This is My Beloved Son, With Whom I am Well Pleased

01-11-2026Weekly ReflectionFr. Manasseh lorchir, VC

The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, which we celebrate this weekend, brings to an end the Christmas Season. Next weekend we shall return to Ordinary Time when we shall be nourished with Readings for a few weeks before we begin the Season of Lent. The Baptism of the Lord, which signified the beginning of the public ministry of Jesus, emphasizes our identity as beloved Children of God, our mission being to share Christ’s light and the transformative power of our own Baptism through which we received adoption into the great family of God and the mandate to live out God’s love and justice in the world, acting as prophets and servants.

By electing to receive the Baptism of Repentance from John the Baptist, though He had no sin in Him, Jesus demonstrated great humility, was in solidarity with fallen humanity and showed that he was not antagonistic to the law and rites of worship. He did not need to go to John to be given a Baptism that was meant to prepare others for His coming. He went in solidarity with us and to show that Baptism reveals our identity as God’s beloved children, not based on our worthiness, but on God’s love, the most profound expression of which is revealed in the incarnation where God takes flesh to be like us in order to save us while we were not in good standing with Him and so undeserving of His Divine love.

Like Jesus, our own Baptism places on us the mandate to live out this identity of Children of God, to be light and hope, to joyfully share the Gospel of love, and to confront injustice and evil of every kind, echoing Jesus’ ministry. At the Baptism of the Lord, Matthew’s Gospel presents to us a very concrete demonstration of Trinitarian collaboration, the kind that was at work in the incarnation when the Father sent the Son to take on flesh through the power of the Holy Spirit in order to pay the price for our restoration to grace and friendship with God. As God the Son stepped out of the Jordan, the heavens opened and God the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in the form of a dove while the voice of the Father was heard from heaven declaring Jesus as the Father’s beloved Son of whom God was well pleased. Here, the Baptism of the Lord invites us to become the voice of the Father in our time and community, proclaiming the Divinity and Messiahship of Christ by our word, thoughts and actions.

As we reflect on our own baptism through which we received adoption as God’s sons and daughters and co-heirs with Jesus to a life of grace, let us not forget the promises we made (or those made on our behalf) when we willingly rejected Satan and freely chose to commit ourselves to be subjects to the reign of light in a world besieged by darkness. May we convey this light and share with others as we march on in faith, hope and love towards eternal life with Christ.

Please be kind and may God bless you.

Fr. Manasseh Iorchir, VC