Throughout his life, Eugene always considered the day of his baptism the most important day of his life. (cf https://www.eugenedemazenod.net/?p=160 )
The anniversary of my baptism. Before leaving St-Martin to go to Marseilles, I said, at the Mass, with a profound sense of gratitude, repentance and confidence, joined to what I dare to believe, sincere good will, these beautiful prayers from the Vienna missal:
Blessed may you be Lord, you who in your great mercy have given us new birth to a living hope of an incorruptible inheritance, grant us always to desire, as new-born infants, pure rational milk so that through it we may advance to salvation. (Cf. IP 1,34 and 2,2), God, thanks to your inestimable love, we are called to be your children and such we are (Cf.: 1 In. 3, 1), grant that, through the power of this sacrifice, we, who have received the Spirit of adoption as children in baptism, may obtain the promised blessing as our inheritance.
Lord, this faith, that you have given us at our baptism, we now renew at your altar, renouncing Satan and choosing to fulfill the law of Christ; grant that we, who have received a pledge of the eternal life promised to us, may gain continual growth in the sinless life to which we have dedicated ourselves.
Eugene de Mazenod’s Diary, 2 August 1837, EO XVIII
A good invitation for us to reflect on the meaning of our own baptism for us. Can we make Eugene’s prayer our own?
Eugene’s words this morning have reminded me to thank God for the life that I have been carried through. Carried in the sense of being protected; carried in the sense that I am most sure that without God’s promise of life and protection that I would be here today to proclaim my gratitude.
I think of the darkness and violence of my first 30 years and how that changed when I met Jesus, when I heard Him same my name. In an instant out time the universe and all of creation was changed forever – all because God said my name. I was loved and inherent in the love was the total knowledge, the absolute surety that I would die in the arms of my Beloved. I was “assured of a place in heaven” with my God – there was no question of that. I realise now that with God’s kiss of life my birthright was promised to me on the day of my birth, when I was baptized. The “promised blessing as our inheritance”.
It was only last night that in speaking with a friend that I reminded her of Eugene’s 1st Lenten Homily in the church of the Madeleine; of how Eugene spoke of our inheritance, our birth right and how he reminded us to look beneath the rags that seem to hide and negate who God has created each of to be. Eugene inviting each of us to go deeper within ourselves and to sit in that place where God claims each of us as God’s own.
With great daring one day I dared to Google the date of Ash Wednesday in 1813 – the day of his homily and it was on March 3rd 1813 – that would be the date gave that Lenten Homily that has played such a prominent and pivotal piece in my life.
Look all loving Master at all You give to help lead and guide us through life. On this first Monday in Lent a reminder of how you call each of us as your own.
Inspired initially by the story of St Eugene being moved on the occasion of the anniversary of his first Eucharist, I looked up the dates of my sacraments of initiation. Both my baptism and confirmation occurred on July 12th separated by 11 years – a Sunday in both cases. This ‘God-incidence’ has made me sit up and take notice of this date and these events. What my parents and the priest started in water, the bishop confirmed in oil on the same date: that I have received the Holy Spirit and that God says over me (and over all of us) that I am a precious child of the Father and that he delights in me.
My first Holy Communion falls on the eve of All Saints Day.
I now have these in my calendar and, following St Eugene, celebrate them.