Baptism of the Lord and Our Baptism

Today I preached about the Baptism of the Lord and the dignity of our Baptism. I reside at St Michael which was my first assignment 96 to 98.

The rediscovery of the value of one’s baptism is the basis of the missionary commitment of every Christian, because we see in the Gospel that he who lets himself be fascinated by Christ cannot do without witnessing the joy of following in his footsteps… we understand even more that, in virtue of baptism, we have an inherent missionary vocation. – Pope Benedict XVI

Just as a man cannot live in the flesh unless he is born in the flesh, even so a man cannot have the spiritual life of grace unless he is born again spiritually. This regeneration is effected by Baptism: “Unless a man is born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (Jn 3:5) – St. Thomas Aquinas

At the end of Mass a young lady came up to me . Then she says to me ‘you baptized me 23 ( now 24 years) years ago, she is 23 years old. I am thinking I was only ordained a priest a little over 23 years ago May 18 1996.

The young lady told me her birthday and pulled up a picture of her patents holding this young lady as a baby 23 years ago, with me at the baptism.

How beautiful because the homily was about the value of our baptism. How John Paul 11 says in his apostolic letter on the ‘Christian Faithful’ when he says about Baptism ‘It would not be an exaggeration to say that the entirety of the Christian Life would be in discovering the newness and richness of our baptism.’

And here is this lady who happened to come to this mass 7am, first time I think. And who happened to have the picture of me baptizing her. And who happened to be one of my very first baptisms as a priest.