We generally refer to the last three years Our Lord spent on earth as His apostolic life. An apostle is a person sent on a mission, and in this final stage of His earthly sojourn Our Lord gave Himself, in great measure, to doing works that would directly contribute to the conversion of souls. Thus He founded His Church, preached and wrought miracles, established His claim to be the Son of God, permitted men to pay Him divine worship.
Today He comes to the Jordan. It is the immediate prelude to His period of activity, and what He does here is, therefore, an instruction, a rule of conduct, for all who would labor with Him in the divine work of bringing souls to heaven.
He begins by being baptized, as though He was a common sinner. St. John demurs, but Jesus steps down from the bank into the water and is insistent, telling John that in this manner all justice is fulfilled.
Hence humility, proved by acceptance of humiliations, is the first foundation stone in the apostolate. Those, who have followed the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius will recall that when he invites them to contemplate the war between Christ and Satan, he bids them to beg, not for zeal _ as might have been expected _ but for humility, humiliations, and poverty. Did that petition form itself in his mind and heart when he prayed with Jesus at His Baptism? Anyhow, it is clear that for a successful apostolate the apostle must employ the methods of Christ, and Jesus begins here by debasing and humiliating Himself.
The task awaiting the apostle is a gigantic one. He does not go into the midst of men merely to interest them in a new philosophy; he does not seek to browbeat them in argument; he has little by way of natural recompense to offer them as an inducement to abandon sin or error and follow a life of virtue. What he has to do, what he must keep on trying to do till his last breath, is to spend himself on the supernatural work of filling their souls with divine grace. Like the Master, he can say he has come that men may have life and have it more abundantly.
The moment one regards the apostolate in this way, the only correct way, the more one must see the absolute fatuity of imagining that mere natural instruments can ever accomplish the task. The work is supernatural and only means that are supernatural can do it. Foremost amongst these, if, the example of the great Apostle counts for anything, is profound humility in the worker. What could be more reasonable? A bishop considered one soul enough for his diocese. Consider the eternal issues at stake in the work of the apostle; consider the reverence for souls shown by Jesus Christ; remember that their salvation and sanctification was the task that engrossed the Son of God and brought Him from heaven to earth. What man, be he the greatest saint of his century, but must recognize how utterly unworthy he is to cooperate with Our Lord in this divine work?
This humility does not imply that he will cringe before those who oppose him, does not demand that he should deny the gifts God has given him. But humility, based on a true knowledge of his sinfulness in sight of the ineffable holiness of God, recognizing the sacredness of the task imposed on him, sends him with his Master into the waters of the Jordan. That is to say, he is so firmly persuaded of his worthlessness and sinfulness that he expects and welcomes whatever humiliates him, provided he has done nothing culpable to deserve it. It is souls of this caliber whom the Lord reaches down to, lifting them, and with them numerous souls, from the death of sin to the life of grace, from tepidity and laxity to fervor and holiness. "He resists the proud and gives grace to the humble."
Jesus, it is a lesson hard for flesh and blood. All that is natural in me wants to rise up to assert my rights, to vindicate myself when blamed, even if I deserve the blame, and more so still if I am innocent. Give me a share in Your humility, that virile virtue that is able to embrace humiliations.