"They didn't know who they were." This is how Hilary summed up the problem with the Arian heretics of the fourth century.
Hilary, on the other hand, knew who he was – a child of a loving God who had inherited eternal life through belief in the Son of God. He hadn't been raised as a Christian, but he had felt a wonder at the gift of life. Yet, his search for the meaning of life wasn't easy.
In the words of Olivier Clément, "For a long time he was a searcher after God. He moved from hedonism, to stoicism, he tried out sects and esoteric cults... ."
In his heart, Hilary knew he wasn't a beast grazing in a pasture. Human beings should rise above desires and live lives of virtue, philosophers wrote. But Hilary knew deep down that humans were meant for even more than living a good life.
So he kept looking. He was told many things about the divine, many that we still hear today: that there were many gods, that God didn't exist and that all creation was the result of random acts of nature, that God existed but didn't really care for His creation, that God was in creatures or images. His soul told him these ideas were wrong. God had to be one because no creation could be as great as God. God had to be concerned with God's creation – otherwise, why create it?
At that point, Hilary later wrote, he "chanced upon" the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. When he read the verse where God tells Moses "I AM WHO I AM" (Exodus 3:14), Hilary said, "I was frankly amazed at such a clear definition of God, which expressed the incomprehensible knowledge of the divine nature in words most suited to human intelligence."
But still he was troubled. Now he knew the giver of life, but what was he, the recipient of the gift? Was he just created for the moment to disappear at death? It made sense that God's purpose in creation should be "that what did not exist began to exist, not that what had begun to exist would cease to exist." Then Hilary found the Gospel of John, where he read about the Son of God and how Jesus had been sent to bring eternal life to those who believed.
Finally, Hilary's soul was at rest. He wrote, "No longer did it look upon the life of this body as troublesome or wearisome, but believed it to be what the alphabet is to children... namely, as the patient endurance of the present trials of life in order to gain a blissful eternity."
He was baptized in about 345, and about 350 the clergy and laity of his hometown, Poitiers, France, elected him bishop because of his intellect and zeal. And it wasn't long before his newfound faith got him into trouble.
The Arians, who did not believe in Christ's divinity, were growing in power and persecuting many faithful. When Hilary refused to support the Arians' condemnation of St. Athanasius, he was exiled from Poitiers to Phrygia (in modern-day Turkey) in 356. The Arians couldn't have had a worse plan – for themselves.
Hilary had known little of the whole Arian controversy before being banished. But being exiled from his home and his duties gave him plenty of time to study and write. He learned everything he could about the Arians, and then he began to write: "Although in exile we shall speak through these books, and the word of God, which cannot be bound, shall move about in freedom." Writings of his that still exist include the 12-book series "On the Trinity," "Commentary on St. Matthew's Gospel," and "Treatises on the Psalms."
After three years the emperor kicked him back to Poitiers because he was tired of having to deal with the troublemaker, "a sower of discord and a disturber of the Orient." But no one told Hilary he had to go straight back home, so he took a leisurely route through Greece and Italy, preaching against the Arians as he went.
In the East he had heard the hymns used by Arians as propaganda. So when he was back at home, Hilary started writing hymns of propaganda himself to spread the true faith. These hymns are the first in the West with a known writer.
A favorite motto of his was "Ministros veritatis decet vera proferre" ("Servants of the truth ought to speak the truth").
Hilary died in 367 or 368 and was proclaimed a doctor of the Church in 1851. His feast day is Jan. 13.
— Source: www.Catholic.org
“The Baptism of Christ” by Giovanni Bellini. On display at Santa Corona, Vicenza, Italy.On the second Sunday of January, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, and it is with this awe-filled liturgy that the three great revelations or “theophanies” of the Christmas season are brought to stunning fulfillment.
The first of these revelations was the birth of the Christ child, which was celebrated on Christmas Day. This “theophany” presented to us the first occasion when it was made known to human sight that God had accepted for Himself a human nature and allowed Himself to be born in this world as a man. God comes to Israel and the world in much the same manner as we all have. God is born in Christ to particular parents, into a particular family, and at a particular place and time. God is who Christ is – as an infant, as a child and as a grown man: Christ is God!
The second of these revelations was commemorated in the United States on the solemnity of Christ’s Epiphany. In this liturgy, the theophany of Christ as Messiah (that is, as the true King of Israel) was revealed. With this revelation came also signs that foreshadowed Christ’s mission – a mission by which He would transform both Israel and the world. The Church professes and believes that Christ is the fulfillment of the expectations of Israel that God would send to His people a Messiah; but more than this, we believe that it is the God of Israel Himself who comes into this world as the Messiah!
The third of these revelations is presented in the liturgy in which the Church accepts and discerns the event of Christ’s Baptism.
Though this event hearkens to and foreshadows the Church’s Sacrament of Baptism, we shouldn’t confuse the two. Christ does not receive the Sacrament of Baptism, and what John imparts is not what the Church is doing when people are baptized.
The baptism of John was a ritual act of purification which was much like the mikvah that a faithful Israelite accepted before they entered the precincts of the Temple. John presented his mikvah or baptism as an act by which one would be prepared to receive the Messiah and enter with Him into the Messianic Age.
It is mysterious as to why Christ would Himself accept this kind of baptism.
Perhaps it is to show the depth of His identification with Israel and that, as their Messiah, He would not expect or ask anything of His chosen people that He would not at first undergo Himself.
Or maybe it is to foreshadow His immersion into sin and death in the terrifying event of the cross. As He descends into the depths of the Jordan River and then emerges, so will it be in His Paschal Mystery.
The Fathers of the Church presented the insight that as Christ immersed Himself in the waters of John’s baptism, He sanctified all the waters of the world for use in the Church’s Sacrament of Baptism.
These are all interesting and helpful insights, but none in itself is the revelation or the theophany that this feast’s liturgy presents.
The great revelation of the Lord’s Baptism is discerned, not in the reason that He accepts Baptism, but that in that moment something about God’s identity was revealed that was not fully known or even believed to be possible. The Baptism of Christ is the occasion when the Trinity is revealed – the Son makes Himself known, the Father speaks and the Holy Spirit descends. It is this mystery, the mystery of the Trinity, that brings the revelations or the theophanies of the holy season of Christmas to their fulfillment.
The lesson?
Remember Christians, you do not believe that God is merely an idea in your mind or a projection of your best self. God is not for you some unknown and unknowable force in the universe or a feeling that you contain in your heart. The one, true God has revealed Himself in Christ as the Trinity – the mysterious communion of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, a communion of Divine Love “in which we live and move and have our being.” It is this Divine Love that brought all into existence, and because of Christ, it is to this Divine Love that we will all one day return.
— Father Steve Grunow Word of Fire.Father Steve Grunow is the CEO of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries.