{"id":4306,"date":"2020-04-20T05:00:12","date_gmt":"2020-04-20T03:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/?p=4306"},"modified":"2020-04-20T00:01:11","modified_gmt":"2020-04-19T22:01:11","slug":"through-baptism-i-belong-to-god-and-to-a-living-community-despite-geographical-distancing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/?p=4306","title":{"rendered":"THROUGH BAPTISM I BELONG TO GOD AND TO A LIVING COMMUNITY, DESPITE GEOGRAPHICAL DISTANCING"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI tell you most solemnly, unless someone is born through water and the Spirit,\u00a0they cannot enter the kingdom of God.<\/em>\u201d (John 3:5<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Gospel reading is John 3:1-8.\u00a0 The Kingdom of God is not a place but a state of relationship, with God and with the community of believers, that is entered into through baptism. It is our stepping into eternal life already here and it will be fulfilled in eternity.<\/p>\n

However isolated we may be, we are never alone: we are in relationship with God and with one another despite geographical distancing.<\/p>\n

For St Eugene, the most important day of his life was his baptism. He gratefully and solemnly recalled its anniversary every year.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>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:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Eugene de Mazenod\u2019s Diary, 2 August 1837, EO XVIII<\/em><\/p>\n

Let us make this prayer our own today, remembering how at baptism, the Sign of the Cross was traced on our foreheads and we were claimed for Christ our Savior<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI tell you most solemnly, unless someone is born through water and the Spirit,\u00a0they cannot enter the kingdom of God.\u201d (John 3:5 Today\u2019s Gospel reading is John 3:1-8.\u00a0 The Kingdom of God is not a place but a state of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4306\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}