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I'm Father Jim Martin. I'm about to lead you through a traditional Jesuit prayer that will

help you notice where God has been in your day. But first, let's begin with our weekly reflection, which is released every Sunday.

Did you ever wonder why Jesus needed to be baptized?

After all, the baptism of Jesus, the feast we celebrate this week, seems a bit strange,

theologically.

John the Baptist, as you know, was preaching a baptism of repentance, but Jesus, the sinless

one, had nothing to repent at all.

So why did the baptism happen?

Well, the gospel narratives are somewhat vague on the reasons. One says it happened to fulfill all righteousness, which is a way of saying it was

God's plan. That's the answer Jesus gives when John questions it in one of the Gospels.

There are several possible explanations for this event, many really.

First, Jesus may have wanted to inaugurate his public ministry in a very public way,

and to honor the person who was most likely his mentor for a time.

Or Jesus may have felt something interiorly, based on his relationship with God the Father that we will never know,

which drove him to baptism.

Or perhaps, as I like to think of it, Jesus was casting his lot with humanity in another way.

Of course, God became human at the incarnation, and with the conception of Jesus, God enters into the

human race. But perhaps, Jesus saw what the other devout Jews of his day were doing, flocking to

...