Daily Gospel Reflection for January 11, 2014

Today's Gospel: John 3:22-30

Jesus is baptizing.  John is also baptizing.  There is an “abundance of water”, so it seems we don't need to be concerned with being anything but being thoroughly cleansed by our own baptisms and our faithfulness to those vows.

We stand with John.  We recognize, as we live out our vocations as Catholic moms, that we are not the Christ.  By His grace, we live and move and have our being.

We wake, we serve, we love, we offer.  When we fail, we dive back into the grace in sacramental confession, and emerge from the plunge even stronger.

We recognize our need, and want, our thirst, and see, interestingly enough, that it is in the “decrease” that we see Him “increase.”  Like John, we ask for the greatest of all virtues:  humility.  This is our joy.  It becomes complete when we give ourselves away in love: of our families, our children.

And somehow, in this humility, this decrease, we become more ourselves.  He has filled us with His grace. He has increased.

Ponder:

How has the gift of humility manifested itself in your life?

Pray:

Dear Lord, by the intercession of St. John the Baptist, give us the grace to stay faithful to our baptismal vows.  We ask for the great virtue of humility so that in serving our loved ones, and decreasing our need for self-gratification, we might find our true selves and increase in the great joy that you promise.  Amen.

Copyright 2014 Cynthia Ann Costello