(Vatican Radio) Appearing at his study window at midday Sunday, Pope Benedict greeted
thousands of pilgrims gathered under drizzling rain in Saint Peter’s Square. In his
remarks at the Angelus prayer, the Pope spoke of Sunday’s Feast of the Baptism of
the Lord and invited Catholics to “contemplate our share in the divine life through
the gift of the Holy Spirit in the waters of Baptism.”
The Holy Father was
speaking to pilgrims after having celebrated the traditional feast day liturgy in
the Sistine Chapel where he baptised twenty babies.
In his remarks to English
speaking pilgrims, the Pope said “May we be renewed in our own Baptism and strengthened
in witness to the Gospel and its promises!”
The following is Vatican Radio's
unofficial translation of the Pope's Angelus address:
Dear brothers and
sisters!
This Sunday after the Epiphany ends the liturgical season of Christmas
time: time of light, the light of Christ, as new sun appearing on the horizon of humanity,
dispels the darkness of evil and ignorance. Today we celebrate the Feast of the Baptism
of Jesus: the Child, the son of the Virgin, whom we contemplated in the mystery of
his birth, we see today an adult emerging himself in the waters of the Jordan River,
thus sanctifying the waters and the entire cosmos - as evidenced by the Eastern tradition.
But why did Jesus, in whom there was no shadow of sin, go to be baptized by
John? Because he wanted to make that gesture of penance and conversion, along with
so many people who wanted to prepare for the coming of the Messiah? That gesture
- which marks the beginning of Jesus' public life, takes the same line of the Incarnation,
of God's descent from the highest to the abyss of hell.
The meaning of this
downward movement of God can be summed up in one word: love, which is the name of
God. The Apostle John writes: "In this was manifested the love of God in us, that
God sent into the world his only Son so that we might live through him" and He sent
him" as a victim of expiation for our sins "(1 Jn 4.9 to 10). That is why the first
public act of Jesus was His baptism by John, who, seeing him, said, "Behold the Lamb
of God who takes away the sin of the world" (Jn 1:29).
The Evangelist Luke
recounts that when Jesus once baptised, “was praying, the heavens opened, and the
Holy Spirit in a bodily shape like a dove descended upon him, and a voice came from
heaven: "You are the Son my beloved, in you I am well pleased '"(3:21-22).
This
Jesus is the Son of God who is totally immersed in the will of the Father's love.
This Jesus is the One who died on the cross and resurrected by the power of the same
Spirit that now rests upon Him, and consecrates him. This Jesus is the new man who
wants to live as a son of God, that is in love; the man who, in the face of evil in
the world, chooses the path of humility and responsibility, chooses not to save himself
but give his own life for truth and justice.
Being Christian means living
like this, but this kind of life involves a rebirth: reborn from above, from God,
by grace. This rebirth is Baptism, which Christ has given to the Church to regenerate
men to new life. An ancient text attributed to St. Hippolytus says: "Who enters with
faith in this bath of rebirth, renounces the devil and sides with Christ, denies the
enemy and recognizes that Christ is God, is stripped of slavery and is clothed in
filial adoption "(Discourse on the epiphany, 10: PG 10, 862).
According to
tradition, this morning I had the joy of baptising a large group of children who were
born in the last three or four months. At this time I would like to extend my prayer
and my blessing to all newborns, but especially encourage everyone to make a memorial
of his or her own Baptism, to the spiritual rebirth that has opened the way to eternal
life. May every Christian, in this Year of Faith, rediscover the beauty of being born
again from above, from the love of God, and live as a child of God.