Our Lady, Star of the New Evangelization, St. Joseph, our patron saints and guardian angels,
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
In the continuation of the letter of St. John, he continues to talk about revelation,
about the love of God, and in today's reading, he talks about how we should really take comfort
in his message to us today, even when he says,
Beloved, who indeed is the victor over the world, but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
That, as he says earlier, he says, what has overcome the world but faith?
And Jesus, the Son of God, is what has overcome the world,
and is the victor. So we should take heart, those who are believers,
those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God, for the victory is already assured to us.
We just have to remain faithful to him in the trials that we experience in our day and age.
But he goes on to say something very curious about,
this is the one who came through water and blood, Jesus Christ, not by water alone,
but by water.
And he says that there are three who testify, the Spirit, the water, and the blood.
Now, there may be different interpretations,
but I see this as saying, first of all, he's talking about the Holy Spirit,
testifies that Jesus is Lord.
You know, he says in another place, the Scriptures say that no one can say Jesus is Lord
except by the power and through the aid of the Holy Spirit.
The water gives testimony.
What water?
What is he referring to?
He could be referring to, first of all, the waters of the Jordan River,
where our Lord went into the water and came out, and then God the Father spoke,
this is my beloved Son.
That would be the indication that it's from the Office of Readings today,
the Fathers of the Church, that they highlight today,
and the Office of Readings points it out, that our Lord went to the Jordan,
and that really his baptism,
is a feast of his birth, because Christ was born into the world,
but through his baptism at the Jordan,
it has allowed men to be born once again in God,
to be reborn by the waters of baptism, and blood.
How is it that blood testifies?
Well, first and foremost, the Incarnation, the Son of God,
became man and took on a human nature, his flesh and blood,
as he walked the face of the earth, gave testimony to who he was,
that he was the Son of God, but also the blood that he shed at Calvary,
gave even greater testimony of who he was,
as those who had disposed to, by faith, were to recognize in his sacrifice at Calvary,
truly this is the Son of God.
Now this can also be seen even more, the further completion of those mysteries,
the Spirit, the water, and blood, can be the waters of baptism that we receive.
That testifies that as every child that is born from the baptismal font,
it was always interesting that at Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome,
outside the sacristy was this huge baptismal font
that had a statue of Christ in bronze on top of it,
and it said,
in Latin, around the edges of this huge baptismal font,
it said those words,
this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased,
that every child born from the waters of baptism,
you know, we are clothed once again in the image with the Sonship of Christ.
And so the waters of baptism give testimony that Jesus is the Son of God,
because it's only through that baptismal grace that we receive faith,
that we can say Jesus is Lord and recognize Him.
And that is the sad thing to see so many baptized Christians
acting as if they don't have that light,
or have snuffed out the light by acting contrary to the truth.
And the blood, of course, is the Eucharist,
the blood of Christ that is shed for us at every holy sacrifice of the Mass,
you know, that we are once again, gives testimony to Jesus Christ,
that Jesus Christ is the Son of God,
that we are, with faith, we recognize in that,
that Christ is still with us in His Holy Eucharist.
So each one of these, the Spirit, the water, and the blood,
all testify that Jesus is the Son of God.
And that testifies also the fact that Jesus has established a church,
which today still repeats this testimony to a world
that in many cases,
is unbelieving,
and in many cases, refuses to believe,
which is worse than someone who is ignorant.
Someone who refuses to look into the light
and wants to remain in the darkness
is far worse than the person who has not yet been shown the light
or is ignorant of it.
He says,
Whoever possesses the Son has life,
and whoever does not possess the Son of God does not have life.
What is opposite of that?
What is opposite of life, but death.
And so in many cases, that's what our whole Western culture has embraced,
the culture of death,
because it has refused to possess the Son.
It wants to reject all that Christ has offered to them
and offers to them through His church,
because it refuses to hear the testimony.
And so what does our present culture,
have to offer us?
You know, the vision that our president,
because he follows the culture of death,
all he has to offer us are new towns and columbines
and contraception and abortion clinics,
AIDS, STDs,
all he has to offer us is death,
because he doesn't have the Son of God.
He refuses to accept the teaching of Christ in his church
and thumbs his nose at it.
So we are getting what is the product of our,
of our, of our way that we have chosen.
It's all it has to produce,
all the culture of death can produce is death
and things of death.
If we want life, we have to turn back to Christ
and to His gospel.
And the church is, has to repeat that continually.
And maybe the, our world is going to learn the hard way
and eventually will be brought to its knees
and say, we need to, we need to go back to Jesus.
Our Lord in the gospel today healed the man of leprosy
because he saw that he had leprosy.
He wasn't like the people today who want to call leprosy,
oh, that's a great blessing you have there, you know.
They want to call homosexual marriage,
oh, an alternative lifestyle.
They want to call something which is an offense to God.
They want to relabel it as something virtuous.
No, that'd be like the leper saying,
oh, I have this beautiful birthmark on my face.
Instead of acknowledging that,
acknowledging what it is, calling sin a sin,
calling a sickness a sickness,
this man recognized he was sick.
He needed to be cured.
And he asked our Lord, pleaded with him,
Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.
And our Lord, because He is the Lord of life,
He is the Lord who wants to restore people to their health,
not only physically, but spiritually,
He says, I do will it be made clean.
And once again, we are talking about manifestations of our Lord's divinity.
All the miracles of our Lord prove that He is the Son of God.
By His word, this man is made clean.
And it says, go show yourself to the priest
and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed.
That will be proof for them
that here is a man who has been made clean by the Son of God
gives proof to his testimony,
testifies further evidence of who our Lord is
and that He is who He claims to be.
So today as we progress to the end of the Christmas season
for those who liturgically,
but we know that in many cases the tradition of Christmas season
doesn't end until the presentation in the temple,
that we want to reflect,
we want to reflect on the great mysteries of the baptism,
you know, the baptism of our Lord in the Jordan,
that He has made the waters clean
and given water power by the sacrament
to make sons of God,
to make them truly clean,
clean from the greatest stain of all,
which is original sin.
And only through the power of God can that be done.
And so we want to pray for ourselves that we will,
truly appreciate evermore the gift of baptism
that we have received,
that we will also put it into practice,
that truly allow the grace of baptism to bear fruit
and to grow,
and to truly reflect the image of Christ
that each and every one of us has received
in a far fuller way because we have been baptized,
that we can reflect the light of Christ
through the world today.
In the name of the Father,
and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.