For Catholics in the United States, “Christmastime” ends today with the Solemnity of the Baptism of the Lord as the Church in the United States re-enters “Ordinary Time.” Today’s Solemnity recalls not so much the significance of Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River. No, the Solemnity is intended to challenge each of us to recall the significance of our baptism…as we now re-enter the “ordinary time” of our lives, this year seeking not to be “sleepy” Catholics but “WOKE” Catholics.
“Sleepy” Catholics don’t think much about the significance their initiation into the Catholic faith because, quite frankly, it doesn’t have much applicability to the way they live the ordinary days of their lives. Membership in the Church is disjointed from the hustle-and-bustle of running here-and-there in the hectic if not frenetic attempt to make it through each day, week, and month, which oftentimes extends into the years and decades. For the most observant of “sleepy” Catholics, while they may regret pushing God to the peripheries of their days, they assuage that regret by “being Catholic” on Sunday as that’s signified by going to Mass. The rationale? “Sleepy” Catholics are just too busy to immerse themselves directly in the Catholic faith and its practice during the other six days of the week.
The problem with this approach to living the Catholic faith and its practice is that it’s rooted firmly “in this world.” What counts most for “sleepy” Catholics is doing what’s required to live—and ideally, to live well—in this world. According priority to these matters, there’s really little if any time left for other, far more important and substantive matters. Oftentimes, that means one’s spouse, children, and family are accorded second priority, the justification being “Look at all that I’m doing for you!” “Sleepy” Catholics then ask, “Why don’t you appreciate that?” The rationale is that “sleepy” Catholics are so busy about what’s required for them to make it in this world that providing others what really matters.
But they’re providing neither themselves nor others what really matters, as the prophet Isaiah reminded the Israelites about 2.5 millennia ago. God inspired Isaiah to remind them:
I formed you,and set you as a covenant of the people,a light for the nations,to open the eyes of the blind,to bring out prisoners from confinement,and from the dungeon, those who live in darkness.
Forgetful if not neglectful that God has formed them, “sleepy” Catholics don’t recall that their baptism was the moment when God made each of them a “covenant of the people.”
What does it mean to be a “covenant of the people”?
From the moment of baptism forward into the ordinary days of their lives, God intends that every Catholic make others their “chosen people,” just as God made the Israelites His Chosen People. Baptized Catholics are to live lives in this world by providing other a light that pierces through their blindness and frees them from the prisons and dungeons in which they spend their days and weeks, if not months, years, and decades in exile. What this means in actual practice is that the baptized choose to love others as God has chosen to love them, by making God incarnate in their lives—“Emmanuel,” the Hebrew word meaning “God’s essence is with us”—by being the light that saves them from the darkness of their self-chosen sin.
Forgetful of this important mission, “sleepy” Catholics grow blind and live as prisoners in confinement if not the dungeon of their lives in this world where they care primarily for themselves not others, and have little regard for God in the way they approach how they will live each day.
In contrast, “WOKE” Catholics begin each day by recalling the grace of their baptism and how God anointed them just like God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power. Then, like Jesus, “WOKE” Catholics set about doing good, in general, and healing all those oppressed by the devil, in particular, by living each day in the awareness that God is with them. For “WOKE” Catholics, “Emmanuel” isn’t a nice sentiment which they relegate to Christmas Day but provides the solid foundation upon which they construct each day.
Why do “WOKE” Catholics dedicate themselves to live each of day of the “ordinary time” of their lives in this way?
“WOKE” Catholics live in the realization not only that God is with them but has also made each of them a “covenant of the people.” As “WOKE” Catholics examine the wasteland in which “sleepy” Catholics live, their hearts of are moved by pity, like Jesus when he saw sinners, steeling “WOKE” Catholics to take seriously what God pronounced when they were baptized:
You are my beloved; with you I am well pleased.
“WOKE” Catholics aren’t interested in frittering away their days just surviving in this world but strive to please God, the Source of their lives, each and every day. Sending forth His divine spirit into “WOKE” Catholics when they were baptized, God recreated them. Now “WOKE” Catholics experience God each day as “Emmanuel” and know that it will be through them that God will renew the face of the earth, as we heard in today’s Psalm response.
That represents our challenge from Scripture for the upcoming week: To awaken from our sleep by recalling our baptism not as a sterile idea but as a living experience.
To translate this challenge into actual practice requires, first, finding or getting a copy of your baptismal certificate. Having it “in hand” is critical because seeing it, reading its contents, and then contemplating what it really means—“You are my beloved, with you I am well-pleased”—raises to mind the truth of Christmas—“Emmanuel”, that is, “God’s essence is with you.”
With your baptismal certificate in hand, upon awakening each day, this week challenge from scripture requires making a “memento mori”—taking a moment to recall “I will die”—and, based upon that infallible fact although no one knows “the day, the time, nor the hour,” identify one specific thing you will do that day to live as God’s beloved in whom God will be well-pleased. Isaiah said this will require “not crying out, not shouting, not making our voice heard in the street” but not “breaking the bruised reed” or “quenching the smoldering wick.”
Then, at day’s end, the question to answer is: What did you do that day for that person who’s living one’s days like a bruised reed or a smoldering wick that made God well-pleased in you?
This revelation—that God’s essence is with us—shines light in the darkness and as “WOKE” Catholics, we “give comfort to my people,” as God commanded, speaking tenderly and proclaiming that those bruised reeds and smoldering wicks that they’re also God’s beloved, their guilt is expiated, and God is well-pleased with them. By allowing “Emmanuel” to lift their heavy burden, the light will empower the bruised reed to stand upright and the smoldering wick to be enflamed by the power of God’s love through us.
This is our mission as “WOKE” Catholics—and what it means in practice to be a “covenant of the people.”
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