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| Baptism of the Lord Paolo Veronese |
Sunday we celebrated the Baptism of the
Lord, which brought an end to the private life of Jesus and marked the
beginning of His public ministry. In his
homily, Father remarked that he is often asked by random people if it is true
that they must be baptized in order to get to heaven. “Yes,” he answers. The answer is always yes. We must be sensitive
to circumstances etc., when we give the answer, but the fact of the matter is,
yes, we must be baptized. God has ways beyond our understanding to bring about
the faith that is necessary to make us pleasing to Himself, but baptism is the
way that we have been given. The rest is up to Him.
On the way home from Mass, I listened to
one of the Lighthouse CDs. This one was of the testimony of Betty Brennan, a
former Satanist. Thankfully she skirted the gruesome details, but the hair
stood up on the back of my neck just at the brief mentions she made of what it
entailed. What really stood out for me, from her whole talk, was that she said
she didn’t turn her back on God because she was angry (it happened after her
child died) but because she was vulnerable. She needed to be able to talk to
someone, she needed help, comfort, and consolation, and the person who was
there, happened to be a Satanist. Isn’t
that frightening?
So here’s the lesson I learned this
week: faith is a precious gift. I am so grateful to have the mark of baptism,
to have been claimed by God through His Church. I sometimes wonder who I would
be, what I would be doing, if I ever let go of that gift. It’s not a pleasant
thought. Hearing stories like Simone de Beauvoir’s or Betty Brennan’s, I
resolve all over again to hold on tight, to not take it for granted, and to
shore it up through frequent use of the sacraments and forging strong Catholic
friendships.
May the Lord bless us, protect us from
all evil, and bring us to everlasting life.
Faith is a precious gift indeed!
ReplyDeleteAnd this blog is a gift as well. So I am passing along a blog award. "read all about it" at http://thebreadboxletters.blogspot.com/2014/01/best-moments-of-my-whole-life-gosh.html God bless!
Thank you, Nancy!
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