Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
The one who sent me to baptize with water told me, “On whomever you see the Spirit come down and remain, he is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.” Thus John the Baptist speaks of Jesus in today’s Gospel: as the one who will baptize with the Spirit.
As Christians, as those who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we are filled with the Holy Spirit from our Baptism, and this gift of God is strengthened at Confirmation, when we are sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit. It is by the Spirit that we are not only made holy — or as Paul says to the Corinthians, that we are sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy — but we also share in Christ’s mission as the one God calls my servant . . . through whom I show my glory. In Christ, we also are called to be a light to the nations, that God’s salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.
All this is the gift we receive in Jesus Christ and through his sharing of the Holy Spirit. Today, as we celebrate the memorial of our redemption in the Sunday Eucharist, perhaps we can ponder the immense dignity of this gift of being called to show God's glory as a light to the nations — a gift far beyond anything we deserve — and the love and gratitude it calls us to in return.