The Baptism of the Lord Prepares Us for the Jublilee Year 2025
It will make us ‘pilgrims of hope’ and also make us good stewards of the Lord!
Deacon Patrick Constantino | Photos courtesy Patrick Constantino
Gospel of Luke 3:15–16, 21–22
A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke:
The people were filled with expectation, and all were asking in their hearts whether John might be the Christ. John answered them all, saying, “I am baptizing you with water, but one mightier than I is coming. I am not worthy to loosen the thongs of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” After all the people had been baptized and Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you, I am well pleased.”
The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ!
“The Baptism of the Lord” reminds us of our beginning of life with Him on earth! Preparing us for the jubilee year 2025! Remembering our beginnings, living in the present, preparing for the future, in hope and trust, of what is yet to come! Jesus, I trust in you! Through our parents, Moms, and Dads, we were created by God through their love for each other! Therefore, we are gifts from God through their love. For God is Love. What we do for ourselves is also our gift to God.
Through our baptism, we become true Catholics. Let me share with you some ideas of what your baptism means being a good steward and sharing God’s love! Those of you who like superhero movies probably like a lot of different things about them. Maybe you once liked or still liked the comic books about that person and want to see if they did a good job bringing him or her to the big screen. Maybe you love special effects and know some of the best are found in movies about superheroes. Maybe you are fans of particular actors and actresses who play the same comic book characters in movie after movie. Or maybe you just like films about good guys attempting to catch the bad guys and maybe even save the world in the process. But on top of that, you probably enjoy watching how the filmmakers handle one specific plot point that exists in nearly every superhero movie. I’m talking about the “secret identity.”
Early on in a movie franchise almost no one knows the real identity of the superhero in question with a few exceptions. And these superheroes go to great lengths to keep their identities hidden. Sometimes this results in humorous situations and at other times it results in nerve-wracking scenes of great tension. And the superheroes try their best to keep this secret because they are convinced that if their cover is blown it will compromise their crime-fighting efforts—and they will not be able to be the superhero they feel called to be. “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Uh-oh. Jesus’ cover just got blown. I guess it was only a matter of time.
It seems from a young age Jesus wasn’t exactly like the other kids. Just a few weeks ago we heard how he was holding his own in the temple in Jerusalem with the adults. And now, after His baptism in the Jordan by John, He was about to start going around healing people and working miracles and telling insightful stories and all kinds of stuff. His secret would not have been able to stay hidden for long although He would in the future ask a few people He had just helped to keep quiet about what they had seen. Yet, it was not just that His secret identity could not stay hidden. It most likely shouldn’t have stayed hidden—for much of the work Jesus wanted to accomplish, much of His mission, would eventually be entrusted to others—those who came after Him. And for them to truly buy into all of it they would need to have a clearer understanding of who Jesus truly was. In other words, unlike other superheroes, the revealing of Jesus’ secret would not to any great degree compromise all the good He wanted to do. Rather, it would help bring about those very things, eventually help bring about the continuing transformation and sanctification of the world—an ever-unfolding outcome that Jesus would someday die to make possible.
I guess, in a certain sense, we His disciples in this time and place are now kind of Jesus’ sidekicks—men and women entrusted with working for and alongside our superhero—embracing His hopes as our hopes, His vision as our vision, His priorities as our priorities, His mission as our mission. How we go about it, however, is largely up to us. Will we be super-committed or just slightly so? Will we try to be faithful disciples all the time or only some of the time? Will we be willing to do the difficult things, the hard things—or will we only choose the easiest elements of a life of faith? Will we listen with open hearts or only hear a voice that confirms what we wanted all along? And one more thing—will we want our identity kept secret? Today we gather to celebrate the baptism of the Lord. And in our remembering of something that happened on the banks of the river Jordan long ago, we are invited to remember and reflect on each of our own baptisms. How do we understand our baptism? What does it mean? What is it supposed to bring about? What difference is it supposed to make? These questions are not easy to answer. For some of us, they have obvious, life-changing implications.
For others, it might just have been a kind of Hallmark moment, a sort of frozen-in-time milestone we can look back on fondly as we flip through some photos or watch a video of the event. And for others of us—maybe most of us, it may be something in-between. Yet, from the Church’s perspective, baptism is all about our identity—a spiritual rebirth in which Jesus claims us as his own and we often through adults speaking for us pledge to spend a lifetime claiming Jesus as our own. Put another way, baptism, in addition to washing us clean and uniting us to the death and resurrection of Jesus the Paschal Mystery, is meant to lead us to ask a very important question … Who am I? And it is that understanding—that identity we arrive at by answering that question—that we often want to remain secret. And so, even though we claim to be disciples, many of us, even myself at times, choose not to wear our faith on the outside, not really show it to the world. We sometimes do not want others to know just how important our beliefs are to us how much we love the Church, or heaven forbid how much we love Jesus. And so, often from the outside looking in, our lives do not really look too different from everyone else.
The same priorities. The same prejudices. The same pettiness selfishness and small-mindedness. The same greed. The same need for attention and praise. In a certain sense, it is as if we not only have a secret identity when it comes to others, but we even keep our true identity from ourselves. And the work of Jesus will remain undone—undone if we just give a little and forgive a little and love a little—all the ways our faith remains hidden. But if we can embrace the kind of radical love God asks of us, we can be sure our cover will be blown—and the world will be a little more beautiful for you and me! Jesus, I trust in You! Amen!”
Deacon Patrick Constantino retired from active Ministry on July 1, 2022. He is still a Deacon in good standing with full faculties to perform all sacraments in the Diocesan of Honolulu Hawai‘i. Constantino has been ordained for thirty-seven years. He is the first Filipino Deacon in the Diocesan of Honolulu. Prior to his ordination, Constantino was in government—first appointed in 1966 as Assistant Sergeant of Arms by the Speaker of the House Elmer F. Cravalho. When Cravalho became Maui’s first Mayor, Constantino became his Executive Assistant—the first of Filipino ancestry. Later, Constantino became the first County Treasurer of Filipino ancestry and the first County Grants Administrator and Risk Manager of Filipino ancestry. Constantino has been married to his lovely wife Corazon for sixty-four years. They are blessed with four children, eleven grandchildren, and fifteen great-grandchildren.