Homily for Baptism of Clare Welsh

Homily for the Baptism
of Clare Anna Marie Welsh

Nov. 24, 2019

John 9: 1-7
St. Thomas More Cathedral, Arlington, Va.                                            

Jesus walked along and saw a man born blind (John 9:1).  Jesus sees who this man is, but the man living in darkness cannot see Jesus and, as the story goes on to tell us, doesn’t have a developed idea of who Jesus is (9:25).  He’s blind on 2 levels.

by Francesco de Mura

The man’s blindness is neither his own fault or sin, nor his parents’ (9:3).  It was a common perception—way of seeing—in the Jewish world that you got what you had coming to you.  It really was a desperate attempt to explain the unexplainable.

But Jesus gives another explanation entirely.  God will show forth his way of working among us thru this man (9:3).  Whatever is out of sorts in our world, God will somehow set it right and reveal his rule, his lordship—or, as we say today, his kingship.

Jesus comments on his own presence in our dark world.  The powers of darkness are battling against hm; he knows this and does what he can to “do the deeds of the one who sent him while it is day” (9:4).  And it is day “while I am in the world” as its light (9:5).

That he is the light and giver of light he will make evident momentarily by healing the blind man, making him “able to see” (9:7).

John goes on in his very long chapter—it’s ch. 9 in case you’d like to read the entire story—to show us that the man has been healed on 2 levels, for he comes to see that Jesus is the Messiah (cf. 9:35-38).  The Jewish leaders cannot perceive that and remain in spiritual blindness (9:40-41).

In this sacrament of Baptism, which the Eastern Churches often call “Enlightenment,” a person receives the light of Christ.  We have a ritual component that will bring that out.  Christ’s light reveals the Father to us—his goodness, his power, his beauty—and reveals our relationship with the Father thru our relationship with Christ.  We become daughters or sons of God thru the Only-begotten Son.

Now we walk in Christ’s light in order to be his continuing light in the world.  “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”  He himself tells his followers:  “You are the light of the world.  A city built on a mountaintop cannot be hidden” (Matt 5:14), and we aren’t to be hidden but to let our light shine before the world so that everyone who sees it may see thru us the one who is truly the light.

Coincidentally, you’ve named your little one Clare, after Santa Chiara of Assisi.  The name means “clear, bright.”  May God our Father always make her a luminous, radiant light-bearer in this world, and may she shine in Christ’s light for eternity.