Seek True Treasures

February 17, 1994 5:30 a.m.

Jesus: My little ones, how are you doing? Are you getting bogged down in this weather? Do you know yet that you do not control the elements? You live every day and you think you have much to do to control your actions but you do not see the eyes of Him Who watches over you with loving care.

I give to you this earth and all you need to sustain your life here. Man worries about the earth and if this or that will happen. Man has become so independent that he thinks he controls all things and he needs to worry about his present and future.

You, My favored, chosen ones, know that life here lasts but a moment and like smoke it is gone without a trace. Look at your ancestors. So few people ever remember their ancestors, yet your ancestors thought that at every moment their actions were so crucial. Little ones, you hold on to life. You hold on to these little happenings here and you worry in vain! Look at the big picture, My little ones. Here today, gone tomorrow, and where are you going?

The days go by with such speed. "Oh," you say, "Where have the years gone?" You think every second is so important. You worry, you fret, you wander empty roads and I watch you. I see you with your emphasis on the moment. You are being deceived, My little ones. It is in seeing the moment as part of eternity that you really know what is going on. Each moment you live, you are the teacher about the God Who dwells in your breast. Each moment you live, you are My messenger to this cold, scared world. Nothing you do means anything except as you are serving Me.

Take off your glasses. Behold the life above. See every moment as a drop of the life to come. See every moment as part of eternity. All these drops together make up your pass into My kingdom.

You worry, you wonder, you fret, you hold on. I give you a toothache, I take it away. One second and a toothache is gone. Is that not how it is with life--one second and it is gone? Oh, how those little precious moments seem to die away and you scarce can remember what happened! Yet during people's lives those moments seem earth-shattering. Those moments are yesterday's forgotten memories. You hold on, you fret, you fume and I watch you let go of each moment, only to become forgotten by today.

Store up your moments as part of eternity. Every moment here is part of your pass to My kingdom. How are you living this moment? Is it used to give service to Me and preach My gospel? Are you making all your moments count towards your eternity? Each moment is but a breath and it is gone. Did you use the moment I gave you to do My work? This time is not yours. I can snatch your moments away in one breath. It matters, My children, only as you choose to serve Me and spread My love!

If everyone had God as their primary goal, what love you would possess. What power you would know, because God is the mightiest force. I have all the power. Other power is false power!

Do you get it yet? Do you think anything you hold on to is so precious here? Here today, gone tomorrow, and I snatch you from your seats and you never return to finish what you deemed so important.

Are you comprehending My words here? The body is but an instrument to get you around. Reach with the spirit within. Live from the soul. Communicate with Me in your soul. Look for the unseen world that surrounds you constantly. Die to yourself.

You have a soul at this very moment that is a vibrant spiritual force alive within you. Live from your soul, My little ones. Focus on your soul. Live from your heart. Do not fret and fume for the things of this world. Here today, gone tomorrow, and then forgotten. Today's moments, yesterday's forgotten treasures. Do they mean so much or do you forget what seemed so important?

Reach with the soul. Live for God. Each moment is your chance to store up treasures for eternity. They will never be forgotten. What you do to help others to know Me will never be forgotten. How you loved will never be forgotten. How you gave lives on in those you touched. Your love is like a bubbling brook. It bubbles and keeps on bubbling. Your selfishness dies the moment after you live it.

Love is the force. Love is the power that reflects the God above. Love is not selfish. Love does not demand its own way. Love gives and doesn't stop giving. On the day of judgment it will be found in the hearts of those you touched. Think of only yourself and watch your moments become yesterday's forgotten moments. Love your brothers and watch the world reflect the love you gave, from now to the end.

Love or selfishness? I call you to love. I call you to plant a seed that grows into a mighty oak. Plant My seeds of love. Ask not how you can attain your goal but how you can fulfill the goal of God. Love God, love one another. Too simple, too hard for many.

Love, children. Reflect the God Who dwells within your soul. Store up your moments forever lest they become yesterday's forgotten treasure.

Like ripples on a pond, your love never dies. It reaches on and on and goes into the moments of eternity. Love is lasting. Love never dies. Love God, love one another. Die to yourself and live.

end of excerpt

In the course of his preaching he said, ‘After me is coming someone who is more powerful than me, and I am not fit to kneel down and undo the strap of his sandals. I have baptised you with water, but he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit.’ It was at this time that Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptised in the Jordan by John. And at once, as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit, like a dove, descending on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on you.’

INTRODUCTION

The words of the prophet Isaiah in today’s first reading go back 500 years before Christ.  This passage was intended for the Jews who were in exile in Babylon.  God is, through the prophet, introducing a person referred to only as God’s servant to his people.  God is quite pleased with his servant. In a non-violent way, God's servant will establish justice in the world, be a light to the nations and liberation for captives.  Scholars debate who this servant might have been 500 years before Christ, but with the coming of Christ, there is no doubt who is God's perfect servant.  At Jesus’ baptism, God introduces Jesus to the world, not just as his servant, but as his beloved Son with whom he is well-pleased.

 

HOMILY

If you struggle to understand the baptism of Jesus, you’re not alone.  Even John the Baptist had difficulty understanding why Jesus came to him for baptism.  As John said “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you are coming to me?” 

 

The baptism of Jesus is a mystery worthy of our contemplation.  Certainly Pope John Paul considered it as something worth meditating on when he made it one of the mysteries in the new set of mysteries he created for the rosary: the luminous mysteries or the mysteries of light. 

 

Our business manager, Carol Roosa, is taking a course at the Athenaeum to become a parish administrator.  She had to present a paper last week and the topic was baptism.  The professor was quite impressed with it and so she volunteered to preach this Sunday.  I said “no.”  She said it would only take an hour and fifteen minutes.  You would be happy to know I stood my ground.  Besides, only priests and deacons are allowed to do a homily.  I say all of this to illustrate there is so much that could be said about baptism.  I’m not going to say it all.  My few words today will, I hope, throw a little light on the sacrament of baptism and might help make the baptism of Jesus a little more understandable. 

 

First I want to point out one way in which the baptism of Jesus by John was totally different from our sacrament of baptism.  Then I want to mention one way in which they are similar. 

 

If I were to ask the average Catholic what do you think of when you hear the word baptism, most would answer, “Baptism takes away original sin.” That’s true but there is a better answer.  Let me illustrate.  (show wallet)  Now many of you know what this is: a wallet.  And it’s empty, and some of you might relate to that too.  That’s basically what original sin is.  It is emptiness, like this wallet.  It’s a big nothing.  We are empty of God’s grace and life.  Suppose, for example, by some unbelievable odds, I would win a million dollars in the lottery.  I would get that big check (less taxes) and put it in the wallet.  If someone were to ask me, “what’s in your wallet?,”  I don’t know what I would tell them, but I don’t think I would answer “the emptiness in my wallet is gone.”  But that’s what we say when we define baptism as the sacrament that takes away original sin.  That definition only emphasizes the emptiness and not the fullness.  It doesn’t reflect the blessings that suddenly fill us at baptism: the blessings of God’s life, of being children of God, the blessings of the Holy Spirit, the blessing of belonging to the family of God, the blessing and hope of sharing in eternal happiness with God.  In Jesus there was no emptiness.  In him dwells the fullness of the divinity (Col. 2,9) as St. Paul tells us.  He was, from all eternity, God’s beloved Son.  Jesus had no need of baptism in any form. In this respect Jesus’ baptism by John made no change in him as the sacrament of baptism did for us.  Jesus baptism by John provides an occasion for us to reflect on our own baptism and the grace that it brought us. 

 

Now I want to describe one way in which Jesus’ baptism by John and the sacrament of baptism we received are similar.  They are similar in that they are both a commitment.  John’s baptism was a public commitment people made to live holy lives and to prepare for the coming of God’s kingdom.  Jesus, in being baptized, was publicly committing himself to do God’s will and to preach and build the kingdom of God.  Baptism is that for us too.  We are committed in a public event to belong to God, to be God’s obedient child, God’s lover, God’s representative.  It’s something like declaring one’s candidacy, not for public office, but for the office of Christian in the world.  Most likely someone made that commitment for us, most probably our parents.  They made that commitment for us with the intention of directing us in God’s ways.  Eventually, we have to make that commitment our own if our baptism is going to mean anything at all.  On this feast of the baptism of Jesus, we have a good opportunity to recommit ourselves to Jesus. The effects and blessings of baptism remain with us as long as we do not turn our hearts away from the Father who long ago chose us to be his son or daughter in the sacrament.  In this way Jesus’ baptism by John is very much like our own, not a private, secret event but a public, open declaration of our commitment to love and serve God and others as Jesus, the perfect Son of God did.  Amen.