Homilies
Homilies
January 11, 2026
January 11, 2026
Baptism of the Lord (A)
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Bishop Robert Barron

Baptism of the Lord (A)
Vitae Spiritualis Ianua
PODCAST—The first sacrament one can receive in the Church, Baptism, defines our relationship with Christ. In it, we are reborn as part of his Mystical Body and gifted with the grace of God’s love. Baptism lays the foundation for every other sacrament we are to receive and inextricably links us with the Trinity.
Baptism of the Lord (A)
Side by Side with Sinners
Friends, we come to this wonderful feast of the baptism of the Lord. And the first thing to know is that this was a profoundly embarrassing event for the first Christians. Jesus is the son of God, the sinless Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. So why is he going to John the Baptist to seek a baptism of repentance? Jesus begins his public ministry with a kind of embarrassing, humiliating act—and, in a way, that is the point of it.
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Fr. Michael Chua
Baptism of the Lord (A)
A New Creation
Are you tired of all these reboots of old stories which Hollywood likes to churn out? Aren’t we treated to the same-old stuff? Well, it doesn’t seem to be so. Reboots tend to be a tried and tested concept that comes with a built-in audience. Life might not come with an undo button but there seems to be a redo button. And Hollywood loves pressing it. There is irony in this. In an age which craves for the new, we can never underestimate the power of nostalgia and Hollywood understands that and capitalises on it. Be it a gender-swapped update or a familiar story retold with bigger CGI effects or more famous actors assuming the roles, or tweaks to the story-line, the audience keeps on coming back for more.
Well, if there is a story that deserves retelling, it must be the stories we find in the Bible, celebrated in our liturgy year after year and we don’t seem to get tired of it. The reason being is that with every retelling, something new emerges. With the coming of Christ, all things are made new! The birth of a child is not a completely new beginning but it changes everything. The birth of this Christmas baby has indeed transformed the whole of creation and given it a fresh start!
Such is the story of the Baptism of Christ.
Baptism of the Lord (A)
Dreaming and Believing
The impact that the Christ-child had on the Magi is deeply touching. This event completely transformed their lives. According to all these traditions, it was not merely a star that led them from that moment on, but rather, Jesus Christ. Jesus consumed their life and existence. The Magi are an invitation today to let Christ have the same impact on us. Are we wise like the Magi? Let our life tell that story! The depiction of the Magi as people of different colours and races helps us imagine a parish community as a global community. The Magi are the microcosm of a parish community. No one should ever feel unwelcome in a worshipping community. We know that this clearly was a problem in the early Church. In his Letter to the Ephesians, Paul struggles to convince the Jewish Christians that, “Gentiles are coheirs, members of the same body, and copartners in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (Eph 3:5-6). The Magi bear witness to a global nature, indeed, the catholicity of the Catholic faith.
The Magi did homage to the Divine Child and then their lives became a witness to Him. Today, after we have woken up from the stupor of sleep and dreams, from two years of pandemic lockdowns and online Masses, let us resolve with excitement and new vigour to do homage to the same Christ, so that our lives too can be transformed and shine like the star that will lead others to Christ.
Baptism of the Lord (A)
TBD
Every Advent, we are treated to gospel passages stretching across two consecutive Sundays where the spotlight seems to be on the precursor of the Lord, His cousin St John the Baptist. The prominence of St John during this season is understandable. Both he and the Lord preached the same message: “repent, for the kingdom of God is close at hand.” It is thus no accident that John and Jesus suffered the same fate. John is beheaded and Jesus crucified by those who refused to accept their message- they refused to “repent.”
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Dicastery for the Clergy


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Dominican Blackfriars
Dominican Blackfriars
Baptism of the Lord (A)
To Fulfil all Righteousness
The Baptism of the Lord. Fr Luke Doherty ponders the way in which the Spirit comes into our world through the sacrament of baptism.
The Baptism of the Lord is a symbol of hope and of new life, just as with the baptism of any Christian. We live in a world where the expression ‘the chickens have come home to roost’ springs to mind. There are multiple problems occurring all at the same time, whether war or climate change or the shifting sands of leadership in our nations.
In relation to Christianity, one of the greatest challenges is perhaps the decline in the practice of baptism. The reasons given include the suggestion that people should decide for themselves at a later stage of life, rather than have infant baptism which is preferred by the Church. But just as parents need to look after a child in its infancy, part of the Christian life is to bring the mysterious sacrament to those who have just come into this world. Just as it doesn’t entirely make sense for Jesus to be baptised, it might seem as though it does not necessarily make sense to baptise infants who do not choose this. However, baptism is a supernatural protection against evil in a fallen world. It is a sacrament which binds together the Church of God. A common baptism is essential for maintaining a Christian society, upon a lot of what we take for granted depends.

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Fr. Austin Fleming
Baptism of the Lord (A)
Baptism of the Lord
None of us is the Christ, but each of us, deeper in our hearts and minds than we can understand or begin to imagine, each of us longs for and needs that same blessing upon who we are.
Each of us needs to know, in our heart of hearts, “I am loved. My very being is pleasing. Who I am, and all I was made to be, is lovable, even delightful in the eyes of an other. I am good. I was made to love and to be loved, to give and to receive. I was made in the likeness of my Maker. who calls me beloved and who is pleased by my very being." It is so clear from today’s scripture that Jesus, the Son of God, because he was so fully human, was in need of this very blessing, this blessed assurance of being loved by his Father. Without this blessing and the Spirit’s strength, he could not have accepted the work laid upon his shoulders. All the world’s pain and brokenness and sin, mine and yours, comes in some manner from our not believing, not accepting that we are loved by God and others.
Ours is an age and a culture in which so very many people doubt that they are loved, that they are lovable, that they are blessed by the delight God takes in them.
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Monsignor Peter Hahn
Baptism of the Lord (A)
The Perfect Gift

2014 - Jesus comes to john to be baptized. John first tries to prevent it saying I need to be baptized by you of course. This is absolutely correct. Jesus does not need to be baptized by john for the call of this conversion and repentance that john the baptist is preaching points to the baptism that will be offered in christ remember. Jesus is god. He is the source of baptism not its recipient but jesus persists saying that it is fitting.
He is truly god and truly man and in coming to us. His desire is to fully incorporate himself with us so that he can then save us baptism does nothing to him. He is not changed. Rather. He changes the water of the jordan river giving it and the water that is in every baptismal font. Its life-giving power in baptism you and I are changed. We become adopted sons of god joined to christ brought into the very trinitarian life and love of god that is shared among father son and holy spirit. Everything is different for us. After baptism.
We are no longer alone on our own so to speak relegated to a life that is a kind of isolation. No you and I are given a new identity. We are born again in christ. He joins himself to us in that sacrament and all the sacraments of the church most powerfully here in the holy eucharist and we are re-created so that we can be like him our celebrations.
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Fr. Charles E. Irvin

Baptism of the Lord (A)
Acting on Our Baptismal Faith
Acting on our baptismal faith means that we honor God, respect His Church, and give God the worship that is due to Him. Prayer and worship are essential to our baptismal response to God’s offering of Himself to us. The baptism of Christ was out in public — it wasn’t in private. Christian living isn’t private and hidden. It is public. Today’s Gospel account is taken from the third chapter of Matthew that begins with these words:
“In those days John the Baptist appeared, preaching in the desert of Judea (and) saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!’ It was of him that the prophet Isaiah had spoken when he said: ‘A voice of one crying out in the desert, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.' John wore clothing made of camel’s hair and had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. At that time Jerusalem, all Judea, and the whole region around the Jordan were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins.”
It was in this context that Jesus was baptized by John and so began His public ministry. In Christ, God offers Himself to us. The question to be answered now is “How will we respond?” The answer will be found in your life and in mine, in your lived-out baptismal faith and in mine.
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Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS
Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS
Baptism of the Lord (A)
Baptism by "Fire"
Two m’s: mistakes and mishaps. Our greatest tutor is uncovered through those two m’s. What better time for the intercession of the Holy Spirit than when we think we’ve got it under control and we have it all handled, and she gently or loudly intervenes and alerts us to correct our two m’s.
John, whose last name is Baptist, introduced us to the sacrament. Jesus Christ thoroughly infuses us with the sacrament through the power of the Holy Spirit – and fire.
When did Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit fully baptize you? We never know when a daunting obstacle or severe challenge will present itself in our lives. A new mom with a colicky baby, your first speech in front of the class and you swear that you’re, indeed, not wearing pants, a mother of two youngsters loses her husband to cancer, a CEO suddenly faces a PR crisis with an employee caught on video, a parent buries a son or daughter, a fresh intern at the hospital is asked to work an additional 12-hour shift – in the ER, a husband who always seems to be two drinks ahead of you, a newspaper writer working the night shift in Washington D.C. is told to cover a breaking White House scandal and deliver an article to the managing editor by 5 a.m., (or my favorite of all) the sixty-year-old daughter becomes the parent to her eighty-five-year-old mother. “Eat your vegetables!” “I don’t wanna!” Fiery Baptisms.
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Deacon Greg Kandra
Baptism of the Lord (A)
The Three C's of Baptism
At home, I have a little green book that someone gave me as an ordination gift.
It’s the Rite of Baptism for Children, with all the prayers and readings for the sacrament. In the back, there’s a notation I scribbled on the inside cover: “Margaret Flanagan. July 1, 2007. First baby baptized.” I wrote that down in the book so I’d never forget. It was a big day for Margaret – and for me.
Of course, the biggest day for baptism is the one we’ve just heard in the gospel: the baptism of Jesus. I don’t know that John the Baptist wrote it down in the back of any book. But we do have this account in the gospels, and we hear it once again and are reminded: this is where it all began.
Baptism was the beginning of Christ’s public ministry – and for the rest of us, our own baptism marks the beginning of our own lives as Catholic Christians. Most of us were baptized when we were infants, so we don’t remember it. And the chances are, if you have been a part of a baptism – as a parent or a godparent or just a relative looking on – there’s a lot going on that you may not have noticed.

— originally preached in 2013
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Fr. Jude Thaddeus Langeh, CMF
Baptism of the Lord (A)
Baptism of Jesus

Feast of the baptism of Jesus today's celebration marks the end of the Christmas season and opens the new season. The ordinary season of the church's liturgical year. Baptism is a sacrament which cleanses us from original sin makes us Christians children of God and heirs of heaven. It is a sacrament of regeneration by water in the word by nature. We are born from Adam children of Wrath but by baptism we are regenerated in Christ as children of Mercy for Christ give power to us to be made sons and daughters of God because for those of us who believe he has given us this power in his name because we are born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but the will of God. The word baptism is derived from the Greek word baptism to wash to dip or to immerse. It signifies. Therefore that washing is the essential idea of the sacrament the related word washing of baptizing but this mosque refers to the act of dipping or immersing an object in water as part of a purification ritual.
It is accepted as a necessary doorway to salvation. Baptism is the first sacrament and gives assets to the others. Jesus himself was baptized and this is attested by all four Gospels Matthew chapter 3 verse 13 to 17 mark chapter 1 verse 9 to 11 Luke chapter 3 verse 21 and 22 and John chapter 1 verse 29 to 34. Surprisingly Jesus was baptized by John.
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Deacon Peter McCulloch
Baptism of the Lord (A)
On a Name Like No Other
Bishop Robert Barron says that one of the earliest descriptions of Baptism is vitae spiritualis ianua, which means ‘the door to the spiritual life’.
Christianity, he says, isn’t just about ‘becoming a good person’ or ‘doing the right thing’. Rather, to be a Christian is to be grafted onto Christ and hence drawn into the very dynamics of God’s inner life. We become a member of his Mystical Body, sharing in his relationship to the Father.
Pope Benedict XVI puts it this way. He says that Baptism always repeats the last words of Jesus in the Gospels: ‘in the name of the Father, of the Son, of the Holy Spirit’ (Mt 28:19). This expression in the Greek text is critical, he says, for it means an immersion into the name of the Trinity. Baptism therefore leads to an ‘interpenetration of God’s being and our being, just like in marriage, when two persons become one flesh and a single new reality’ is formed.
Pope Benedict XVI adds that in the Scriptures, God calls himself ‘the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob’ (Gen.50:24; Ex.3:15). This is precisely what happens when we’re baptised, he says. We become inserted into the name of God, so that we belong to his name and his name becomes our name, too, and we’re enabled to be a sign of who he is.
Baptism of the Lord (A)
Our Deepest Identity
Our baptismal mission is to make the love of Christ visible in the ordinary moments of our lives.
Pope St John Paul II understood all this deeply. Towards the end of his life, a journalist asked him, ‘Holy Father, who are you?’
He could have said, ‘I am the Pope,’ or ‘I am a priest,’ or he could have listed his many other titles and achievements. But instead, he replied, ‘In the deepest sense, I am a baptised man.’
He explained that everything he did, including his priesthood, his leadership and his courage, flowed from that single identity. And with that identity came a mission: to bear witness to Jesus Christ in the world.
He once said, ‘Every Christian is a missionary to the extent that he or she has encountered the love of God in Christ.’
This is what baptism does. It fills us with the love of God and it sends us out to share it.
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Fr. Carmen Mele, O.P.
Baptism of the Lord (A)
Baptism of the Lord
When Mary greeted Elizabeth at the beginning of Luke’s gospel, the evangelist said, “…the infant leaped in her womb.” The infant in her womb, of course, was John the Baptist who “leaped for joy” in the presence of Jesus.
Matthew’s gospel does not report a visit by Mary to Elizabeth when both are pregnant. However, in today’s gospel something roughly similar takes place. John, the fiery prophet attracting Jewish leaders to the desert of Judea, recognizes the superiority of Jesus. When Jesus comes to him for Baptism, John tells him that he (i.e., John) should be baptized by Jesus.
The event indicates Jesus’ humility as well as John’s. Jesus knows at least something of his divine origin, yet he submits to John’s baptism. He tells John to allow the baptism “’to fulfill all righteousness.’’’ The righteousness of God calls one to be humble before another. We are always to respect other people and never to arbitrarily impose our will upon them. When Pope Francis went to Canada last year to apologize to the indigenous peoples for the abuses of Church officials, he was “fulfill(ing) righteousness.”
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Msgr. Joseph Pellegrino
Baptism of the Lord (A)
Take the Plunge
Jesus saw the sincere people, the impassioned John, the determination for God to reign. Jesus wanted to be baptized. He would proclaim to the world that He was one with these people. John immediately recognized that Jesus was the Messiah, the Christ, infinitely superior to John, but Jesus told him to baptize him. The people washed by John’s baptism and consecrated to prepare for God must know that the Christ was united to them.
Jesus seized the moment that John was offering. He took the plunge. He went down into the water and was baptized. And the voice from heaven rang out, “This is my Beloved Son with Whom I am well pleased.”
Take the plunge. Seize the moment. Seize the day, Carpe Diem in the Latin poem by Horace. (Horace’s Odes 1:11). The pagan poet was not talking about tomorrow, though, he was only talking about making the best use of the day. The Christian, though, seizes the day to take advantage of the moment that God gives us to allow him to change our lives and His world. The Christian seizes the day to prepare for tomorrow.
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Msgr. Charles Pope
Baptism of the Lord (A)
The Bountiful Blessings of Baptism
Today’s Feast of the Baptism of the Lord is a moment to reflect not only on the Lord’s Baptism but on our own. In an extended sense, when Christ is baptized, so are we, for we are members of His Body. As Christ enters the water, He makes holy the water that will baptize us. He enters the water, and we who are members of His Body go with Him. In these waters He acquires gifts to give us.
Let’s examine today’s Gospel in three stages:.
I. The Fraternity of Baptism
II. The Fulfillment of Baptism
III. The Four Gifts of Baptism
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Father Kevin Rettig
Baptism of the Lord (A)
God is Not Hidden
A Canadian couple plans a Hawaiian getaway to escape winter. The husband arrives first, accidentally emails a widow in California, whose minister husband just died. She mistakenly receives his loving message, causing shock and fainting. The story reflects on God's presence, questioning if He's truly hidden or silent, citing nature's beauty, life's wonders, and human emotions as evidence of His existence and communication. It concludes that God is always present, speaking through creation and our inner selves.
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Fr. George Smiga
Baptism of the Lord (A)
Avoiding Idolatry
2004 HOMILY - This homily connects Jesus' Baptism to the Tsunami. This homily follows last Sunday's homily, which was Fr. Smiga's first impressions following the devastating tsunami.
Why did God not stop the tsunami disaster? The answer is, we don’t know. But we desperately want to know and here is where things become dangerous. In our desire to know, in our desire to make sense, we can create a false god. Again you have heard these attempts to make sense out of this disaster in the media and in people’s conversation. They will say, “The tsunami happened because God was angry, because God wanted to punish us or the people of Indonesia. God did this to teach a lesson. God did this to reduce the overpopulation on the earth.”
All these so-called explanations of this disaster attempt to make sense out of the tsunami, but they are blasphemous. They are idolatry because they set up as God something that is not God. They are idolatry because they create a false god, a god of vengeance, a god who does not care about the death of innocents, a god who has no compassion for human beings and their lives. Moreover, these explanations contradict the things that we know for sure about God. We know that God cares for us, that God sees us as God’s own children. We know this because God has revealed this to us.
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Additional Homilies & Resources

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