FOR THE GRACE OF GOD HAS APPEARED!
BAPTISM OF THE LORD January 13, 2013 FOR THE GRACE OF GOD HAS APPEARED! Today’s feast definitively closes the Christmas season. Gone ought to be all the tinsel and the foil, the trimmings and trappings of a romanticized Christmas, that is, for the most part, meant to be for kids, to perk up their sense of wonder at the miraculous “Christ-event” that has changed the course of world history. But the child not only grows in age and wisdom. We, too, ought to rise above the childish level of tinsel and foil, and claim for ourselves the responsibility that the Christmas and Christ-event has imposed on us. Let us look for some clues straight from today’s readings! First, the reading from Isaiah, it must be admitted, sounds like soothing balm to aching hearts and like much needed prop-up support to our sagging spirits. “Comfort, give comfort to my people … her service is at an end, her guilt is expiated.” Is this a repeat, the...