Monday, January 9 : Saint Gregory Nazianzen

I cannot restrain my pleasure; I am rapt into God. Almost like John I proclaim good tidings; for though I be not a Forerunner, yet am I from the desert. Christ is illumined, let us shine forth with Him. Christ is baptized, let us descend with Him that we may also ascend with Him. John baptizes, Jesus comes to Him (Matthew 3:14) …perhaps to sanctify the Baptist himself, but certainly to bury the whole of the old Adam in the water; and before this and for the sake of this, to sanctify Jordan; for as He is Spirit and Flesh, so He consecrates us by Spirit and water. John 5:35 John will not receive Him; Jesus contends. I have need to be baptized by You Matthew 3:17 says the Voice to the Word, the Friend to the Bridegroom. “I have need to be baptized by You”; Jesus says ” Allow it to be so now”, for this fulfills in all wisdom the plan of God. Jesus goes up out of the water…for with Himself He carries up the world…and sees the heaven opened which Adam had shut against himself and all his posterity, as the gates of Paradise by the flaming sword. And the Spirit bears witness to His Godhead, for he descends upon One that is like Him, as does the Voice from Heaven, for He to Whom the witness is borne came from thence. But let us venerate today the Baptism of Christ; and let us keep the feast well. Be purified, and you shall be clean, for God rejoices in nothing so much as in the amendment and salvation of man, on whose behalf is every discourse and every Sacrament, that you may be like lights in the world, a quickening force to all other men; that you may stand as perfect lights beside That great Light, and may learn the mystery of the illumination of Heaven.

Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team