Who are you calling "beloved"?

“This is My Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased!”

That is what God the Father said about His Son, Jesus, as He was coming up from the waters of Baptism in the Jordan River. This is what God also says about us as Baptized disciples of Jesus Christ. We who have been immersed in Christ by being baptized are likewise ordained to listen to what God also says about us. If we are in Christ, then we belong to the “belovedness” with which God embraced the human Jesus. We are not divine, but divinely blest into a new identity which has a hook.

It is great to know that we are God’s beloved. Most of the time we find this too hard to believe. We know our sin, our faults, our mistakes, and our meanness. We mistakenly think that there is no way that we can be beloved by God with these flaws and marks on our souls. (Actually I think those thoughts of our inadequacies are temptations that Satan plants in us to make us doubt God.) Yet we are God’s beloved children nonetheless. We are not loved by God because He sees our potential or because He overlooks our sins. God loves us, period! He loved us into being, loves us enough to forgive us, and keeps on loving us. We can’t understand it or earn it. There are no conditions on God’s love.

But there is a hook! If we begin to listen to who God says we are then we are ordained for life to keep listening to God’s voice. That’s the hook. God calls us His “beloved” at birth, then especially at Baptism, and then over and over throughout our lives. God never stops calling us to hear His voice calling us to live as His beloved from conception until being born again into eternal life. Then we’ll understand completely the depths and reality of God’s love. The problem is that God sometimes speaks His love to us through prayer, sometimes through people who are trying to love us, sometimes through strangers on TV, or at times through the Sacraments or sacramental moments where God is trying to get our attention.

Being attentive and aware that God speaks in all sorts of voices and languages is the spiritual work of our lives. Prayer, coming to Mass to be in Communion with God and the People of God, reading scriptures, and studying our faith, are just a few of the ways to keep our souls open to the voice of God. Most of the time God speaks to us through unexpected people and ways, and He speaks at unexpected times. But the time and effort we spend at prayer and study help us hear God better.

As we celebrate this Feast of the Baptism of the Lord Jesus at the beginning of a new year let’s spend a little time with God. It could be a nice resolution in fact. Ten minutes reading scriptures, in front of the Eucharist, or even without the radio on in the car may plow the ground that God needs to plant His Word brand new in you. Take the risk of being beloved by God!

paz,
Fr. Chuck