We Say Goodbye To Christmas

This weekend we say goodbye to Christmas with the feast of the Baptism of the Lord.

As we hear the account of Jesus’ baptism we should be reminded of our own baptism, even though most of us do not remember it. Jesus himself was baptized, even though he did not need it, but we do! Our baptism is for the mitigation of our sins, including original sin, Jesus’ baptism was to purify the redeeming waters for our own baptism.

While most of us were baptized as infants, we were brought to the sacrament by our parents and then, when we were baptized, our parents and godparents made promises to bring us up in the practice of the faith. They also made the promises for us to follow the faith and we affirmed them in our confirmation. Here are the promises that we make to God in our baptism: to reject Satan, his works, and his empty promises, that we believe in God, Father and creator, Jesus Christ who was born of the Virgin Mary, was crucified, died and buried, rose from the dead and is now seated at the right hand of the Father, the Holy Spirit, to also believe in the holy catholic church, communion of saints, forgiveness of sins, resurrection of the body and life everlasting.

These are the promises that we make to God and we should keep looking at our own lives so that we can live these promises. Remember in the practicing of being a Catholic, we are continually working (with God’s help) toward being that perfect Catholic in the kingdom of heaven. While that may not be an easy task, it is one that we need to continually work on, so that we as Scripture reminds us to not be the cause for someone else to sin. I often times hear people use the example of people not following the faith to give them an excuse to not follow as well. The phrase that religious people are often hypocrites because we don’t always “practice what we preach” and that is true, I can almost guarantee that most or all parents can remember a time in which we were not a good example of something for their children. But God wants us to keep working on it.

We are “practicing Catholics” because we are not perfect ones, we are still practicing, which means we fail sometimes (sin), it is only when we are one with the Lord in the kingdom of heaven that we will become perfect ones. Until that day comes, we still need to do those things to help us live out the faith that has been given to us by God, and by doing so we continually work toward him.

This is the whole reason that Christ also gave us the sacrament of Confession, which is to bring us back to the state of our baptism. He did this, because he knows that we make those mistakes and he wants us to be able to be reconciled back to him. So as we think of the wonderful gift of baptism which is that first and best thing to bring us into God’s family.

Father Ken Halbur