Homily for The Baptism of the Lord - Sunday 8th January

Homily for The Baptism of the Lord

Sunday 8th January

Thirty-four years today our first child was baptised. He had only been born around Christmas. It had seemed a bright time for us as a family, finding ourselves moving to England the Summer before, to a city full of Churches. New opportunities seemed to be ahead. Then we discovered a lot the churches had been turned into carpet shops and only façades remained. I found the city to be quite strange.

Where in Ireland everyone had been most welcoming and would quite often call my name way off down the road to see how I was doing and making me feel extremely welcome, this city seemed a bit cold. People working with me in an office ignored me in the street, even if I was passing them on the same path. It was a different culture and I had become used to another way of thinking. Thankfully, it wasn’t long before we found the opportunity to move back to Belfast where we found ourselves feeling more comfortable.

I know telling people in England back then hearing this story would consider me to be mad. How on earth could you feel safe in a place that seemed to be pulling itself apart? The reality was that everyone outside of the troubles of Belfast were being influenced by a very dark picture. The worst possible. Because that is all they saw on their televisions or heard on their radios. To be truthfully, so did I. I worked in television and the news was a shooting, a funeral, a shooting, and another funeral, a bombing and so on. It was constant.

But what I also experienced was some amazing people who always looked after me, made me feel welcome. These were not the media folk, although they were good, but people in the black taxis going up the Falls Road. People in the shops. Visiting families of friends and relatives of my wife, who always made a pot of tea and gave me a plateful of scones, with a thick layer of butter and jam, and another packed with sandwiches. You could not say no, because you would offend them. These people, ordinary people from both sides of the community always made me feel at home. No matter what they were doing, they stopped and gave me their time.

Some of the longest friendships in my life have come from back then. On my return from that English trip, I no longer worked in television but did more freelancing and again experienced the warmth of the people in how they welcomed me. Yes, I still witness the hardship people went through with ‘The Troubles’ and with life in general, but it seemed to be easier to see where the hotspots might be.

Or then again, perhaps the truth is that as my faith as a Catholic was developing, the Holy Spirit was guiding me out of the darkness and towards the light. I had made a conscious effort to practice as a Christian. I don’t mean just going to church every Sunday but to see if I could live what the Gospel asks us to do.

Isaiah tells us that the Lord calls us to serve the cause of light. That he will open the eyes of the blind. Free captives from their prisons and those who find themselves living in dark dungeons. We all have to discover what we are blind to, so that we can be brought into the light. What are our dungeons or prisons? As we each have one in some form or another. They could simply be finding ourselves trapped in a job that does not allow us to see our full capabilities. Often this is due to relationships that have developed. Perhaps the relationship that is not working properly is the one we have with Jesus? Perhaps we have gone astray and do not realise we have done so and this is why our lives seem strained in some way? Only we ourselves can know the truth about that, and it is worth finding out, for our own peace of mind.

We live in a world that wants to take the Words of Jesus out of the picture. When we see this happening, we know that is when we need to find out more about what Jesus actually said, by turning to our Bibles. Most of what people think is in the Bible is not quite right and so it is worth exploring on a regular basis. In fact, the stories can be quite a page-turner, that many popular fiction would be hard press to rival. The Bible is a book worth getting to know. And as you read it, let the Holy Spirit guide you. Your world will be brighter for it.

John was reluctant to baptise Jesus, feeling he was not worthy, but Jesus encouraged his cousin to carry on as normal as it was fitting that they should. When John saw Jesus come up out of the River Jordan after being baptised, John’s eyes were opened to see the Holy Spirit descend on Jesus like a dove. And he heard a voice from heaven say, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on him.”

Let our eyes be open so the light can come in pushing the darkness out of our lives, to allow us to see things from a new perspective.