Live your baptism.

Frequent remembrance of one’s baptism enriches life.

Surely, each of us knows our date, the day of birth. Do we also know the day of baptism? That it doesn’t matter? The day of baptism is at least as important as the day of birth. Many have understood this and are celebrating the day of baptism spiritually. They approach the Sacrament of Reconciliation, the Eucharist, and thank God for the parents, godparents, and priest who mediated the first sacrament, without which we could not receive another sacrament. Each month, by approaching the sacrament of reconciliation, many commemorate the moment they became a child of God at baptism. He who wisely behaves respectfully at the great events of his life with the desire to learn the wisdom of life.

Today’s holiday allows us to do such wisely. We commemorate the event of the baptism of the Lord Jesus in the Jordan River. Evangelist St. Matthew writes: “When Jesus was baptized, he immediately came up out of the water. And there was heaven opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon him. And a voice came from heaven, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Mt 3: 16-17).

All four gospels pay attention to the baptism of the Lord Jesus. Jesus was known only to those closest to him. The look of an ordinary Israelite. He was not a council member, a priest or a Levite, and not a scholar. He lived, dressed as prescribed by the Law, and the name Yeshua is common. He was a carpenter and, according to his words, revealed that he was from Galilee. And when this man, who seemed to appear before John the Baptist, surrounded by a crowd longing for the baptism of repentance, John looked at Jesus and said, “I should be baptized for you, and you come to me” (Mt 3, 14)?

Did John Know Jesus? Probably not. Although they were close relatives, they must have met before. It was when they were in the womb of the mothers in Ain Karim. John in the bosom of Elizabeth and Jesus in the bosom of Mary. John recognized Jesus by supernatural prompting. Everything else is just guesswork. What matters is what Jesus answered John clearly and firmly: “Just let it go, for it is proper for us to fulfill all that is righteous” (Mt 3:15). Jesus is beginning to fulfill his role as Messiah in public. He came into the world, obedient to Jesus the Father in all things, the event as described by Matthew was later narrated by John the Baptist, and the baptism of the Lord Jesus was drawn from the beginning by various artists. It is captured by artists, such as the Ebionites’ apocryphal gospel, where it is written that when a voice came from heaven, a great light shone, illuminating the whole area. The angelic church sang when Jesus came out of the Jordan: such details do not give anything new and are not important for the faith.

Questions other than the founder of the Manichaean sect Manesa may be important: Was Jesus sinful when he needed the baptism of repentance? The question is based on John Baptist’s hesitation to baptize Jesus. John’s baptism was the baptism of repentance. He who received him publicly confessed his sinfulness. It could not apply to Christ, for he himself later declared, “Which of you convicts me of sin” (Johan 8:46)? The contradiction and contradiction are quite obvious here. St. Ignatius the Martyr explained this by saying that Jesus wanted to sanctify the baptismal water. And give it sacramental power. St. Thomas Aquinas agreed with this explanation.

The baptism of the Lord Jesus has an even deeper meaning. It reveals one feature of his personality that manifests itself throughout his life. And that is that he sets an example for a person. He submits to humiliation, even if it is great and unjust to teach him. Jesus pursues the same goal when he obeys the Law, although he does not need it personally. He took on human nature in the state in which it was. And this is one of the basic articles of our faith. The teaching of Ebionite delusions that Jesus was a sinner until baptism, and that he caused a transformation in Jesus’ being, is a delusion, as are the words said by God the Father, which are twisted as follows: This is also taught by Gnostics and adoptionists, who claim that Jesus is a man like everyone else, but that Christ, who descended from heaven in the form of a dove, dwells in him from baptism, saying that baptism was not just an external rite. Luke on the Nativity of Christ When John baptized Jesus had not yet fulfilled all that he had been entrusted with when God sent him to baptize with water, he told him that on whomever he would see the Spirit descend and rest on him, he was the one to baptize with the Holy Spirit. Therefore: The next day, when he saw Jesus coming to him, he cried out, “Behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (Johan 1:29).

Even the word “lamb” evoked in every Jewish soul the image of a humble animal of atoning sacrifice, which Israel had redeemed with its blood since the days of Moses. he hath not opened his mouth, as a lamb have led him to be slain, and as a sheep, as a sheep before his shearer “(Isaiah)

In this way, the Baptist introduced the Messiah who would suffer. However, in anticipation of the Messiah, the Jews forgot the prediction that the Messiah would suffer. From the moment John baptized Jesus, two images of the Messiah began to merge: the expected liberator and the suffering (cf. D. R .: Jesus in His Time. Trnava, 1991, pp. 73-76).

What causes baptism, what does baptism mean, why baptize? Living a good life is not easy. It requires the deployment of all forces, but also the ability to cooperate. A person who thinks that he can arrange a nice life on his own is like a man who wants to build a nice house without an architect, without plans, without someone else’s help. He will certainly build something, but only with great effort, and one can doubt whether the result of this effort will be a nice house. The architect of our lives is God. He planned our lives to be beautiful, valuable, and original. He gave each of us a special mission. Long before we came into the world, he knew what abilities, inclinations, and hobbies he would give us, what difficulties and natures he would put into our lives. He prepared everything with immense care and love. Nothing comes into our lives by chance because God has arranged all the circumstances exactly to fit into the plan of our lives. The only sin can destroy this plan of God. To prevent this, all we have to do is submit to his will so that our lives become a wonderful work of God’s love and care.

That this is so is testified by John the Baptist. In his plan, God has chosen him from the ages to be the forerunner of his Son. John collaborated with the divine Architect of his life. He did not build his life according to his will but sought the will of God, to which he willingly submitted. He acted correctly at all times. Challenge for us what we want to live responsibly with the grace of baptism. Where to find God’s plan for your life? Many do not know how to deal with this issue. God’s plan is embedded in God’s revelation. It is in Scripture. It is a universal plan of life for each of us. We don’t have to worry about any uniformity. Anyone who accepts this plan, for his abilities, hobbies, and difficulties, will especially experience the Scriptures’ words. And if added to this willing cooperation with God’s grace, the result will be a wonderfully lived and precious life.

One of the men who accepted this divine plan of his life was undoubtedly the German bishop Klaus Heberle. He died on January 23, 1994. If we were to say in one word who Klaus Hemerle was, it would suffice to say: He was a man who loved the word of God. He tried to live the gospel – day after day. When he spoke or wrote, he kept coming back to him and interpreting him in a thousand ways as a source of life for many. When he was still director of the Catholic Academy, he thought in a homily about Jesus’ sentence: “Whatever you did to one of my youngest brothers, you did to me.” One young man wanted to verify the connection of Hemerle’s words with his life. When he saw the love with which the bishop treated his sick father, he became fully convinced of the harmony between what the bishop said and how he acted, and after this visit, he began to change his life radically. The cathedral applauded when Bishop Lehmann finally said in his mourning speech, “Perhaps — and I am sure, the holy priest and the bishop lived among us in Klaus Hemerl, without us noticing.” (New Town No. 4/1994, p. 10).

The timeliness of baptism lies in the courageous fulfillment of God’s plan in our lives so that similar words may be heard even after the end of our earthly life. Surely we have all seen aerial acrobats perform their art in a circus. Imagine a group performing their art at great heights without any safety net. After the rebound, the little boy makes three jumps in the air and grabs the hands of his father, who is hanging upside down on a swing and is making big half-clouds. They have everything practiced to the millimeter. After all, it would be enough for the boy to fly a few inches lower, and his father would miss him. It would be close, but the result would not turn out well.

A lesson why many miss the eternal kingdom of hair. I wish we weren’t one of them. Introduction to the Christian life takes place through three sacraments that form one whole: baptism, which is the beginning of a new life, confirmation, which strengthens this life, and the Eucharist, which nourishes us with the body and blood of Christ. Baptism obliges us to carry out the commandment of Christ: “Go ye therefore, teach all nations, and baptize them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and teach them to observe all things that I have commanded you” (Mt 28: 19-20). birth for a new life in Christ. It is necessary for salvation. Baptism must preserve the prescribed material and form. Baptism instills an indelible spiritual sign in the soul, a character that designates the baptized to a Christian religious cult.