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| Tapestry by John Nava |
The Christmas season on the church calendar is not yet complete: it will end with this weekend's celebration of the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. (We return to Ordinary Time on Monday, January 12.)
You can find the readings for this weekend and background material on them here.
Background
With this Sunday's feast we come to the close of a season of Theophanies. Our word Theophany comes to us from the Greek Θεοφάνεια - Τheophaneia which means "appearance of God."
In the early Church, Epiphany originally celebrated four different events: the Baptism of the Lord; Christ's first miracle, the changing of water into wine at the Wedding in Cana; the Nativity of Christ; and the Visit of the Magi. By the 4th century, these theophany feasts separated out into individual celebrations, principally: Christmas on December 25 and Epiphany on January 6.
This weekend the gospel (Matthew) tells the story of Jesus being baptized in the Jordan River by John - and the voice of God declaring Christ as the Beloved
Son. (The same event is found in the day's second scripture taken from the Acts of the Apostles.)
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