Homily

Today’s feast is another Christmas, another Epiphany. God never tires of revealing himself so that everyone who seeks him can find him. He is patient, because he wants to be received. He is insistent, like a man in love. But we should fear the painful and terrible possibility: “He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him!” God manifests himself because he wants to open heaven to the people on earth. Heaven is the future, happiness, hope that is fulfilled; loneliness is overcome and sorrow consoled. Christians are similar in that they are all people of the earth as was Jesus who chose to become flesh. Christians are also destined to be people of heaven. This is why Jesus came on the earth, to bring men and women to heaven. Today is the feast of the baptism, a feast of those whom he makes children. It is the feast of heaven that opens to the earth. So very many men and women feel how inhuman and intolerable the earth is and are looking for hope: “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down!” It is the petition in these difficult times full of menace. It is the petition of the one who is in pain and sees illness deform the body. It is the request of so many of the elderly, whose condition reminds us of the weakness we all have. It is the petition of those whose lives have been left to sink, that do not have meaning anymore, tossed about by the pitiless wind of evil. And how easy it is to get lost, to let oneself go, to feel oneself a burden when one is not loved! It is the petition for heaven!
This is the third time that, within a few days, the heavens are opened and we hear a voice heralding a young adult, once a child placed in a manger, as the beloved Son of God, our saviour and that of the whole world. The heavens were opened and the Holy Spirit alighted upon Jesus, as a dove at last alights on its nest. One could say that God’s might has finally found its home. This does not mean that prior to our Lord's coming there was never any Spirit. There was, in fact, since creation, when “a wind from God swept over the face of the waters”(Gen 1:2). The Spirit continued to be present in holy and spiritual persons, in the prophets, in the righteous, in the witnesses of love, both in Israel and in other faiths. But in Jesus, the Spirit finds his full and definitive dwelling. In fact, from the moment of Jesus' baptism, a unique and absolutely new fact is established. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews sums it up well: “Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son” (Heb 1:1-2).
After his baptism, Jesus began to speak. It can be said that he came out of the water with a new vocation, a new urgency. It was not, obviously, a matter of kindness or sanctity of life; without a doubt, in Nazareth for thirty years Jesus had been an example to all. It is not that Jesus became better with Baptism. But on the day of his baptism he-was born to a new life, to a new mission: he no longer had time to think about himself, about his dear ones, his home, his everyday cares. His concern, his worry, the reason for his life, became the proclamation of the Kingdom of God, healing the sick and helping the poor. It was as though on coming out of the Jordan, Jesus was devoured by a fire, by a new energy which thrust him to travel to cities and villages announcing everywhere the Gospel of the Kingdom and healing every illness and infirmity. “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed”(Lk 12:49-50). Immediately after his baptism, when Jesus came out of the water, behold, the heavens were opened and a voice from heaven said: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” The heavens were opened. Every person awaits not things, but love. We do not await the latest novelty, to be consumed and discarded. This is what God manifest: the future is not far ahead, hope has not ended, and man is not crushed by his own destiny. Each one of us is a beloved child, a favourite. The Lord’s disciples do not become autonomous, forced to rely on their own strength, sadly self-sufficient, suspicious and fearful of others. They are always children. They always find brothers and sisters. All are favourites. True love, God’s love, is personal, unique, eternal. This is as it should be for everyone, especially for those whose life seems to have lost every value and importance. We are his forever, anointed with oil; we have received God’s seal on our forehead and in our soul. The Christian is never an only child, rather he or she is always called to be a brother and a sister, to build friendship and to cultivate it with everyone. Sometimes it is not easy to be brothers and sisters and it seems easier to do things on one’s own; we think it will avoid disappointments. But, Christians are called to open heaven with love that is God’s.
We open heaven when we listen to him, when friendship makes the other a neighbour, when a lonely, elderly person is loved, when a tearful heart is consoled, when a homeless person finds his name again, when a poor person is helped, when someone who is ill receives medicine and is visited, when kind gestures reassure and make one feel loved. Today, all of us, become children at the baptismal fount, begotten as children of God. God does not ask us to make great speeches and promises, but only to have a heart capable of being loved and of responding with “I love you,” which is what God, the good father, wants to hear himself say. God wants us to learn how to love everyone.