Bishop Anthony B. Taylor delivered this homily Jan. 3 during a Come and See weekend for men discerning the diocesan priesthood.
In today’s Gospel John the Baptist calls Jesus “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”
What does this mean for Jesus as he begins his public ministry? And what does it mean for us as we seek to know God’s will regarding the possibility of public ministry in our own lives?
In Jesus’ case, the title Lamb of God contains three levels of meaning.
So in every Mass, when we pray “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” we are echoing John the Baptist’s theologically rich reference to Jesus as the Passover lamb whose blood sets us free, our gentle lamb offered daily now in the unbloody sacrifice of the Mass for our own redemption and for the needs of the entire world.
Jesus offered himself up to the Father as both priest and victim: he offered the sacrifice as priest and he was the sacrifice as victim and that sacrifice continues today. Every priest is configured to Jesus with special intimacy through ordination such that he becomes an “alter Christus,” another Christ. And hence also another Lamb of God, such that in every Mass the priest offers his own body and blood in sacrifice to the Father too, united to that of Jesus.
In merely human terms, this of course seems impossible — but nothing is impossible for God. So open your hearts to the possibility that the Lord has chosen you for this most intimate and demanding and heart-warming role in his great work of salvation today.
Not just living for something bigger than yourself in general, but rather living for the biggest thing of all: God himself who invites you to be another Christ, another Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world: 1) sacramentally through baptism, through absolving sinners in Confession, through offering the Eucharist, by exercising your sacrament of holy orders, and 2) pastorally in working to build the Kingdom of God through your efforts to correct the evils in today’s world.
Many people still wander in darkness because there is no one to bring them the light: the darkness of poverty, of injustice, of immoral behavior, of materialism and a thousand other kinds of darkness, both internal and external.
The Lord can use you to make a difference as another Christ for today’s world, as another Lamb of God who offers himself in loving sacrifice because in our specific case, that is what faithfulness to God requires.
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