Reflecting on the Baptism of the Lord and the Mystery of the Trinity

Readings for Sunday and Virtual Homily for January 12, 2025, Feast of the Baptism of the Lord; The Class of 2025 Makes Me Smile; Prayers for LA 

Readings for Mass this Sunday

• Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11

• Psalm 104:1-4, 24-25, 27-30

• Titus 2:11-14; 3:4-7

• Luke 3:15-16, 21-22

 Dear Family and Friends,

This Sunday marks the official liturgical end of the Christmas season, though in fact, our tradition going back to the fourth century and perhaps earlier, has had an understanding that the Christmas/Epiphany season extends until Candlemas, that is, February 2, that is the Feast of the Presentation.  Given my diatribe on the neglect of the Epiphany in last week's homily it will probably come as no surprise to you when I say that, so far as I am concerned, Chrismastide (that is, the Christmas season) concludes February 2.  

This has nothing to do with getting Christmas cards out at New Year's.  It has to do with the psychological and spiritual value to be experienced in properly celebrating liturgical seasons.  I have not been to Caracas (the Venezuelan capital) in more than a decade.  But I went there several times a year, as most of you know, for half a dozen years back in the day, and I was there, each of those years, every January.  The reason was that I wanted to celebrate my birthday in Venezuela.  

I remember being impressed with how Caracas' Christmas lights, on the streets, in the stores, in the hotel lobbies, in the restaurants and in the bars, were still on, displayed along with holiday garlands and poinsettias and creches, the week of my birthday, which is January 25.  Something about these displays of fidelity to the ancient understanding of the Christmas season went deep with me.  "Christmas OUGHT to be celebrated for forty days," I remember saying to myself, those half dozen Januarys that I so happily spent my birthday, amid Christmas decor, in Caracas.  "I was, in fact, born in the Christmas season.  It took coming to South America for me to realize it." 

All of which is simply beside the point of this week's homily -- which is about the Baptism of the Lord.  My digression above is simply to underscore the fact that much of the Western world (not all of it, obviously; Caracas is excepted, as is much of Latin America) simply gets the whole Christmas thing wrong.  The celebration of the "season" starts in the department stores and the trendy boutiques at Hallowe'en, and the decorations come down and the end-of-the-year clearance sales start December 26...

Oh well.  I will persist in hope, on this score.  As I said last homily, I look forward to the day when we will see Epiphany sales at Macy's.  With God, as Gabriel assured Mary, in a very Christmas-oriented message, all things are possible (Luke 1:37).

So. the Baptism of the Lord.

There are a variety of possible "takes" a homilist might employ with today's readings.  I know I have in previous homilies explored how it was that Jesus even chose to be baptized, explored the theology of the Sacrament of Baptism.  So I have decided with this homily to go with the "take" that today's feast recognizes the first explicit revelation of the Trinity in Scripture.  The Son is in the water.  The Spirit descends from above, the heavens having been torn open.  A voice is heard from the suddenly revealed heavens, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Luke 3:21-22).

Though their Scriptures are rife with references to both the Word and the Spirit of God. our "elder brothers in the faith" (to quote some Vatican document or other), the Jewish people, have no concept of the Trinity.  The Word of God is said to burn in the prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 20:9; also 23:29) and the Spirit of God is said to rush upon David (among others) (1 Samuel 16:13).  The Jewish understanding is that the Word and the Spirit are aspects of the divinity, not distinct Persons.  In fact, however, we get a sense of plurality in the Godhead from the very start of Scripture: "Let US make man in OUR image" (Genesis 1:26).   

With today's Gospel we have the first explicit revelation of the Trinity in Scripture.  The reality of the Trinity might almost be said to be a necessary precondition for the Incarnation, for God becoming man.  The Second Person incarnates, according to the plan of the First Person and the power of the Third Person, but God does not have to abandon heaven, to come to earth.  

This, of course, is how it is that Jesus can say that he is the Son of God, that he is one with the Father, that no one comes to the Father except through him, and so on (see the Gospel of John, chapters 1, 5 and 8 in particular).  With a Trinity of Persons, it is possible to speak this way of the Divine Being.  Without an understanding of the triune Godhead, such talk could only be construed (as it was, by most of the religious leaders of the time) as heretical, even blasphemous.  

The Trinity is the deepest mystery of our faith, and I cannot go deep with it in a Sunday homily.  But I can show, as I do with my sophomores, ways in which three things can be one thing, and that is how I want to end this Sunday's reflection.  

From the world of mathematics we can draw a metaphor to Trinitarian Being in the equilateral triangle.  Three equal sides, one triangle.  From nature, we can employ the metaphor used by St. Patrick in his efforts to convert my Irish ancestors: the shamrock.  Three leaves, same size, same shape, same color.  One shamrock.  

Other examples abound, but the one that most impresses me (and which seems to switch the light on, so to speak, with my bright pupils at Bishop O'Dowd) is the metaphor from light.  You have a darkened room.  It has three lamps.  Each lamp is equipped with a one hundred watt bulb.  You turn on the first lamp and you have light -- one hundred watts' worth of it -- throughout the room.  You turn on the second lamp and you have two hundred watts' worth of light throughout the room.  Turn on the third lamp and you have three hundred watts' worth of light throughout the room.  You cannot say that "this light over here in this corner is from this lamp that is closest" because if you switch off that lamp, you still have light in that corner.  The light is one.  Its sources are three.

We say in the Nicene Creed that Jesus is Light from Light.  This last metaphor is, I think, actually more than just a metaphor.  Light is an attribute of the divine nature.  The image of the three sources and the one light may be said to be an actual image of God.  

We returned to campus this bright, sunny first full week of January, and bright and sunny are good modifiers for how I have experienced the week.  In ten years at the high school, I have taught one class -- Christian Scriptures -- to the sophomores.  The high school administration wanted to have their on-site priest both teaching the "Jesus class," which obviously, Christian Scriptures is, and they wanted me meeting students early enough in their careers at O'Dowd, so that they would know me, most of their time at the high school. 

There was one exception to this routine.  In the fall of 2021, I taught a freshman section of Hebrew Scriptures, in addition to my three regular sections of sophomores.  A new hire who had signed a contract with us in May of that year let us know August 1 that he was not coming after all.  Classes started August 12.  Five of us in the Religious Studies Department had to scramble to pick up his course load -- I landed my first-ever freshman class.  

There were 27 students in the class.  Bright-eyed, happy, HIGHLY talkative (not especially about course material), just-off-remote-learning-for-their-entire-eighth-grade-year-and-so-slightly-feral -- 27 members of the Class of 2025.  

It should be noted that, in the fall of 2021, I was thinking seriously of taking a sabbatical in the fall of 2024.  There were good reasons to believe that by 2024 we would be at a point of development at San Gabriel Media (my media ministry apostolate, which extends far beyond the publishing of books) so as to necessitate some full time focus on my part at San Gabriel; that is, 2024 looked like the year for a sabbatical.

Then I met the Class of 2025.  I will likely be making reference to this remarkable set of teens throughout the spring semester.  So let me say only here that. teaching them as freshmen in 2021, I was so enchanted that I pushed plans for the sabbatical back a year.  Even though I only planned the sabbatical to be an autumn semester away from the high school, I did not want to miss any part of the senior year of the Class of 2025.

I mentioned that, but for teaching Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) to the Class of 2025 when they were freshmen, I had never taught anything but Christian Scriptures (New Testament) and to sophomores.  The fact that I taught 27 members of the class of 2025 as freshmen meant, of course, that I might actually teach some of them twice, as they entered their sophomore year and took the Christian Scriptures course.  In fact more than half of them had me as their teacher sophomore year and, of course, I got to know 150 more members of the class, teaching them as sophomores.  This expanded acquaintance with the Class of 2025 confirmed me in my decision to remain at the high school until they graduated.

This spring I am, for the first time in ten years at O'Dowd, teaching an upper division elective: Marriage and Family.  (I know, I know, right?  The PRIEST, teaching the Marriage and Family course!  Long story, but it is all good.)  I have three sections -- almost eighty students.  And about two thirds of them are -- members of the Class of 2025.  In other words, this one class, which so enchanted me their first semester on campus, is also the one class in my ten years at O'Dowd, that I will be teaching as seniors, and not just seniors, but second-semester seniors.  I had them their first semester at O'Dowd; I have them their last.  

This is so cool I lack the modifiers to describe it.  Suffice it to say that we are off to one great start, my students in Marriage and Family and I, this brand new semester.  I am delighted to be able to be with some of my all-time favorite students, once again, in the classroom, the last semester that they will be at O'Dowd.

Finally, just a note on the situation down south.  I have a lot of family and many friends in Los Angeles -- and in fact many of them live just outside the evacuation zones of this week's fires.  As of this evening (I am writing this on Thursday) everyone I know in LA is safe.  I am checking the news every two or three hours, always hoping to read that the Santa Ana winds have died down.  They have reached hurricane strength in some gusts around the hills, as I imagine you are aware.  

Something about these fires -- maybe it is that this is happening in JANUARY, when fire season even in the south state always used to end by Thanksgiving -- something about these fires has really hit home with me.  I am praying for the safety of everyone in harm's way, for strength and resources in rebuilding, and especially for the relief and back-up our exhausted first-responder crews are in such need of.  What a tragedy.  May God's mercies be felt in abundance in the coming weeks and months, among our neighbors down south.   

Hope this finds you well.  Abundant blessings as 2025 begins to roll out.

Love,

Fr. Brawn