“The Word became flesh. Which means that all our fears, our doubts, our frustrations, our feelings of futility, of loneliness, worthlessness, weakness, depression, the sense that we can never do anything right, our dread and our longing, our neediness, our craving, our anguish, our aching — the Word took on all this in the Incarnation. And Jesus carried that excruciating mortal burden in his human flesh to John the Baptist so that he could plunge it into the Jordan River’s death-dealing, life-giving waters. How much we need to go out of ourselves in order to find ourselves. The sinless Jesus models for us the utterly fitting way to approach the Father: as repentant sinners surrendered to mercy so tender. God the Father delights to be acknowledged by human nothingness since such an offering is a confession of sublime trust. Jesus the beggar in the hands of John lowers himself in baptism and, as Nothingness, acknowledges his Father so that we will never be afraid to do the same. By joining Jesus in the gesture of plunging ourselves into the Father’s love, we hear his voice—“You are my beloved Son” — calling us his own.” ~Fr. Peter John Cameron, O.P., The Magnificat Rosary Companion