Today we celebrate the Feast of The Baptism of the Lord. This feast brings the Christmas Season to a close and begins Ordinary Time. It is not so much about ending something as a call to begin something. We are reminded that Christ came into the world to do something. He had a mission – a people to save and a kingdom to build. Our Baptism, and for that matter, our reception of the other Sacraments, are not ends in themselves. They are a call to celebrate and live our oneness with Christ. The Sacraments call us to become one in Christ by sharing in his life and mission. It seems too many see the sacraments as ends in themselves. Parents bring their children to be baptized and then they disappear until the next Sacrament. For some children, their first communion becomes their last communion because their parents don’t go to church. Some believe that Confirmation is the end of one’s learning about and serving their God. There are those who are “hatch, hitch and dispatch” Catholics. The only times they enter the church is for their baptism, for their marriage and for their funeral. To enter the Church by baptism is to take on a commitment to be one with a community of faith and Christ and his mission. To be confirmed is to seek the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit to live a committed Christian life. To celebrate the Eucharist is to join with a community of faith on the Lord’s Day to become one with the Lord in the giving of self for the sake of others. In realty we don’t receive the Sacraments to get but to give. We don’t receive the sacraments to walk away from the church but to become one with a community of faith in continuing the mission of Christ .
©2013 Eugene S. Ostrowski
