Christian Art | Jesus Is Baptized By John The Baptist In The River Jordan
Office Of Readings | Week 13, Thursday, Ordinary Time | A Reading From A Homily Of Saint Jerome On The Newly Baptized
‘I will go to the place of the wonderful tabernacle.’
The Soul’s Thirst For God
Saint Jerome begins by drawing a direct connection between the deer of the psalm and the newly baptized, freshly emerged from the waters of baptism. The metaphor of thirst is especially apt during this Easter season, when catechumens have completed their Lenten preparation and now experience the fulfilment of their longing in the sacraments. For Jerome, this thirst is not a vague spiritual desire but an acute yearning for the triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—whom he identifies as the ‘three fountains’ of the Church.
Saint Jerome’s scriptural exegesis is both rich and concise. He draws on Jeremiah, Sirach, and John’s Gospel to show how each person of the Trinity is spoken of as a fountain or source of living water. In doing so, Jerome roots the mystical experience of the newly baptized not in abstract theology but in the very heart of Scripture. For Jerome, to thirst for these waters is to thirst for communion with the Trinity, to desire the very life of God.
Joy Of The Baptised | From The Waters To The Altar
Having passed through the baptismal waters—which Jerome likens to the Red Sea, echoing the Exodus typology so cherished by the early Church—Jerome’s newly baptized have left behind the bondage of Egypt and the tyranny of Pharaoh. In patristic interpretation, Egypt represents sin and death; Pharaoh is the devil; and baptism is the act by which Christ drowns the powers of evil in the waters of regeneration.
Now, having passed safely through this perilous sea, the baptized find themselves standing at the altar, in the very presence of God. They have received the body of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist and have entered the ‘marvellous dwelling place’ of God—the Church. The liturgy, then, is not merely a human celebration but a participation in divine mystery. It is the fulfilment of their desire and the start of their new life.
The Church | God’s Dwelling Place And Celebration Of Life
Saint Jerome’s image of the Church as the ‘house of God… filled with joyful voices… all the sounds of festive celebration’ presents a strikingly eschatological vision. The Church is not only the pilgrim people of God but also the very Temple in which God dwells. The celebration of the Eucharist becomes the space in which heaven and earth meet, and the baptized participate in the life of the Trinity through sacramental communion.
There is a clear allusion here to Psalm 122:1—‘I rejoiced when I heard them say, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”’ For Jerome, the newly baptized now are in that house; they have entered into the joy of the Lord, and their presence is marked by both celebration and transformation.
From Death To Life | The Fish Drawn From The Sea
One of the most arresting passages in this sermon is Jerome’s metaphor of the baptized as ‘little fish’ drawn out of the sea by the apostles. Jerome contrasts this image with the natural world: fish taken out of water normally die. Yet in the economy of salvation, the inverse is true—here, to be drawn out of the sea (which represents the fallen world) is to be saved from death.
This image connects deeply with early Christian art and theology. In the catacombs, fish often symbolise Christians and Christ himself (via the acrostic ICHTHYS). Jerome’s allusion thus reflects not only a vivid theology of grace but also the living imagination of the early Church. Baptism is not a mere ritual washing; it is a death and resurrection—an entry into divine life.
From Darkness To Light | A Change Of Vision
Once drawn from the sea, the baptized are now able to ‘look upon the sun… the true light.’ This echoes Saint Paul’s language in Ephesians—‘you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord’—and the Johannine themes of light and vision. The soul once immersed in the abyss now gazes upward, transformed, illuminated by divine grace.
For Jerome, to ‘see the face of God’ is the fulfilment of the psalmist’s desire and the ultimate end of the Christian life. It is not merely a metaphor for feeling close to God, but a participation in the beatific vision, anticipated here and now through sacramental life and made perfect in the life to come.
Office Of Readings | Week 13, Thursday, Ordinary Time | A Reading From A Homily Of Saint Jerome On The Newly Baptized
As the deer longs for running water, so my soul longs for you, my God. Just as the deer longs for running water, so do our newly baptized members, our young deer, so to speak, also yearn for God. By leaving Egypt and the world, they have put Pharaoh and his entire army to death in the waters of baptism. After slaying the evil, their hearts long for the springs of running water in the Church. These springs are the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Jeremiah testifies that the Father is like a fountain when he says: They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, to dig for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water. In another passage we read about the Son: They have forsaken the fountain of wisdom. And again, John says of the Holy Spirit: Whoever drinks the water I will give him, that water shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into eternal life. The evangelist explains that the Savior said this of the Holy Spirit. The testimony of these texts establishes beyond doubt the three fountains of the Church constitute the mystery of the Trinity.
These are the waters that the heart of the believer longs for, these are the waters that the heart of the newly baptized yearns for when he says: My heart thirsts for God, the living fountain. This is not a weak, faint desire to see God; rather the newly baptized actually burn with desire and thirst for God. Before they received baptism, they used to ask one another: When shall I go and see the face of God? Now their quest has been answered. they have come forward and they stand in the presence of God. They have come before the altar and have looked upon the mystery of the Savior.
Having received the body of Christ, and being reborn in the life-giving waters, they speak up boldly and say: I shall go into God’s marvelous dwelling place, his house. The house of God is the Church, his marvelous dwelling place, filled with joyful voices giving thanks, and praise, filled with all the sounds of festive celebration.
This is the way you should speak, you newly baptized, for you have now put on Christ. Under our guidance, by the word of God you have been lifted out of the dangerous waters of this world like so many little fish. In us the nature of things has been changed. Fish taken out of the sea die; but the apostles have fished for us and have taken us out of the sea of this world so we could be brought from death to life. As long as we were in the world, our eyes looked down into the abyss and we lived in filth. After we were rescued from the waves, we began to look upon the sun and look up at the true light. Confused in the presence of so much joy, we say: Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, in the presence of my savior and my God.
Prayer With Jesus Christ | Prayer Of The Newly Baptized Soul
O Living God,
Fountain of mercy and wellspring of eternal light,
You have drawn me out of the deep waters
And placed me in the dwelling of your presence.
With the thirst of the deer, my soul yearns for you.
Let me drink deeply of your truth,
Refresh me with the waters of your Word,
Sustain me with the bread of your Son.
You have made me a child of the Church,
And clothed me in Christ.
Grant me the grace to live as one who has been
Rescued from the sea of sin
And called into the light of the Resurrection.
May I always gaze toward the Sun of righteousness,
Praise you in the midst of the assembly,
And never cease to hope in your salvation,
Until I behold your face in the land of the living.
Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Glossary of Christian Terms
Baptism – The first sacrament of Christian initiation, through which one is freed from sin, reborn as a child of God, and incorporated into the Church.
Mystagogical – Referring to the instruction given to the newly baptised (neophytes), deepening their understanding of the sacraments they have received, especially during the Easter season.
Typology – A method of biblical interpretation in which an element found in the Old Testament prefigures one found in the New Testament (e.g., the crossing of the Red Sea as a type of baptism).
Triune God / Trinity – The Christian doctrine that God is one in essence but three in persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Eschatology – The part of theology concerned with the final destiny of the soul and of humankind, including death, judgment, heaven, and hell.
Beatific Vision – The direct vision of God in the glory of heaven, the ultimate goal of human life according to Christian theology.
Living Water – A biblical metaphor for the Holy Spirit and divine life, drawn especially from John 4 and 7.
Liturgical Catechesis – The formation of believers through the rites and symbols of the Church’s worship, especially effective during the Easter season.
The House of God – In this context, refers both to the Church as a community of believers and to the heavenly temple, the eternal dwelling place of God.
Neophyte – A person newly received into the Church through Baptism, especially during the Easter season.
While Heaven is depicted as a place of eternal life, joy, and fellowship with God, Hell is described as a place of eternal separation from God, where people will experience great suffering and torment. Do we choose Hell as a rejection of love? [ … ]
Saint Cyril of Jerusalem’s catechetical reflection on the Holy Spirit, presented through the metaphor of ‘living water,’ offers an astonishingly rich meditation for catechumens and the faithful. His teaching, drawn from both Scripture and the lived experience of the Church, connects deeply with biblical imagery, theological reflection, liturgical practice, and mystical spirituality [ … ]
Sometimes, when I read my Bible, I pause in the reading and say to myself: ‘This bit’s real.’ It would be fair to say, I have issues with Mary, because, contrary to what we are taught to say, Mary isn’t my mother. Rather: Mum is. One bit of the Bible-text says this: And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for people were saying, “He is beside himself.” … And his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting about him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, asking for you.” And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking around on those who sat about him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother.” (Mark 3: 21; 31-35.) Here she comes. She is in considerable distress. I can imagine that. I can relate to that. To save her boy from whatever he’s got himself into this time. And you’re not telling me there isn’t something inside that. Her boy is beside himself. Radical. Radicalized. Radicalizing. A misunderstood word. /ˈradɪk(ə)l/ adjective & noun. 1 Forming the root, basis, or foundation; original, primary. 2a Inherent in the nature of a thing or person; fundamental. b Of action, change, an idea: going to the root or origin; far-reaching, thorough. c Advocating thorough or far-reaching change. d Characterized by departure from tradition; progressive; unorthodox. ‘He has a demon! And he is mad!’ – thus ‘the Jews’. (e.g. John 10: 20.) Come home! It’s all she wants. His family want him back now. But it is an exclusive cult: there is an inside and there is an outside; and on the outside, they are not meant to understand, lest they be converted. He has defined himself as different from anything she was. Only at the end does Jesus say to his Mum – and with savage, bitter irony: ‘Woman, behold your son.’ And then he dies. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. We ask that we might find Mary in our hearts as a Yes! place for Jesus. It is also recommended that we pray to Jesus that we may be further in oneness with Mary. It is self-emptying, such that we only exist insofar as we are responsive to God’s Word. * Last term, and put-out to pasture, the old Archbishop Emeritus came over to stay for a few days and did the odd class with us. He spoke of Yes! as the meaning of Mary’s virginity. And we were not very nice about him. One or two took umbrage. One or two got the hump. In a sense, his Grace, the Arch, basically wanted to move anyone he’d ever known from a high-place – a mountain – received theological ‘truth’ – to an imminent, human plane. Earthing the spiritual. Recalibrating metrics of life’s believability toward a spiritual sense of things. He might have asked the impermissible question: what happened? His Grace described it. God’s love as a cloud. This descended upon Mary – and subsumed her. Within the cloud, Mary capitulated utterly. She became only and purely a response to God’s love. As he spoke, the Arch cradled her. He carried her in his lap – in his hands. His Grace was a consecrated bishop. He was faith. He sat squat, a rounded man, hands cupped and ankles crossed, fingers interlocked, with parted thighs. Rumpled, washed, speckled. A lifetime’s skin… There could be no doubt His Grace spoke through long-term personal relationship with Mary. It was Julian went for him: ‘So are you saying Mary was a Virgin? Or are you not saying Mary was a Virgin?’ Nasty. No, it wasn’t pretty. Julian twisting his silver ring. For a moment, what Julian had said to the Arch simply failed to communicate. No, for a moment, that dumped on the air meant nothing. Then His Grace said: ‘There is a range of possible meanings we may understand in the question of Mary’s virginity. For example, there are understandings of the word virginity entailed in the action of giving birth.’ Julian said: ‘Duh! So had she had sex or hadn’t she?’ Trigger words. No, it wasn’t pretty. On that went for a little while. At length, Julian’s point seemed reluctantly conceded. Then the Arch told us a new story, an additionally human event, the more to baffle us. Controversially, he told us that Mary could not have been Joseph’s first wife, for this would not have been the way of things in the society of that time. His belief was that Joseph must have taken Mary into his household through pity. That would be normal, he said, for Joseph to bring a young, vulnerable girl, who is about to have a baby, within his protection, not meaning to enjoy with her marital relations, but through kindness. ‘And this story of the inn and stable,’ the Archbishop said, ‘it can’t have been like that really. Joseph has travelled with Mary to stay with his family, at home in Bethlehem, and they don’t want Mary in their house, for reasons which I am sure we can understand. It must have been there was considerable resistance to Mary. But Mary gives birth, and who can resist a baby? That’s what happened. It must have been. ‘I’m convinced that must have been how it happened really.’ Later that term, toward the beginning of Advent, we met boys who had been here before, in Valladolid, and now were in regular seminary. They had heard and recited verbatim all the Archbishop had said to them. Their spot-on impressions of each of the fathers were scathing. […]
