"You are my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on You"
Baptism of the Lord (C),
Norwood
12 January 2025
My friends,
This afternoon in St. Colman’s Cathedral there will be a gathering of prayer and thanksgiving of all the families who brought their child for Baptism over the past year. It will no doubt be a joyful gathering of thanksgiving to God for the gift and blessing of their child. I suspect some of them will sing their own compositions! Depending on the mood.
Apart from thanking the Lord for their little one there will also be a sense of the future that lies ahead for their child. All the members of a family journey with each other. For parents there is always a special concern and responsibility to guide and direct their child. In a much changed and changing world this is an increasingly more difficult task – simply because the sense of support of the extended family and wider community isn’t there in the same way.
Bringing a child for Baptism is a very clear choice by parents to recognise the gift and blessing of the Sacraments in the life journey of each of us. It is recognising the gift of Spirit and of that spiritual/religious hunger to the human heart experiences.
Celebrating the Baptism of Jesus today indicated its importance in Jesus’ own spiritual understanding and of his mission in life. It was truly special for Jesus to hear the voice of the Father “You are my Son, the Beloved, my favour rests on you.” It is equally important that our children, with our help, as they grow, too hear the reassuring voice of the Father love and care for them. No parent or guardian can or should force a child into belief – it must always be by invitation and persuasion out of Love.
That is the opposite to the world of values being promulgated by the controllers of social media systems. Truth matters, facts matter, reality matters. Control and coercion are deadly and dangerous forces that increasingly threaten the freedom and dignity of humanity. The freedom of the children of God is won and secured by our acceptance of his grace.
That seed sown in celebration of Baptism and lovingly nurtured through the years does bear fruit in a wholesome and honourable life. It comes through our learning through experience “Unless the grain of wheat falls on the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies it yields a rich harvest”. John 12:24.
My friends, on this feast of the Lords Baptism we pray for the children and parents who bring them for Baptism.
May they appreciate its blessing and be strengthened in their promise to ‘guide their child in ways of faith’. (Baptismal Ceremony).
