The Baptism of the Lord

Feast

Feast Day

January 11

The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord closes the Christmas Time in the General Roman Calendar. It is celebrated on the Sunday after the Epiphany or, where Epiphany is transferred to the Sunday between January 2 and January 8, on the Monday following Epiphany Sunday. In 2026, the United States observes the Baptism of the Lord on Sunday, January 11.

The feast commemorates the descent of Jesus into the Jordan to receive the baptism of John (Matthew 3:13-17; Mark 1:9-11; Luke 3:21-22). The voice from heaven, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased," together with the descent of the Spirit in the form of a dove, makes the event a Theophany, a manifestation of the Trinity at the threshold of Christ's public ministry.

In the Christian East, the Theophany of January 6 has from antiquity centered on the Lord's Baptism, with the Great Blessing of Waters as its principal rite. In the Roman Rite, the day was originally a station within the Octave of Epiphany; the present feast was inserted into the calendar by Pope Saint John XXIII in 1960 and revised in the 1969 reform to mark the close of Christmas Time. Ordinary Time begins the day after.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (n. 535) teaches that "Jesus' public life begins with his baptism by John in the Jordan" and that, by descending into the waters as the sinless one, he sanctifies them and prefigures Christian baptism into his death and resurrection.