Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. One of the great devotions that has grown in the Church over the past 50 or so years is the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. Pope St. John Paul II certainly aided in its dissemination through making the Sunday in the Octave of Easter also Divine Mercy Sunday. St. Augustine, many centuries before St. Faustina, had noted that the water and blood that poured forth from Christ’s side represented baptism and the Eucharist, respectively, which, St. Augustine said, were a symbol for the entire Church.
But baptism, while celebrated once in a lifetime, is a sacrament that we are meant to live out each day. St. Paul tells us that we were baptized into our Lord’s death, so that we can also rise with Him to new life. But then he goes on to say that our old self was crucified so that our sinful body might be done away with, so that we are no longer in slavery to sin. I don’t know about you, but my old self, my concupiscence, my desire to disobey God, which remains even after baptism, is not something that went away when I was baptized. It is something that has to be dealt with each and every day. It has to be crucified each and every day.
Because while baptism is once, the fruits of baptism are meant for each day. Each day God gives us the necessary grace to avoid mortal sin. Each day He gives us the grace to be more and more a child of God, not only in name but in deed. Each day God wants to deepen our participation in the life of the Church. But we have to respond. God does not force His grace on us. God does not make us be His children. God does not coerce us to participate in the life of the Church.
So often in the Church today, the baptism is about the day itself and the celebration: in the best light in the sacramental celebration; in the worst light in the baptism party afterwards. But then, how much effort is put forth after that day? The responsibility that Catholic parents take upon themselves at baptism to form their children in the faith is a lifetime commitment. The same can be said for marriage, which should always come before children. Imagine (and I have dealt with broken marriages where this has happened) that all you cared about was the wedding day (and perhaps the wedding night), and then you stopped putting in any effort to your marriage. You’ll probably be seeing me again, but not for a baptism, but for some counseling or worse!
Baptism is not a get-out-of-hell-free card that we will just pull out at our judgment, any more than a marriage license means we never need to work on our relationship again. It is the beginning of a new life, not the end of all effort to live the faith.
But our Lord also knows that we need strength to live out that call to die daily to our selves and live for Him. And so He gave us the Eucharist as our food for the pilgrimage to heaven. The crowd who had been following Jesus was tired. They needed something to continue following Him. So He fed them with bread and fish. So our Lord feeds us, not with fish, and not with bread, but with His own Body and Blood. This supernatural nourishment gives us the ability to live for Christ and daily die to our old self. The Eucharist fills us even more with necessary grace, and increases sacramental and saving grace within us.
But the Eucharist also gives us strength as we do those daily ascetical works that also help us live for the Lord more. The pious practices that we do are not earning our salvation, as no one can earn it, but is showing that we want God more and our old self less. Abstaining from meat on Fridays, or fasting, or the extra prayers that we say, or time spent in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, or the Rosary or Chaplet of Divine mercy are all meant to help us grow closer to God and remind our bodies that this earth is not all there is to live for, that our appetites do not need to rule us.
Our Lord invites us today to reflect on how we are living out our baptismal call, day-by-day. Are we trying to cooperate with God’s grace to put the sinful old man to death? Or are we living a life that is focused on Christ? Do we work to end hate, in thought and/or word, or do we let our tongues and our passions rule us? Do we lack custody of the eyes, heart, and body, or do we practice the virtue of chastity? Again, we can’t do it by ourselves; that’s the error of Pelagianism. We need God’s grace and God’s strength to be able to do anything. But with our worthy reception of the Eucharist, all things are possible for us in Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God, for ever and ever. Amen.
