Do you remember at last Sunday’s Mass how St. Luke told us that, at the Baptism of Jesus, “heaven was opened?” St. Mark’s Gospel says it even more powerfully: “the heavens were torn apart!”
When we think of God, we often think of Him being “up there” and we’re down here and there is always a cloud or another obstacle or just a great distance between us. In the Old Testament, the clouds were used symbolically to express a barrier between us and God. And in many ways that is true. God is so far beyond our ability to know or understand.
Nonetheless, when the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity took on our human flesh in the Incarnation, the heavens were “torn open.” Earth was at last reunited with heaven, the barrier between God and us was removed. When the Son of God took on our human nature, He became like us in all things except sin (as St. Paul tells us).
Jesus came to bridge the distance between God and us and to make it possible for us to know Him in a close and intimate way. We still have a long way to go in our relationship with God, but the way has been opened for us to keep growing closer and closer. That way is Jesus!
Let us pray. “Father in heaven, Lord, we thank you for the precious gift of Baptism. Help us to publicly declare, by what we say and do, our love and passion for you. We ask that your goodness and blessing be poured out on your family, so that we might be faithful servants always and in everything. We pray that you would work deeply within our hearts to renew and refresh us each day. Guide our footsteps on the way of peace and give us a longing for our heavenly home. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
