Among the prayer methods of Ignatius of Loyola, there is a device in a retreat called “repetition.” If a praying session went particularly well, or sometimes if it went badly, Ignatius would instruct the retreatant to repeat the exact same topic for their next session.

   “Oh no, not again,” I would groan. This was the method I disliked most when I first made the Spiritual Exercises. Only later did I begin to understand something of what repetition was about.

It was not that one should try again to experience the same feelings they had the first time on this topic. Not even that they should try to meet God in the same manner that they did before. Nor to rake their mind more vigorously so they could overwhelm it with brain-power.

Instead, repetition meant that I should go to the same shady spot in the forest, the place where God and I visited each other last time. I go to that area again to see if that is the locale where we will meet again. And even if we do not, I might still remember what happened last time, like Mary “pondering these things in her heart” (Lk 2:19), and this might give God a way to find me.

I mention this because on Sunday the Church prescribes a reading that is, in effect, a repetition of last week’s Baptism of the Lord.

Maybe there was some kind of mistake in the ordering of the readings?

But what if this repetition has a purpose. Let’s use another sort of Ignatian method to sort it out.

First, what do you notice in the Gospel reading? Pause here if you want to go through that reading again and get your own ideas. Personally I am struck by the words the Baptist spoke when Jesus approached: “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.”

We hear this phrase at every Mass (“This is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world”) but you and I probably have not thought much about it.* It contains a mysterious idea, as follows.

In the Jewish temple lambs had their lives taken as “sacrifices.” Perhaps it was thought that their innocence could go up to God’s pure heaven by this means—making a bridge between God and the people.

Jesus allowed himself to be sacrificed this same way on behalf of his people. He was already at one with God, as we know, but he was also a (sinless) member of a sinful people. So he carried the plague of their sins before God’s bosom.

Can you picture a simple little lamb munching grass in a pasture? Spend time with it. Then see Jesus willing to love us with the same simplicity, unto death, so that he could be our bridge.

And that is a repetition. Finding God in a different way in the same place.

A scholar named Joachim Jeremias held that the original word for “lamb” in Aramaic (the language Jesus spoke) was “talyã’,” which meant not only “lamb” but also “slave” or “servant.” Maybe the Baptist intended both meanings!