As we come to the end of the Christmas Season, we hear those
powerful words of John the Baptist, words that are to be taken as a personal
motto by every Christian, “He must increase; I must decrease”
We will experience peace and joy to the extent that we hand
our lives over to God; that we die to our selfishness and self-indulgences, and
give ourselves more and more to the work of Christ. We experience the fullness of life only as we
allow Christ’s attitudes and desires and behaviors to replace our own.
We see this evident particularly in the Blessed Virgin Mary,
whom we honor on this Saturday morning; she who made herself low, who
proclaimed herself to be the handmaid of the Lord. In her receptivity to God, she did not attempt
to interject her own willfulness, but humbly received the direction her life
was to take from God.
For many in our secularized culture, Christmas has come and
gone. Christmas for many is an exercise
in self-indulgence. For Christians,
Christmas is celebrated through an entire season in which we pray that the
light of Christ illuminates our lives more and more deeply, dispelling the
darkness of our self-centeredness, replacing it with God-centeredness.
Christ was born to die and bring us life. We in turn must die to our selfishness to
receive his life and his joy. A deeper
relationship with God comes from a readiness to give up everything else; to
lose everything that Christ might be glorified in my life.
As we conclude this Christmas season, we do well to think of
those areas in my life in which I still have much decreasing to do, much dying
to do, and those areas in our life where Christ must increase.
The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, which we celebrate
this weekend, is to be a renewal of our own baptismal promises, where we
renounce sin, and promise to live as children of light. May we take seriously this call to decrease,
so that in us, the light and life of Christ may increase for the glory of God
and salvation of souls.
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