[Rank]
In Octava Epiphaniae;;Duplex majus;;4;;ex Sancti/01-06

[Rank1960]
Commemoratio Baptismatis Domini Nostri Jesu Christi;;Duplex II. classis;;5;;ex Sancti/01-06

[Rule]
ex Sancti/01-06;
Lectio1 tempora
Doxology=Epi
9 lectiones
Comkey=20

[Oratio]
O God, Whose only-begotten Son appeared in the substance of our flesh, grant, we beseech thee, that we who acknowledge His outward likeness to us may deserve to be inwardly refashioned in His image.
$Qui tecum

[Lectio4]
From the Sermons of St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Patriarch (of Constantinople.)
!Discourse on the Epiphany, 2
I am not able to restrain the outbursts of my happiness. I feel changed and elated. I forget my own meanness while I undertake and try to discharge the office of the great John. It is true that I am not the Forerunner, but at least I come from the desert. Christ is enlightened, or rather, He enlighteneth us with His own light. Christ is baptized; let us go down with Him into the water, that we may come up with Him.

[Lectio5]
John is baptizing. Jesus cometh. He cometh that He may make holy him who baptizeth Him; He cometh to bury the old Adam in the waters; He cometh to hallow the blessed flood of Jordan. He Who is Flesh and Spirit cometh to open for all that should ever be baptized that power of generation whereby new peoples are constantly begotten of water and the Holy Ghost. The Baptist will not receive Him. Jesus striveth with him. I, saith John, have need to be baptized of thee. Thus speaketh the candle to the Sun, the voice to the Word.

[Lectio6]
Jesus came up out of the water, having, in a manner, washed the whole world, and brought it up with Him. And He saw the heavens opened not divided, even those heavens which Adam had once shut upon himself and us his descendants, when the cherub's fiery sword barred the gates of Paradise. And the Holy Spirit bare witness, witness unto Him Who is of One Substance with Himself. And witness was given from Heaven, unto Him that came down from heaven.

[Lectio7]
From the Holy Gospel according to John
!John 1:29-34
At that time, John saw Jesus coming to him, and he saith: Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who taketh away the sin of the world. And so on.
_
Homily by St. Augustine, Bishop (of Hippo.)
!6th Tract on John
John knew Jesus even before He came to be baptized of him in Jordan, as we perceive by the words I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest Thou to me? Behold, how he knew that He was the Lord, how he knew that He was the Son of God! How do we prove that he knew that He it was Who should baptize with the Holy Ghost? Before the Lord came to the river, when many betook themselves to John to be baptized of him, the Baptist said I indeed baptize you with water but One Mightier than I cometh; the latchet of Whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. (Luke iii. 16.) Behold, John knew this also.

[Lectio8]
Yet John saith: I knew Him Now, how are we to explain this without calling John a liar? and God forbid that we should ever even think anything of the kind. Was it not that when the Dove descended on Christ, John then for the first time knew Him to have that peculiar attribute, that, whosoever should baptize with His Baptism, whether they were themselves just or unjust, the virtue of the Sacrament should proceed, not from them, but from Him on Whom abode the Dove; so that He is the real Baptizer in every Christian Baptism until the end of time, and it is in this sense that it is said of Him the Same is He Which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost Whether it be Peter, or Paul, or Judas, that performeth the ceremony, the real Baptizer and effectual Worker is Christ. For if the holiness of the baptism depended on the holiness of the particular officiator, no two baptisms would be exactly alike, and every one would be supposed to be more or less regenerated according as the minister who baptized him was more or less of a saint.

[Lectio9]
Now, my brethren, understand me. The saints themselves, those good men who appertain to the Dove, those good men whose portion is in Jerusalem, those good men in the Church, of whom the Apostle saith: the Lord knoweth them that are His, (2 Tim. ii. 19,) these good men differ one from another by diversities of graces, and are not all of the same worthiness. Some are holier than others, and some are better than others. Supposing then for the sake of argument that A is baptized by B, a righteous saint, and C is baptized by D who is less worthy in the sight of God, who hath attained only a lower degree in godliness, who is not so chaste, and whose life is not so good as B's, yet A and C receive just the same thing. And how is this, unless it be that it is Christ Himself Who is the effectual Baptizer?
&teDeum