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Sunday, January 11, 2026

Do you live with Jesus’ spirituality? That is the grace Christ gives to his disciples. By the grace of Baptism, we can pray like Christ. You and I share his inner life. Baptism bestows on us the privilege to share in the Sonship of Jesus. To share in the gift of the Holy Spirit and to become God’s adopted children.
 
We prayed for that grace as we began Mass. Listen again to the Collect for today’s Mass. “Almighty ever-living God, who, when Christ had been baptized… and as the Holy Spirit descended upon him, solemnly declared him your beloved Son, grant that your children by adoption, reborn of water and the Holy Spirit, may always be well pleasing to you.”
 
Jesus’ baptism was a revelation of Jesus as God’s beloved Son, and it reminds us that through baptism we are God’s children by adoption. As children of God, we are empowered to live with Jesus’ spirituality. You and I share his inner life.
 
It is important to reflect on Jesus’ spirituality, not only to know what he experienced as the Son of God, but also to know what it means for us to be children of God. The key to Jesus’ spiritual life was the gift of the Holy Spirit. Peter said, “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power. He went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil.” (Acts 10:38)
 
The Holy Spirit bestows all of God’s abundance. Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit and power. God the Father gave him power in abundance to cure the sick and heal all those oppressed by the devil.
 
Jesus was filled with God’s overflowing love. We hear that affirmed at his baptism, when God declared, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17) Jesus knew the abundant love of the Father, but not only for himself. He was confident in the Father’s love for all people.
 
He told the disciples to pray with boldness for God’s gifts. He said, “Ask and you will receive… For everyone who asks, receives… If you, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?” (Luke 11:9-10, 13)
 
Do you pray with confidence in God’s love for you? Do you trust that God will give you the Holy Spirit whenever you ask? Do you live with Jesus’ spirituality?
 
Jesus had a constant sense of God’s abundant love. Love in abundance brings a total sense of security. Christ had no fear. He lived what we read in the First Letter of Saint John. “There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear.” (1 John 4:18)
 
As God’s adopted children, do we live without fear? Do we live with a sense of God’s abundance that will provide all things?
 
Did you ever consider what it was like for Jesus to be sent by God the Father? How did he react when the Father told him, “Son, I am sending you to be the Savior of the world. You will be the Redeemer of all people. You will be anointed with the Holy Spirit, and you will fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah, “You will bring forth justice to the nations… to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out prisoners from confinement.” (Isaiah 42:1-7)
 
What if Jesus had responded by saying, “Abba, Father, thank you for thinking so highly of me. But I am having an anxiety attack just thinking about such a huge mission.” If anyone had good reason to be anxious, it was Jesus. But he never suffered from anxiety.
 
As he was baptized, he embraced the mission of going to the cross. He knew that he would face the full onslaught of evil and experience the sin of all humanity. He experienced the excruciating suffering and an agonizing death, but he lived without anxiety.
 
Why was Jesus immune to anxiety? If you understand this, then you will have the antidote to anxiety in your life. Jesus was un-anxious and unflappable because he was secure in his identity as the beloved Son of God. He kept at the center of his heart the words from his Father given at baptism. “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17)
                                    
He abided in the Father’s love. He had been loved into existence. He came out of God’s love. He lived in God’s love. His destiny was to return to God’s love.
 
Jesus abided in the Father’s love, so he was never anxious. Jesus lived in the abundance of God’s love. That is why he did not react to his mission with anxiety. You and I have been anointed with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is first the Spirit of God’s love. God’s abundant love will bring justice to all nations.
 
Through the Holy Spirit we have ENOUGH to live without anxiety and to be as generous as God. In the words of Walter Brueggemann, we have enough grace to include all. Enough resources to share with widows and orphans and immigrants. Enough that we need not scandalize the poor with our selfishness. Enough bread and wine poured out to make us overflow with love to be Christ in the world. (p. 4, A Gospel of Hope by Walter Brueggemann)
            
We are often preoccupied by anxiety because we forget where we have come from or to whom we belong. Our deepest identity is that we are children of God. At the World Youth Day in Toronto, Pope John Paul II said, “We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures; we are the sum of the Father’s love for us and of our real capacity to become the image of his Son.”
 
By the grace of Baptism, God says to us what we heard from the prophet Isaiah (42:1-7). “You are my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight. I have put my spirit in you. I have grasped you by the hand. I formed you and made you a light to the nations, to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out prisoners from confinement.”
 
Our baptism is renewed in every Eucharist. Ask for the grace to be renewed in the abundance of God’s love. God’s will for you and me is that we live in his perfect love. God’s will is that we would live without anxiety. God has chosen you, delights in you, and sends you as a light to the nations.