A meditation on Scripture reveals that God loves each person, no matter what

This is the text of Cardinal O'Connor's homily at Sunday Mass in St. Patrick's Cathedral Jan. 10.

There is a young lady, Karen Phillips, who used to sing in the choir here in the cathedral. You may have noted in the December press that Karen Phillips as a Peace Corps volunteer was murdered in Gabon on the 17th of December. Karen was a very lovely person who worked at Chemical Bank and then at CARE, the international relief organization, and sang regularly in the choir here. You might in your kindness remember her in this Mass, as I will be doing.

Some of you were here about seven years ago on this feast of the Baptism of Our Lord when my then secretary, Msgr. James McCarthy, and I had just returned from a visit on Church business to the Middle East. I told some of you then a story which I will abbreviate now. We were in Jordan, due in Israel the next day, so we had to cross the Jordan River. Usually only one bridge is open, the Allenby Bridge. There had been an extraordinary amount of snow so the Jordan River was swollen and heavily flooded, and it was impossible to cross at this point. The night before, I did a lot of reflecting on the Scriptures; one could not help doing so in that setting, particularly on the fact that we read in the final chapters of the Book of Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Old Testament, that because he had disobeyed the Lord, Moses was not going to be able to lead the people into the Promised Land.

Then we read in the first or second chapter of the Book of Joshua, which is the sixth book of the Old Testament, that when Joshua tried to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land the river was so swollen and flooded that they could not cross. God told Joshua to have the priests take the Ark of the Covenant, the big container which held the tablets of the law, the Ten Commandments, and if the priests would wade into the water holding the Ark of the Covenant high, then the waters would recede. That is exactly what happened, and Joshua was able to lead the people into the Promised Land.

I suggested to Msgr. McCarthy that if he had any faith he could hold his rosary up and do the same--but he was not so inclined. The next day, with the cooperation of both governments, we were able to cross on another bridge.

One can not be in such circumstances, however, nor can one read of the baptism of the Lord in the River Jordan, without thinking of the importance of that river in scriptural history. I just cited one example, an example which was reminiscent of the fact that Moses led the people through the Red Sea when the Egyptian warriors were pursuing them after they had escaped from slavery. God parted the waters there and did the same thing with the Jordan River.

We read in one of the Books of Kings about Naaman, commander of the Syrian armies, who contracted leprosy. He was sent to the prophet Elijah for a cure. Elijah said, "I can not cure you. I am not God. If you go over into the River Jordan (which means going from Syria over into Israel) then you will bathe seven times in the river and you will be purified of your leprosy." Understandably the very colorful Naaman said, "Don't we have a beautiful river right here in Damascus? Why should I go to the Jordan River?" But in humility he went and there he was purified. This is a very important, symbolic and prophetic story of purification in the River Jordan.

The Israelites knew stories like this. They knew how all of the Scriptures are interwoven. They knew, for example, the story of the great flood and of how God told Noah to construct the ark. The flood was to purify the earth, the world, from all of the sins that had been committed. So Noah built the ark. His family, various animals and various vegetables were taken into the ark, and the land was purified and Noah and his family were saved. At a particular point, to see if the waters had yet receded, Noah sent a dove to fly across the waters. The dove came back bearing an olive branch so Noah knew that the waters were receding.

In this extraordinary Gospel today, we are told that the Holy Spirit appeared in the form of a dove. Remember the people were accustomed to signs of this sort. As I said, they knew their Scriptures. This extraordinarily brief Gospel has so many such signs, so many parallelisms. We do not get the richness of it until we think about them. You will recall that after Mary had been invited by the angel to become the Mother of the Son of God and she had acquiesced, we are told that instantly she conceived Christ beneath her heart. But then Mary forgot about herself because the angel told her that her cousin Elizabeth, advanced in years, was likewise pregnant--this pregnancy was John the Baptist--so Mary went off to see her cousin Elizabeth. Elizabeth came running out of the house saying, "What is this that the mother of my Lord would come to visit me?" How did Elizabeth know that Mary had conceived the Lord? She said, "The instant I heard your voice, the infant in my womb leaped for joy."

Here we are some 30 years later. Our Lord comes along and John the Baptist, son of Elizabeth, says to Jesus, son of Mary, "What is this that you should come to be baptized by me? You should be the one baptizing me." There are so many parallelisms of this sort.

Another is found in the rabbinical text which comments on the very first book of the Old Testament, the Book of Genesis, which tells us that "the waters were raging, the waters were furious and then the spirit of God breathed across the waters and they were stilled." A rabbinical text says, "The spirit of God appeared in the form of a dove."

Another parallel can be found in the book Canticle of Canticles or Song of Songs where we have references to a dove as a sign of love. Another rabbinical text says of this that "the dove is truly the voice of the Spirit of God."

John had said to his followers, "I baptize you with water. One will be coming after me mightier than I who will baptize you in fire and the Spirit." Jesus himself several times referred to baptism. Nicodemus came to him at night, afraid to be seen talking to him during the day. Nicodemus asked how he could be saved. Jesus said, "Unless you are born again of water and the Holy Spirit you can not achieve eternal salvation." Jesus said to the Apostles toward the end of his life on earth, "Go therefore teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." All of these texts, if thought about and if traced through the Scriptures, give us a sense of the richness of this very brief Gospel and of what was happening at the Jordan River.

The baptism of John is not like our baptism; it is not a sacramental baptism. We believe, of course, that we are conceived in Original Sin and that the primary effect of that sin, which is to bar us from eternal happiness, can be washed away only by sacramental baptism. Baptism is the gateway to eternal life. Baptism is the gateway to the other sacraments. We can not receive Holy Communion, for example, if we have not been baptized.

But the baptism of John was not this sacramental baptism. The people coming there had already repented of their personal sins--they could not do anything about Original Sin--and they were entering the waters of the Jordan River to be baptized by John to show that they wanted to be rid of these sins for all time. They wanted a complete conversion of life. The water, again, was a sign of purification, just as the waters purified the earth when the ark of Noah rode those waters out safely.

Waters, of course, are always in the Scriptures. They are a sign of healing, a sign of purification, a sign of life. So the baptism of John was symbolic. The question would have to be asked, of course, and all of the commentators on the Scriptures ask it: Why would Jesus, Son of God, who never committed sin, who could not commit sin, why would he come for baptism? Why would he be seeming to say in effect, "I have led a life of sin. I want to renounce my sin. I want a symbol of purification. I want to commit myself to the future." That was totally unnecessary for him, we know. But it was a wonderful sign to everybody else. It was a reminder of the way in which the Son of God so humbled himself.

Always we return to that letter to the people of Philippi in which St. Paul tells us that "Jesus being God, emptied himself and took upon himself the form of a slave." As St. John puts it, "The word became flesh." That was a tremendous act of humility. Jesus became just like us. By entering the waters to be baptized by John he was saying, "I am truly one of you. I am taking all of your sins upon myself. I have not sinned. I have come into this world to make possible your salvation."

There is so much theology, so much Church teaching in this very simple Gospel, for example, the teaching of the Trinity. We are told, "The heavens opened. The voice of God was heard from the heavens. There was a brilliant light. The dove appeared as the voice of God was being heard, 'This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.' " Commentators on the Scriptures say this is a clear sign of the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. This, too, was an epiphany.

We recently celebrated the feast of the Epiphany when the Wise Men, the kings if they were that, came to visit Jesus after he had been born in Bethlehem. They were warned by God not to return by the same route because Herod would capture them and try to force from them the location of the Christ Child so Herod could destroy the Christ Child. That was an epiphany, a revelation, that coming so far from the East, from Persia, Mesopotamia, Iraq, Iran, that these Wise Men came who had studied the Scriptures and the stars. They were astrologers which in that day was considered a respectful "science." They came and the Infant Jesus was revealed to them as the Son of God. That is what we usually speak of as the Epiphany.

Scripture scholars speak of three epiphanies and this is the second of the three, that when Jesus went to be baptized he was revealed to be the Son of God by the voice of God his Father and the appearance of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove.

Then there was a third epiphany when Jesus began his public life and went to a wedding feast in Cana to which Mary, Jesus and his followers had been invited. There the bridal couple were embarrassed that they had run out of wine, which was really a grave social fault in those days in that country. Mary asked Jesus to do something for them. Jesus turned the water into wine and this was the third sign of his divinity, the third revelation, the third epiphany.

We could talk a great deal about these various harmonious passages in the Scriptures which are interwoven with one another both in the Old Testament and the New Testament. But let us leave the theology behind for a moment, the formal Church teaching, and reflect very briefly, on what seems to me to be a very beautiful message, a message born of the words coming from heaven over Jesus, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased."

Whenever I read those words I am reminded of a very delicate story written many years ago called "David and Lisa." I read it when I was a young man. Some of you know the story and some of you saw the film. David and Lisa--each was a severe neurotic and each went to the same institute for psychotherapy. They meet each other and each one is terribly afraid that he or she is worth absolutely nothing. They are terrified by their sense of self-worthlessness. Unfortunately this is too common a phenomenon.

David and Lisa thought that everything they did was bad because they were bad. They thought it was impossible for anyone really to love them for themselves because they were unlovable. They had no worth at all. So they went to this institute where they met. They are very wary of each other initially, but they begin to do various things together and ultimately feel and fear that they are falling in love. Finally, you remember, Lisa gets up all of her courage and says to David, "What do you see when you look at me?" Her heart is in her mouth and Lisa is afraid that David is going to say something like, "I see a very beautiful girl. I see a wonderful dancing partner. I see an interesting companion. I see someone who is very well educated."

"What do you see when you look at me?" David gave the perfect response, "I see a pearl of a girl." I may be stretching it unduly but it seems to me this is worthy of our meditating upon in conjunction with those words of Almighty God with the light coming down from heaven, the Holy Spirit appearing in the form of a dove, a voice of God saying, "This is my beloved Son."

Each one of us is beloved of God, no matter what we have done, no matter what our lives have been, no matter how many failures we feel we are guilty of, no matter how many sins we have committed, no matter how worthless we feel, no matter how we feel we have to conceal our true selves from others because we think we are no good inside. God loves every single one of us, no matter the past, no matter the present. God says, "This is my beloved son. This is my beloved daughter." I can not think of anything more encouraging. You are my beloved son. You are my beloved daughter.

I pray particularly that each of you will leave this Mass knowing that God loves you, you the person. God does not want you to be somebody else. God loves you because you are you, made in his image and likeness.