stops the aggression. Is this not what Jesus did in His passion and death? He absorbed all the violence, evil, hatred and sin of the world into himself, letting it kill Him and seemingly destroy His vital force of love, healing and peace. But by taking in all of the darkness, Jesus conquered its power in one supreme offering of self to the Father on the altar of the cross. The death and resurrection of Christ is the gentle yet powerful absorption, deflection and transformation of violence into love, sin into grace, hatred into forgiveness and death into life. The triumph of the Sacred Heart is the ultimate victory of love.

In an address to Italian bishops, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger once put it this way: “What Jesus preaches in the Sermon on the Mount, He now does; He does not offer violence against violence, as He might have done, but puts an end to violence by transforming it into love. The act of killing, of death, is changed into an act of love.”

Facing the endless and fearful violence of terrorism, mass shootings, abuse of all kinds and a profound disrespect for the sanctity of human life, our contemporary society will only find hope, healing and peace through the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ.

What does devotion to the Sacred Heart consist of? How do we understand it today? Formal consecration, a daily offering, celebration of the Eucharist and reconciliation on consecutive First Fridays, displaying and honoring an image of the Sacred Heart all comprise some of the specific practices linked to this profound devotion.

Like any religious consecration, one made to the Sacred Heart is an extension of our baptismal commitment. In the waters of baptism, we put on Christ — anointed with the Holy Spirit to live as a new creation in the life of the Blessed Trinity — to embrace the goodness of the Gospel. Consecrating ourselves to the Sacred Heart is a personal and loving way to renew and live our baptismal vows. We acknowledge Jesus’ sovereignty in our lives, pledging our love back to Him who has so graciously and sacrificially loved us. Every First Friday, when my family verbally renewed our consecration, I was reminded of Jesus’ presence, protection and power in my life. That prayer inspired me to try to treat others as I would treat Christ himself. If you have not already done so, consider consecrating your marriage, family, home and life to the Sacred Heart in a formal way. It makes a big difference.

The daily offering is a simple prayer in which we give God our day: its prayer, work, joy and sufferings. This oblation of the heart renews our consecration and reminds us to live in holy mindfulness that what we do, say, value and embrace should be a worthy return to the Lord who has done so much for us. I remember praying the Morning Offering in grade school; this daily ritual reminded me that what I did in school, at home, on the playground, with family and classmates mattered to God — inspiring me to want to offer my very best.

Coming at a time when the faithful received the Eucharist infrequently, Jesus’ request that we confess our sins and receive Communion every First Friday points to the Eucharist and the sacraments as the fundamental way to encounter the love of the Lord. In the Eucharist, Jesus completely gives himself to us, literally entering into our bodies, souls and lives. We enter into the One that we eat and drink, deeply united to Christ. In the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we experience the mercy and forgiveness won for us on Calvary — we receive the tender embrace of the Lord and the healing power of the paschal mystery. Through these sacraments, Jesus draws us into His heart and allows us to experience in this life the love and joy of heaven. All of the riches of God’s inner life are manifest in the Heart of Christ and offered to us in the Mass and in confession.

In honoring and displaying images of the Sacred Heart, we invite others to experience Jesus’ love for themselves. The power of visuals is clear — I can still remember every artistic detail of that picture in my parents’ bedroom! We cannot contemplate such a holy and merciful image with indifference or ingratitude. One look at Jesus’ heart should melt us, convert us and inspire us to give our hearts in return.

Sacred Heart devotion is not magic or some automatic ticket to heaven; it is a sacred way for us to encounter the fullness of the Gospel, the good news of God’s saving love poured out for us in Jesus Christ. As we steadily progress in our knowledge and communion with the Lord, we will fall ever more deeply in love with Jesus and live out that transforming and redemptive relationship in every detail of our lives. This devotion unites our minds, hearts and wills in one great act of oblation — a total gift of the self to the One who has first offered himself completely to and for us.

Bishop Donald J. Hying is bishop of the Diocese of Madison, Wisconsin.

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Easter

Seeing the Risen Lord in Our Midst

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Built over the house of Caiaphas, the High Priest in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion, is the Church of Saint Peter Gallicantu, commemorating the denial of Simon Peter…

Built over the house of Caiaphas, the High Priest in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion, is the Church of Saint Peter Gallicantu, commemorating the denial of Simon Peter in the courtyard the night of Jesus’ arrest. Underneath the church is the “Pit,” the stone cell into which Jesus was thrown and held that same evening, hours before his death. To stand in that dark, cold place, to see the hole through which our Lord fell to the hard floor, to think of him lying there totally alone, facing Good Friday, moves one to tears. When I visited there, I meditated on Psalm 88, a solitary and suffering cry to God from one who feels total abandonment.

We have all been in the pit, facing our own dark nights of the soul, feeling unloved or unwanted or misunderstood, alone without any consolation from God or others. The Good News that we celebrated and proclaimed on Good Friday is the astonishing truth that the Lord went into the pit before us, tasted a profound abandonment impossible to understand, and embraced a horrifying death. He did all of this so that we would never lose hope, even in the darkest of nights.

Easter Sunday is Jesus’ victory over the forces of sin and death, the vindication of his entire mission, the triumph of love over hate, grace over evil, communion over loneliness and eternal life over the power of darkness. The resurrection of Christ does not magically erase the wounds and limitations of our frail humanity. We will still often feel misunderstood, suffer terrible heartbreaks and ultimately face death alone, but the Lord has opened a path for us; light shines at the end of the tunnel. He wants us to call on his mighty power, enjoy the intimacy of his presence through the sacraments, hear his gentle voice in the Word and discover the beauty of his face in those around us.

We will still find ourselves in the pit, but when our eyes get used to the darkness, we will see that Jesus is there with us, offering consolation, mercy and hope. The Lord beckons us to live in the vast beautiful world of his resurrection, already in the here and now of our lives as we find them to be. We don’t have to wait until we are dead to know the glory of God and taste the joy of Easter. Just as in the Gospels, the risen Lord shows up in the most unexpected places, wearing the most shocking of disguises, if we have the eyes to see.

During Lent, we have journeyed with Jesus in the wilderness for 40 days, seen his transfigured glory on Mount Tabor, pondered the deep need for conversion, traveled with the Prodigal Son back home, met the woman caught in adultery, known the Lord’s forgiveness and mercy, and welcomed Christ into the Jerusalem of our hearts. In the steady practice of prayer, fasting and almsgiving we have cleared an emptier space in our minds and hearts so that the Living Water, the Light of the World, the Resurrection and the Life can enter in and take hold of us in a deeper way.

In all of the Resurrection appearances of Jesus in the Gospels, his followers never recognize him immediately. Mary Magdalene assumes he is the gardener at the cemetery. The Apostles think Jesus is a ghost. The disciples on the road to Emmaus see him as an interesting fellow traveler. When Jesus calls Mary’s name, shows his wounds to his friends, and breaks the bread in the characteristic Eucharistic gesture, their eyes are opened to see the risen Lord come to the fullness of life! Maybe grief at the crucifixion had clouded their vision, maybe Jesus’ risen appearance was somehow different than he looked before, but one thing remains clear: When the Lord acts and speaks, they know who he is, and they rejoice.

How is the risen Lord acting and speaking in your life? When Jesus tenderly calls our name in prayer, when we see his wounds in the suffering of others, when we receive the fullness of the Eucharist, we recognize Christ, and our hearts rejoice at the wonder of his nearness and the beauty of his disguise. Through the power of the Holy Spirit and the efficacy of the Church and her Scriptures and sacraments, the presence of Christ is all around us. His resurrection is the shining totality of God’s beauty, truth and goodness. Because Jesus rose from the dead, we have the forgiveness of sins, the promise of eternal life, the presence of God in every moment and union with the Lord.

How can we not rejoice, sing praise and give thanks as we celebrate the beautiful triumph of the risen Christ? Love has vanquished hatred, grace has conquered sin, mercy has cast out evil, and life has the final word on death. May your hearts pulsate with the power and life of the Lord, crucified and risen, walking with each of us on our own road to Emmaus.

Bishop Donald J. Hying is the Bishop-elect for the Diocese of Madison, Wisconsin.

 

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Lent

Fully Entering Into the Triduum

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During the Sacred Triduum — the days of Holy Thursday through Easter Sunday — the strangest thing will occur. Millions of Christians throughout the world will gather to honor the…

During the Sacred Triduum — the days of Holy Thursday through Easter Sunday — the strangest thing will occur. Millions of Christians throughout the world will gather to honor the humiliation, torture and crucifixion of Jesus Christ. In a global culture that usually celebrates power, strength and beauty, this public veneration of something so horrible is always a little shocking. Could it be that what people find so absolutely compelling about the Passion narrative is the vulnerability of God?

In the Christ event, God leaves the safety and glory of heaven, in a certain sense, and embraces the limitations of our human condition, coming to know in the flesh both the glory and tragedy of our nature without ever having sinned. In the last week of his life, Jesus completely hands himself over to us. In the foot washing and the Eucharist, in the scourging and the crucifixion, the Son of God loves us completely without restrictions, conditions or limits. Whether we accept, reject or ignore this Divine Love, Jesus never changes his fundamental stance toward us.

In Roman and Greek mythology, the gods are always conspiring to manipulate humanity to serve their often-selfish ends and egotistical schemes. In Christ, we encounter the surprising subversion of this oppressive game. God serves us! In absolute humility, availability, vulnerability and mercy, God has come to love, pardon and save us.

The weakness of the cross, the simplicity of the Eucharist, the tenderness of the foot washing, the love that seeks to embrace a traitor, a thief and a coward is so beyond the grasp of power politics, the swirl of social hubris and the world of earthly grasping that it takes our breath away. No wonder that kings would stand speechless in the presence of the Suffering Servant, as Isaiah proclaims.

If God could become that poor, humble and vulnerable to love me, how can I ever stand on my own self-importance? This week, we celebrate the strangest things: weakness becomes strength, love conquers fear, miserable despair transforms into resurrected hope and perpetual death gives way to eternal life, and it’s all because a naked criminal was thrown down on a cross 2,000 years ago, and he embraced it as if it were his marriage bed.

We should let the Lord love us during Holy Week. The palm we held on Palm Sunday shold be a symbol of our praise, reverence and love for the humble Master who has saved and set us free. The Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday evening is an opportunity to taste the surprising grace of the Eucharist and surrender to the consolation of the foot washing. Listening to the Passion and venerating the cross on Good Friday gives us the opportunity to embrace the cross in our own lives, no matter what form it may take. Know that the mystery of suffering in our lives is the sacred ladder by which we will ascend to the beauty of the Kingdom of heaven.

Holy Saturday is a sacred time of rest and silence, as the Lord sleeps in the tomb and all of creation awaits a salvation it does not yet understand. A beautiful ancient text from the early Church pictures Jesus roaming the abode of the dead on this day, unchaining Adam and Eve and all of the other souls who had been waiting for redemption since the foundation of the world. Ask the Lord to set you free from the fear, sin and self-seeking that keeps you bound.

Gathering around the Easter fire at the Vigil, we call to mind how we began the Lenten journey marked with the ashes of sin, failure and defeat, but now you have become filled with fire — the mighty force of the risen Christ and the courageous strength of the Holy Spirit. As we proclaim the resurrection of Christ as the beautiful truth and transformative meaning of human history, know that the Lord walks with you, loves you and is leading you to the fullness of joy and peace.

The shocking, strange and powerful events of Holy Week should lead us to tears and laughter, gratitude and praise, humble awareness of our weakness and joyful acclamation of God’s victory. The Triduum is a time for God to break open our hearts, so that the gracious torrent of Divine Mercy that flows from the side of the crucified Christ will wash us clean, forgive our sins and fashion us ever more deeply in the new creation of the Lord’s saving death and resurrection.

Bishop Donald J. Hying is the Bishop-elect for the Diocese of Madison, Wisconsin.

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Human Dignity

Should We Have the Death Penalty?

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In my diocese, a thriving prison ministry flourishes, led by the generous service of our permanent deacons, with the assistance of priests and many committed laity. Individual pastoral visits, Bible…

In my diocese, a thriving prison ministry flourishes, led by the generous service of our permanent deacons, with the assistance of priests and many committed laity. Individual pastoral visits, Bible study, regular Masses and confession, an RCIA process and retreats contribute to an extraordinary pastoral care unfolding for the benefit of our incarcerated brothers and sisters. I am deeply grateful for the Christians witness of so many dedicated servants of the Lord.

A great blessing for me has been the opportunity to visit the prisons, celebrating the Eucharist and Confirmation, helping with the annual retreat, doing some of the RCIA scrutinies and meeting with the men on death row. In Matthew 25, Jesus tells us that, when we visit someone in prison, we are encountering him. I have stood in the “pit,” still existent underneath Caiphas’ house in Jerusalem, the dark hole where Jesus spent in prison the last night of his earthly life, facing a horrible execution the following day. Christ spent time on death row.

Whenever I converse with prisoners, at least those involved in Church activities, I encounter faith, love and hope. Many of the men struggle to accept God’s forgiveness for what they have done and to forgive themselves. Like all of us, they try to believe, pray and keep on the path of discipleship. I consistently remind them that they are sons of the Father, beloved by Jesus Christ; their criminal and violent deeds do not fully define them as human beings. They are so much more than that. Many of them have spent decades behind bars; many will never leave.

At any given moment, counting Federal and state prisons, as well as local jails, over 2 million people are incarcerated in the United States, and the number steadily increases. Our country locks up more people per capita than any other nation on earth. Many prisoners are a threat to others and need to be behind bars; those guilty of serious crimes have a debt to pay society. Few would disagree that part of an effective justice system is fair sentencing for crimes committed.

My experiences of prison ministry in Wisconsin, the Dominican Republic and now here in Indiana, however, raise questions in my heart and mind. Should prisons be simply punitive or also rehabilitative? Should we simply punish people indefinitely, or can they possibly change for the better? So many formative programs, educational opportunities and humanizing details have disappeared from contemporary American prisons that many inmates are more dehumanized, angry, disconnected and incapable of embracing a peaceful, productive and lawful life out in society. Are we simply warehousing people, or do we have a responsibility to help those in prison to experience transformation and conversion?

Capital punishment is clearly a controversial issue because it, too, raises many questions. In the 21st century, is it truly moral to execute a criminal who can be securely contained from society? We certainly need to fully acknowledge the horrific and violent crimes that many on death row have committed, but is putting them to death really the solution? Evidence suggests that capital punishment does not effectively serve as a deterrent to murderous violence. It costs the state more to execute someone than to incarcerate them for life, because of all of the judicial appeals. Cases exist where DNA testing proved that some death row inmates were actually innocent. Can an act of violence truly heal another act of violence? Many of the men on death row have experienced repentance for their crimes and an authentic conversion. Their time in prison has allowed them to reach such a point of grace.

Some voices iterate that the death penalty is justified, that some murderers have committed such heinous and horrible deeds that they should be put to death. Loved ones of such murder victims sometimes call for the execution of the one who killed their child, spouse or sibling. We can certainly empathize with the horrible trauma inflicted when someone close is brutally murdered; a natural human response is the desire to see such a killer’s life taken away as well. But, doesn’t Christ call us to go beyond “a life for a life?” Peace can only come with reconciliation and forgiveness.

Clearly, some criminals must be incarcerated their entire lives because they pose a threat to society, but is it not time to do away with the death penalty, to seek rehabilitation and healing for prisoners where possible, to put more resources into a concerted effort to help released inmates to live productively, contributing to the common good and finding their place in society? I readily acknowledge that issues related to the justice system, criminality, and prisons are complex and difficult. Nevertheless, the Church will always speak out for the life and dignity of every human being, unborn and born, immigrant and native, wealthy and poor, incarcerated and free. The social vision of Catholicism imagines a society of respect for all life, solidarity with the marginalized, mercy and justice for the poor and a healthy concern for the fully integrated flourishing of the human person. As Catholic disciples of the Lord Jesus, we can never give up our efforts to build a civilization of life and love, ready for the fullness of the Kingdom of God.

Bishop Hying is the bishop of the Diocese of Madison, Wisconsin.

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Life Issues

The Glorious Truth: Created in the Image and Likeness of God

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For many years I have prayed outside abortion clinics, trying to be a presence of love, faith and support to the women and men who find themselves in a desperate…

For many years I have prayed outside abortion clinics, trying to be a presence of love, faith and support to the women and men who find themselves in a desperate situation of crisis pregnancy and think abortion is the only way out. In all kinds of weather, in every season and every hour, witnesses to the sacred gift of life stand as sentinels of the Dawn on High at these clinical places of death. I was drawn to the pro-life movement as a young priest as a result of counseling so many people whose lives had been severely wounded by abortion. Some pro-lifers may be too strident or single-issue oriented. Some may be judgmental or condemnatory. The vast majority, however, are good folks who simply want to help stop the killing of innocent life in the womb.

Through more than four decades of legal abortion in the United States, how many millions of human lives have been silently erased, how many mothers and fathers bear the wounds of a hasty decision to end the life they had co-created, how many impassioned words have been written and spoken to articulate the fundamental moral darkness of destroying fragile, beautiful human beings at the very dawn of their mysterious and wonderful existence, fresh with all the potential of who they have been called to be? And yet the killing goes on.

Critics of the Church’s stance on abortion will often say that we care more about life in the womb than those already born, that we passionately want to save a child from abortion yet turn our backs on the mother who ends up choosing life. Yet the Catholic Church offers more compassionate services through health care, education and needed assistance to the poor, the homeless, the imprisoned, the elderly, the immigrant and the unwed mother than any other institution I know. Care and love for the human person must embrace all facets of our social fabric and include everyone in order to be authentic, but it must begin, as indeed the miraculous wonder of each one of us began, with welcome and respect for life in its most fragile and initial stage. If it does not, then the rest of our struggle to build a world of justice, peace and mercy for all will forever be radically deficient.

Several years ago, I prayed outside an abortion clinic in Milwaukee on a gray, melancholy morning, filled with icy wind and a threat of snow. One by one, young women emerged from the building, looking dazed and shocked, each carrying a brown paper bag with medication. Like wounded survivors returning from the front of an invisible and terrible war, they stepped into waiting cars of boyfriends, roommates or parents, whisked away from the place where their child’s life had just ended and their own psychological and emotional torment had just begun. I felt a profound sorrow in that moment that I had never experienced before, grieving for the victims of a needless and preventable tragedy.

Then suddenly the owner of the abortion clinic emerged, hurrying through the cold and past us to reach the security of her Volvo. As she went by, I heard myself quietly saying, more to me than her, “Stop killing people here.” Turning on me with all the rage of her pro-choice righteousness, she hurled obscenities and insults but never denied that she was indeed complicit in the taking of human life. If someone had accused me of ending the life of another person, I would indignantly deny, explain, obfuscate or defend myself against such a charge, but such was not the case with this woman. She screamed and swore, but never answered the fundamental charge that she was an active accomplice in the taking of innocent human life. This startling realization taught me an important truth about the whole abortion struggle.

For years we have thought, that with the help of science, everyone could be convinced that a human fetus, even in the earliest stages of development, rapidly exhibits all of the characteristics, components and complexity of a developing human being, that the whole “it’s just a blob of tissue” canard was false. We hoped that if we could just show the beauty, form and wonder of unborn life, everyone would naturally see that this amazing being is human and abortion would cease. But, of course, this has not happened.

What I came to realize on that cold and sad February morning was that the real challenge is not convincing the abortionists that life in the womb is human — they know that — but rather helping them to see that every life has an inherent dignity which calls for respect, welcome, tenderness and love. The Church’s fundamental stance on so many moral issues flows from the glorious truth that every person is created in the image and likeness of God, but even an atheist can acknowledge the moral absolute “Thou shall not kill,” because such respect for the life of the other is inscribed in our heart and conscience. How will we ever see the homeless, the immigrant, the elderly, those with disabilities, the poor as blessings and not burdens if we cannot welcome precious, innocent life in the fragility of the womb?

Perhaps the greatest challenge is to help folks like the abortion-clinic owner, the frightened pregnant teenager, the Planned Parenthood worker, the pro-choice congressman and ourselves to recognize the gift and beauty of our own humanity. The culture of death seeks to diminish, dehumanize and destroy us. Jesus Christ has come to save, love and forgive us. When we let in that redeeming light of the Lord, the shadows of death vanish and our hearts long for a love that only the Lord can give. Building a civilization of life and love is the fundamental task of the Christian disciple; we can only embrace such a daunting and luminous enterprise if we know our own worth, dignity and beauty in the eyes of the One who kisses us from the cross and laid down His life so that we could be His forever.

Bishop Donald J. Hying is the Bishop of Madison, Wisconsin.

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8 min read
Sacraments

What Is the Meaning of Jesus’ Baptism?

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We Christians reflect upon and celebrate the baptism of Jesus in significant ways: liturgically, at the conclusion of the Christmas season; devotionally, as the First Luminous Mystery of the Rosary;…

We Christians reflect upon and celebrate the baptism of Jesus in significant ways: liturgically, at the conclusion of the Christmas season; devotionally, as the First Luminous Mystery of the Rosary; and theologically, as the scriptural prism for the meaning of Christian baptism.

But if the baptism performed by John the Baptist was meant as a sign of repentance of sin and conversion to a new way of life, it’s reasonable to ask: Why did Jesus, as the sinless Son of God, receive baptism?

Narrated in each of the four Gospels, the baptism of Jesus marks the inauguration of His public ministry — His emergence from a life of seeming obscurity into a life of growing popularity on account of His preaching, miracles, healings and proclamation of mercy and forgiveness.

Jesus steps into the Jordan River and into His mission of redemption through this public religious act. The descent of the dove symbolizes the anointing of the Holy Spirit, which Jesus receives as the Christ, Greek for “the Anointed One.”

Jesus’ Identity

This mark of divine blessing is accompanied by the voice of the Father in heaven who proclaims, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Mt 3:17). This mysterious utterance reveals Jesus as the Son of God, the One sent from the Father to accomplish the salvation of the human race. In this dramatic scene we already grasp the identity and function of the Most Blessed Trinity — we see the Father as the One who begets and sends the Son to redeem the human race, the Son as the obedient servant who accomplishes the will of the Father, and the Holy Spirit as the Sanctifier who empowers the mission of redemption.

Already at the beginning of His ministry, Jesus’ fundamental identity is situated in this Trinitarian relationship. In the early Church, the visit of the Magi, the baptism of the Lord and the miracle at Cana together constituted the meaning of Epiphany, for each of these three events reveals, manifests and unveils who Jesus is.

Drawing profound parallels between Jesus’ baptism and our own, we can see that, just as Jesus is revealed as the beloved Son at the Jordan, so, too, we receive a new identity in baptism as adopted children of the Father. The fruit of Christ’s victory over the power of sin and death is the divine invitation for us to share in the very life of the Trinity. Jesus Christ — namely, the Son — freely shares His very nature with us through the transforming waters of baptism. At the moment of our spiritual rebirth in the font, the Father beholds us with delight, exclaiming, “This is my beloved son, this is my beloved daughter with whom I am well pleased.” Christianity first and foremost is about whom we have become in Christ before it is about what we do or how we act. This saving act of spiritual adoption draws us into the very life of God and His merciful grace.

Identification with Sinners

In his book “Jesus of Nazareth,” Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI insightfully offers another facet of the baptism of the Lord. The baptismal action of John the Baptist was markedly different from any other religious rituals that had preceded it. The baptism he offered the crowds that came from Jerusalem occurred only once, signifying a radical break from a former life of sin and a new way of thinking and acting — all of which was framed by the imminent emergence of One greater than John who would “baptize with fire.” The crowds responded to John’s baptism as a reaction to his fiery preaching against sin and the call to conversion.

The retired Pope Benedict sees Jesus’ baptism as an expression of His fundamental submission to the will of the Father and His complete identification with sinners. By submersion in the waters of the Jordan, Jesus is publicly seen as one in need of repentance and forgiveness himself, although He has no need of it in actuality. Jesus is already embracing the enormous weight of humanity’s sinfulness, just as He will do again in a definitive and final way on the cross — labeled then as a criminal and blasphemer. The mysterious events at the Jordan River already foreshadow the saving acts of Christ’s death and resurrection.

Pope Benedict notes that the icons of the Eastern Church visualize this intrinsic connection between the baptism of the Lord and the Paschal Mystery by depicting the waters of the Jordan “as a liquid tomb having the form of a dark cavern, which is in turn the iconographic sign of Hades, the underworld, or hell.” Just as the Lord descends into the swirling waters of death at His baptism, He goes down to the netherworld after His crucifixion to rescue the souls of lost humanity.

Divine Condescension

In this downward descent, this complete identification with sinners, we grasp the radical humility of Jesus. He is the One who empties himself, not clinging to His equality with God but becoming a slave for the sake of our salvation. This is so beautifully articulated in the kenotic hymn of the second chapter of St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. God could have saved us in any manner that He chose, but He seems to embrace the most difficult and arduous way — the path of Incarnation and accompaniment.

Christianity is the only world religion that believes the omnipotent and mysterious God humbled himself to become one of His own creatures, embracing the fullness of our humanity in order to redeem us from inside our own nature and condition. The Church has never gotten over the wonder of this divine condescension. We celebrate the Word made flesh not only in the glory of Christmas, but in the fullness of the liturgy, prayer and moral life of the Christian tradition.

We can place the baptism of Christ into the total context of His humble identification with us, beginning with the eternal Second Person of the Trinity assuming our flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary and continuing with Jesus’ ministry to the sick and sinful, His table fellowship with tax collectors, His loving conversations with people of ill repute, the vulnerability of the Eucharist — as Jesus places himself completely at our disposal in the wondrous sacrament of His body and blood — and His doing the work of a slave during the Last Supper foot-washing.

The Cross of Christ becomes the sacred intersection of God’s redemptive mercy and our ancient curse of sin and death. Without ever having sinned himself, Jesus embraces the consequences of our sin, which is death and alienation, and accepts a horrible death, filled with pain and suffering. Wrapping himself in our sins, He lifts it all up to the Father as a radical offering — a complete holocaust of the self. Executed as a criminal and a blasphemer, crucified outside the city gate as one seemingly cut off from God, Jesus seals His identification with sinners in His own blood.

How does the Father respond to this murder of His Son, this obedience even unto death? When the centurion pierces the side of Christ, what flows out from the side of the crucified One? Not divine vengeance or wrath or retribution, but blood and water, symbols of baptism and Eucharist — instruments of mercy, love, forgiveness and redemption. By accomplishing the saving deed of our salvation through His death and resurrection, Jesus himself becomes the baptismal fountain of the New Covenant.

Clarity of Mission

In Christian baptism, we become adopted children of the Father, members of the Church, the Body of Christ, and temples of the Holy Spirit. Baptism washes away our original sin and claims us for the kingdom of God. Through this saving sacrament, God fills us with sanctifying grace, with the fullness of the Trinitarian life. To understand the meaning and implications of our baptism is to fundamentally grasp our identity, vocation and mission as disciples of the Lord Jesus and members of the household of God.

In Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan, we see Him anointed by the Holy Spirit as the Christ, we hear the Father proclaim His fundamental identity as the beloved Son, and we perceive Jesus’ mission as one of humility, a self-emptying love and sacrificial identification with everything in us that was lost, broken and dead.

We spend time and energy seeking a lost object to the extent that we value it. I will spend much more time looking for my wallet or cellphone than I will a misplaced magazine. How infinitely valuable we must be to the Lord God that He sent His own Son to seek and save us in the valley of death! The whole Christ-event finds a clarity of mission when Jesus is submerged in the waters of the Jordan at the hands of John the Baptist.

Bishop Donald J. Hying is the Bishop-elect for the Diocese of Madison, Wisconsin.

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