The sight of a crucifix has a continuity with Golgotha; at
times its vision is embarrassing. We can keep a statue of Buddha in a room,
tickle his tummy for good luck, but it is never mortifying. The crucifix
somehow or other makes us feel involved. It is much more than a picture of
Marie Antoinette and the death-dealing guillotine. No matter how much we thrust
it away, it makes its plaguing reappearance like an unpaid bill.
Fulton J. Sheen Those Mysterious Priests
1974: 101—102
Baptism
is a wonderful thing, and it is why each and every one of us is here today. It
is how we enter the Church, how we become part of the body of Christ, sharing
in His death, and His resurrection. It is something for which people have traditionally
prepared during this season of Lent, for Baptism and Confirmation at Easter, so
that they can die with Christ and be raised to new life with Him. We enter into
the mystery of Christ’s saving work so that we may conformed to it and
transformed by it, believing and trusting in him, publically declaring our
faith in Him, and praying for His Holy Spirit, so that our lives may be
transformed – living for Him, living in Him, and being transformed more and
more into the likeness of Christ.
To be drawn into His likeness means
coming closer to His Cross and Passion: just as Moses lifted up the serpent in
the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up (Jn 3:14). Just as the
serpent in the desert brought salvation to the people of Israel, so now the
Cross is our only hope – the sacrifice of God for humanity, not something we
can give God, but something he gives us – a free gift of infinite value. God
gives it to us and to all the world for one simple reason – love, for love of
us – weak, poor, sinful humanity, so that we might be more lovely, more like
Him. God sends His Son into the world not to condemn it, but so that the world
might be saved through Him – an unselfish act of generosity, of grace, so that
we might be saved from sin and death, from ourselves, so that we can share new
life in Him.
It is that same sacrifice which we
see here, which we can taste and touch, which we can eat and drink, so that our
lives and our souls can be transformed to live Christ’s risen life. It is something
which we treat with the uttermost reverence because it is God, given for us,
because it can transform us to live as children of the Holy Spirit, freed from the
shackles of this world, free to live for Him, to live as He wants us to, His
new creation, of water and the Spirit. This is what the Church has done on a
hundred thousand successive Sundays, in memory of Him, to make the holy people
of God. To make us holy: so that everything which we say, or think, or do, may
be for His praise and glory, living out the faith which we believe in our
hearts, as a sign to the world that the ways of selfishness and sin are as
nothing compared with the generous love of God.
So great is this gift, that we
prepare to celebrate it with this solemn season of prayer, and fasting, and
abstinence, to focus our minds and our lives on the God who loves us and who
saves us. We prepare our hearts and minds and lives to celebrate the mystery of
our redemption, so that our lives may reflect His glory, so that we may live for
Him, fed by Him, fed with Him, with our lives and souls transformed by Him. We are
transformed so that we can transform the world so that it may live for Him, living
life in all its fullness: living for others, living as God wants us to live. Living
the selfless love which saves us and all the world, living out our faith, and encouraging
others so to do, can and will conform us to Christ, so that we may be like Him,
and become ever more like Him, prepared for eternal life with Him, so that we may
sing the praises of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to
whom be ascribed, as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory,
dominion, and power, now and forever.
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