Pope Francis has been dedicating his Wednesday general audience catecheses to the theme of the Holy Spirit, and this August 21, he considered the Spirit’s presence when Jesus was baptized on the Jordan. “The entire Trinity met at that moment, on the banks of the Jordan!”
There is the Father, who is present with His voice; there is the Holy Spirit, who descends upon Jesus in the form of a dove, and there is He Whom the Father proclaims to be His beloved Son, Jesus. It is a very important moment of Revelation, it is an important moment of salvation history. It will be good for us to reread this passage of the Gospel.
The Pope said that the Spirit came upon Jesus in the Jordan and “spreads from Him into His body, which is the Church.”
He also noted that all the Evangelists recount the scene, leading him to ask, “What happened that was so important in the baptism of Jesus that led all the Evangelists to recount it?”
We find the answer in the words Jesus utters, shortly afterwards, in the synagogue of Nazareth, clearly referring to the event in the Jordan: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me” (Lk 4:18).
In the Jordan, God the Father “anointed with the Holy Spirit”; that is, He consecrated Jesus as King, Prophet and Priest. Indeed, in the Old Testament, kings, prophets and priests were anointed with perfumed oil. In the case of Christ, instead of physical oil, there is the spiritual oil that is the Holy Spirit; instead of the symbol there is the reality: there is the very Spirit who descends upon Jesus.
Anointed for mission
Pope Francis explained that Jesus was filled with the Spirit from the first moment of His incarnation, but at the Jordan this was “a ‘personal grace,’ incommunicable; now, instead, with this anointment, He receives the fullness of the gift of the Spirit, but for His mission which, as the head, He will communicate to His body, which is the Church, and to every one of us.”
The Hebrew term “Messiah” and the corresponding Greek “Christ” – Christós, both referring to Jesus, mean “anointed.” He was anointed with the oil of joy, anointed with the Holy Spirit. Our very name of “Christians” was explained by the Fathers in the literal sense: “Christian” means “anointed in imitation of Christ.” Christians, anointed in imitation of Christ.
Perfumed oil
The Holy Father went on to speak of the biblical use of the imagery of anointing and perfumed oil
There is a Psalm in the Bible that speaks of a perfumed oil, poured on the head of the high priest Aaron, and which descends to the hem of his robe (cf. Ps 133:2). This poetic image of the descending oil, used to describe the happiness of living together as brothers, has become a spiritual reality and a mystical reality in Christ and in the Church. Christ is the head, our High Priest, the Holy Spirit is the perfumed oil, and the Church is the body of Christ in which it spreads.
So the Holy Spirit is symbolized as wind, Ruah, but now, “It is also worth asking ourselves why it is symbolized by oil, and what practical lesson we can draw from this symbol.”
Citing both St. Paul and the morning Mass of Holy Thursday, when the chrism is anointed, the Pope said that “anointment perfumes us, and a person who lives his anointment with joy makes the Church fragrant, makes the community fragrant, makes the family fragrant with this spiritual scent.”
Fragrance of Christ vs odor of sin
We know that, unfortunately, sometimes Christians do not spread the fragrance of Christ, but the bad odour of their own sin. And let us never forget: Sin distances us from Jesus, sin makes us become bad oil. And the devil – let us not forget this – the devil usually enters via the pocket. Beware, beware.
However, this must not distract us from the commitment of realizing, as far as we are able and each in their own environment, this sublime vocation of being the good fragrance of Christ in the world. The fragrance of Christ emanates from the “fruits of the Spirit,” which are “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal 5:22).
Paul said this, and how good it is to find a person who has these virtues: love, a loving person, a joyful person, a person who makes peace, a magnanimous person, not mean, magnanimous, a benevolent person who welcomes everyone, a good person, a faithful person, a meek person, who is not proud, but meek … [We] will feel some of the fragrance of the Spirit of Christ around us, when we find these people.
Let us ask the Holy Spirit to make us more aware that we are anointed, anointed by Him.
And today we celebrate...