"After Jesus was baptized, he came up from the water." Matthew 3:13

It is good for us to remember what we have just celebrated at Christmas. God became man. Jesus is, in our strict Catholic definition, both God and man, possessing both divine and human natures. This requires a transformation.

The Bible is filled with transformation. Not only does God become man in Jesus Christ, but also God begins to transform His creation. Jesus cures the sick. He gives sight to the blind. He exorcises demons and gives the possessed peace of mind. He forgives sins and restores the sinner to a good conscience. He even raises the dead to life. All of these are transformations, and the transformations are not restricted to human beings. Jesus shows himself to be Lord by transforming the natural world too. He calms the stormy sea. To begin his ministry and work in St. Johnıs Gospel, Jesus changes water into wine at Cana.

With such a witness to transformation, should we be surprised at what He says the night before He dies at the Last Supper? Holding bread in His hands, He says, "Take and eat; this is my body" (Matthew 26:26). Jesus, who transformed the lives of countless sick, both spiritually and physically, transforms bread and wine into His Body and Blood. This transformation makes what Catholics call a sacrament possible.

A sacrament is meant to bring us into another world. Pope John Paul II has called the Mass "heaven on earth." Why? A transformation takes place. God enters human history. He who is timeless enters the time of man. The Pope explains it this way. "The liturgy we celebrate on earth is a mysterious participation in the heavenly liturgy." Mass is "heaven on earth" because through it we enter into another dimension, Godıs dimension.

What happens in the sacraments of the Catholic Church is that God makes Himself present to us in a very special way. God wants to share His life with us. That is Grace. To do this He becomes like us in every way, except sin. That is Jesus. Jesus is the sign of salvation. He is the sacrament of our redemption. He communicates that immense Grace of God to mankind by dying on the cross for our sins and leaving us His Body and Blood as an everlasting memorial of that redemption. That Grace of God is not confined in time. Jesus wanted the Good News to be preached to the world for all time until the end of time. For this He needs signs and He needs a Church to continue His transforming work. These sacramental signs continue His living presence, and when we encounter them, we encounter Jesus. The sacraments are Godıs new creation.

There is a little book on the Eucharist by a Benedictine monk called "A Key to the Doctrine of the Eucharist." Cardinal Dulles called it the finest book in theology written in English in the 20th Century. In that book the author writes this about sacrament: "The sacramental world is a new world created by God, entirely different from the world of nature, and even from the world of spirits. It would be bad theology to say that in the sacraments we have here on earth modes of spiritual realities which resemble the ways of the angels. We have nothing of the kind. If we spoke with tongues of angels and men it would not help us in the least to express the sacramental realities. Sacraments are a new creation with entirely new laws" (Anscar Vonier, p. 35). The author quotes St. Paul. There is a mystery "which for all ages was hidden in God, the Creator of all. Now, therefore, through the church, Godıs manifold wisdom is made known to the principalities and powers of heaven" (Ephesians 3:9-10) . Do I hear St. Paul correctly? You mean God has given to His Church a mystery hidden from all ages but now revealed even to heaven by that Church? Indeed, yes. And it is the sacramental world that makes it possible. God takes simple things and communicates spiritual realities.

There are some who will say that this is impossible. Is it? Is God who became man, cured the sick, raised the dead, expelled demons, and changed water into wine incapable? He can even take simple bread and wine into his hands and say, "This is my body", "This is my blood." Why? Because He wants to continue touching man with His Divine Grace and presence. Jesus is the Incarnation of God. "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17). God became man so that man could see God.

When Philip asked Jesus in the Gospel of St. John, "Master, show us the Father" (John 14:8). Jesus answered, "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). Jesus is the incarnation of the Fatherıs presence, and the Church through its sacraments continues that incarnation so that we can see the Father also. It is the mission of the Church to show us the Father, and it is the sacramental life of the Church that makes this possible. The Church is a church of possibilities because with God all things are possible. In it heaven touches earth, and we are transformed.