Baptism of the Lord, A January 11, 2026
Fr. Alexander Albert St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville
Why are you here? Why do you go to Mass, pray, do the Catholic thing? Habit? Someone else making you do it? Curiosity? Fear of Hell? Motivation in human beings is strange. Animals have instincts that tell them what to seek. They are biologically programed to want food, water, sleep, affection, pleasure and so on. We want those things too, but under the surface, there’s a whole mess of tangled motivations. You feed, shelter, and show affection to an animal? They are happy. You feed, shelter, and show affection to a human being? They’ll start asking questions. When animals have everything they need, they rest. When human beings have everything they need, they look for more.
Sometimes that’s getting excessive in what they consume. Sometimes that’s subconsciously sabotaging the good things around them, creating conflict so they have something to do. Sometimes they get depressed and stop enjoying what they have. In just about everything we chase, once we get it, we’re only happy for a little while. Jim Carrey once said, “I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.”
Even if you don’t believe me, still consider that first question: why do you do what you do? Whatever your answer, ask yourself “and why do you want that?” Eventually, you get to the final answer: we do what we do because we want to be happy. Happiness is the goal in itself. So, why are you here? Why do the Catholic thing? Because, on some level, you think it will in some way contribute to your happiness.
By happiness, I don’t mean just feeling good or having fun. I mean that abiding, lasting joyful arrival, that state of deep, unbroken peace that we only ever manage to taste a sample of for like 3 seconds at a time in this world yet never stop chasing. One interesting way we look for happiness is by trying to make other people happy. We do something and ask, “do you think they’ll like it?” A girlfriend, a boyfriend, a parent… One that’s often stood out to me is the way everyone wants their parents to be proud of them, especially dad. All the time, books and movies and stories will reference that desire. Watch the Marvel movies from the beginning and notice how much Tony Stark’s character development centers around fatherhood. Comedy movies will sometimes make fun of the crazy things people do to make their dad love them, even having characters outright say “tell me dad is proud of me!”
There are all kinds of psychological, sociological, and biological reasons human beings want the approval of mom and dad, but it should be obvious to us that there is an even deeper theological reason. God tells us to call him Father for a reason. Indeed, the psychological drive to find dad’s approval is intentionally designed by God to point us to the more important and eternal need to have God’s approval.
God addresses that desire outright in today’s feast and gospel. God could have chosen any way he wanted to reveal himself, but he specifically chose to show up as a Son who does His Father’s will. God taps into our deep desire to make dad proud and says, “Yes! I want you to be my son, my daughter and I want to be proud of you!”
“This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased.” God’s voice literally booms from heaven to say, “that’s my boy!” Then he dedicates the rest of time to making that true for every single one of us. From the time of Jesus’ baptism until the end of the universe, God’s goal is to make us his children and for us to make him proud. That morphs into something even deeper, but it starts with being his beloved children.
So why are you here? Because you – or at least most of you – were baptized. You are already God’s son or daughter. Whether you realize it or not, deep down, you have a desire, a need for your heavenly Father to pay attention to you. Like rebellious children, that often turns into getting any attention, even if it’s negative, but it’s there. All of us want to be happy and some part of you knows that God the Father’s attention to you is part of that happiness.
And when we don’t clearly understand our motivations, we get all kinds of mixed up. The most common form of this is confusing God being proud of you with God loving you. We think we have to be good in order to earn his love. Our second reading shows St. Peter saying, “I see that God shows no partiality. In every nation whoever fears him and acts uprightly is acceptable to him.” That sounds like “be good so dad – so God the Father – will finally love you.” But it’s not actually the same thing. Our world wants us to think that loving someone means you find everything about them acceptable. But even a little bit of scrutiny pops that bubble of lies. How many parents have said, “that kind of behavior is unacceptable” to their child? It is because they love their children that they refuse to accept certain behaviors. God loves you even if you’re unacceptable. He loves you enough to help you become acceptable.
Jesus is a beloved son. The fact he is loved is simply true, just part of the reality that he is God’s son. The Father is also well pleased with him. That’s different than being loved. Jesus always does what is pleasing to his Father, but that distinction is important for us. We are loved even before baptism. God’s love is literally a requirement for us to exist. Everything that exists only exists as long as God loves it.
By baptism, that love makes us sons and daughters of the father. Beloved son, beloved daughter. Cannot change, cannot be earned, cannot be lost. Even in hell, we are God’s beloved children. So, if we are motivated by the desire to earn God’s love, we’re going to get all kinds of messed up. We already have it. What we actually crave is his pleasure, his approval, his being proud of us. That does depend on what we do. But if we don’t realize that we’re chasing his approval… if we confuse that with earning his love, we’ll misunderstand what love is. If we think losing God’s approval means losing His love, we’ll fall for the lie that God is not good and that lie always leads to misery.
How, then, do we seek to make the father “well pleased” with us as he is with Jesus? Well, start by actually naming that desire. Start by naming the even more basic desire. What do you want? To be happy! So why go to Mass, why pray, sacrifice, deny yourself, and do all the other Catholic stuff? Because you’re afraid of hell? Sure, avoiding hell is good. You can’t be happy in hell, but you also can’t be happy just by running away from things. You have to run towards something. Don’t feel guilty that you want to be happy. Own your desire to be happy. Only, learn to see what happiness really is and really isn’t.
Why bother with the hard life of a practicing Catholic? When it gets tough, guilt can only get you so far. Trying to earn love you already have won’t get you very far either. But knowing that you are already loved, doing the tough thing to please the one who loves you? That works. It works even when we lack all the things an animal needs to be happy… even when we’re suffering, we can find joy in pleasing God. And God is not so difficult to please as you might think. He does not quench the smoldering wick or break the bruised reed. He is only satisfied with perfection, but he is pleased with progress and endurance.
Every tiny act of love, every hidden little choice to fulfill righteousness, every act of repentance – even for the 1000th time… he is pleased! You are his beloved son, his beloved daughter and if you don’t forget that, if you don’t give up trying to act accordingly – even if you fail, so long as you continue to try – then you too can hear him say “with you I am well pleased.”