“The Lord was Baptised not to be cleansed Himself, but to cleanse the waters, so that those waters might have the power of Baptism.” (Saint Ambrose of Milan).
Baptism is a very very strange sacrament.
Baptism is called a sacrament of initiation. That means that Baptism is one of the sacraments that initiates us or starts our journey as Catholics as children of God.
There is a strange thing about Baptism as a sacrament, you see, once a soul is baptised, it can never be undone…
In other words, if a soul is baptised as a baby, and later grows up to live a terrible sinful life rejecting God in all thought word and deed, that rejection does not reverse the effect of baptism on that soul. Instead, that sinful life only serves to offend and hurt God… You see, once a soul is baptised, it is baptised forever. A baptised soul has the Original Sin cleaned from it and then has the potential to live a completely sinless life. Original Sin is never inserted back into the soul. And so, once a soul is baptised, it becomes a Temple of the Holy Spirit and God Himself can reside in that soul.
And I have been reflecting on the gift of such a thing today. You see, there is no benefit to the PERFECT eternal Being of God by having us baptised. He is already perfect LOVE and does not need any soul to love Him for His sake. In fact, for God, baptism is an opportunity to lose everything and gain nothing… After all – apart from the Blessed Virgin, who was conceived without sin, and Saint John the Baptist, who was born without sin – everyone else (even the greatest of the saints) offended God in some way through sin…
And that basically means that God places Himself inside my soul for my sake so that I can feel His infinite love for me and in doing so deliberately exposes Himself to the stench of my sin…
And this HUMILITY of God started with His OWN BAPTISM…
“Jesus came to John, to be baptised by him. John would have prevented Him, saying, ‘I need to be baptised by You, and do You come to me?’ But Jesus answered him, ‘Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness.’ Then he consented. And when Jesus was baptised, He went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on Him; and lo, a Voice from heaven, saying, ‘This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.’” (Matthew 3:13-17).
Saint Ambrose of Milan explains, “The Lord was Baptised not to be cleansed Himself, but to cleanse the waters, so that those waters might have the power of Baptism.”
And many of the Saints celebrated the anniversary of their Baptism… Saint Vincent Ferrer always celebrated that date and kissed the baptismal font in the church of Saint Stephen in Valencia because that is where he was baptised. After a long absence from his hometown, Saint Francis Solano went first to kneel and rest his forehead on the font of the church where he was baptised, singing the Creed. Saint Josemaria had the font where he was baptised brought to his private chapel rather than being discarded so that he could kiss it each time he passed by it.
And I have been reflecting on that today. For my Lord comes into my soul and stays there no matter what I do. And I wonder the pain that I have caused my Beloved without even caring that the King of the Universe was here…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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