Many us of, and I dare say “myself included”, are conscious of dates, important calendar events that mark milestones in our lives: birthdays, wedding anniversaries, feast days of our favorite saints, or even days when our loved ones passed. And I would like to think that this is a good thing: remembering dates and the people, experience, and lessons associated with them.

But do we remember, much less, celebrate, our baptismal day? Do you know when you were baptized? That needs a little investigation work. For myself, it is a bit easy to remember – I was baptized on Christmas Day!

Baptism is the day we belonged to God with an unbreakable bond. Baptism is the sacrament that flung wide open the doors of the church, our spiritual family, so that we could enter and become the sons and daughters of God. In this simple celebration of faith, God and our families and friends offered to us the means of salvation, even as we were infants unknowingly participating in that most sacred ritual.

The model of our baptism is none other than Jesus Himself. Though He did not need baptism to remove sins, since He was sinless, nor to establish a relationship with God, since He is one with Him from eternity, Jesus went through the humble gesture of baptism like the rest of the people around John the Baptist. Why? The answer is simple: to identify Himself as God’s Son so that His mission could begin.

Maybe we do not remember our baptismal anniversary, but whenever we pray the Creed, whenever we dip our fingers on the holy water font, whenever we are sprinkled with holy water – we recall our baptism, the day we entered God’s family. It is not only a past event. For us, it is a daily celebration.

This weekend, on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, we are called to live out our baptism: that moment when we truly became brothers and sisters in Christ.

Sono semipro grate,
Father Erick

(For Baptism of the Lord, 2022)