This Sunday, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. With this celebration, the Church finishes the Christmas season and, at the same time, starts Ordinary Time.
The Baptism of the Lord is not only a celebration where we remember that John baptized Our Lord in the waters of the Jordan, but also makes us think and reflect on our own baptism. Many of us were baptized when we were children. Others were baptized when they decided to do it through RCIA (now called OCIA). Regardless of when our baptism was, it is very important that all of us reflect on the significance of this wonderful sacrament. Baptism is not just a sacrament where we receive water. Baptism is a marvelous sacrament where we entered into the life of the Church and became children of God by adoption. St. Paul in his letter to the Romans reminds us of the importance of this sacrament and the effects that it has in each of us. He says, “What then shall we say? Shall we persist in sin that grace may abound? Of course not! How can we who died to sin yet live in it? Or are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life. For if we have grown into union with him through a death like his, we shall also be united with him in the resurrection” (Romans 6:1-5).
Baptism makes us new people. We are protected by God through this sacrament. We received for the first time the Holy Spirit in our baptism and then His fullness of it in the sacrament of Confirmation. Let us always live our own baptism with joy, knowing that God, our Father through our Lord Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit is always protecting each one of us.
Let us pray:
Almighty and Eternal God! You know all things. You see the very bottom of my heart, and You know that, however sinful I have hitherto been, I am resolved, by the help of Thy grace, to love and serve Thee for the remainder of my life. And therefore, O my God, kneeling before the throne of Thy mercy, I renew, with all the sincerity of my soul, the promises and vows made for me in my baptism.
I renounce Satan with my whole heart, and will henceforth have no connection with him. I renounce all the pomps of Satan, that is, all the vanities of the world, the false treasures of its riches, honors and pleasures, and all its corrupt teachings. I renounce all the works of Satan, that is, all kinds of sin.
To Thee alone, O my God, I desire to cling; Thy word will I hear and obey; for Thee alone I desire to live and to die. Amen.
Remember, The parish that we dream is the parish that I help to build.
God bless you and may the Blessed Virgin Mary be with you always!
Fr. Jorge Ramírez
