Readings: Wis 18:14-16; 19:6-9; Ps 105:2-3, 36-37, 42-43; Lk 18:1-8
As a newly ordained deacon, I have the privilege of experiencing many things for the first time. One of these new experiences took place last Sunday, when I got to baptise two young children of one and three years old. We began the liturgy at the back of the Church, by the entrance, with a prayer followed by the sign of the cross on the forehead of the children.
Then we moved up here into the choir of the Church, where they received the anointing before the baptism before moving up to the baptismal font placed closer to the altar. The once warm water had now turned cold, and the baptism itself became a rather lively affair. However, the young ones were correctly baptised, and then given the anointing with the Oil of Chrism. The liturgy ended in front of the altar, where we prayed the Our Father, and the celebration concluded with the final blessing.
We can see in this moving from the entrance to the sanctuary a movement that corresponds to way the lives of these children will go, both in sacrament and in their lives more generally. By prayer, baptism and anointing, they enter into the Church, and are brought ever closer to the altar. In a few years, they will hopefully receive their first communion from the Lord’s Table, and sometime later they will be prepared for their adult Christian lives, as they are strengthened by the anointing of the Holy Spirit in confirmation. Through this movement, every person entering the Church becomes one with Christ’s own nature, a nature that is of a new order, just as we heard in the reading from the book of wisdom:
The whole creation in its nature was fashioned anew, complying with your commands, that your children may be kept unharmed (Book of Wisdom 19,6)
In Christ, we have become God’s children, and as sons and daughters, we are taken under God’s wing. But it is our whole life, and not only a part of it, that is marked by the Cross and Resurrection. And it is the case that throughout our earthly pilgrimage, there may be moments when we are in special need of God’s fatherly protection and care. Our human existence is fragile, our body is confronted with illness and aging, or there may be mental struggles in our lives.
Through our initiation as Christians, we have been strengthened by the Holy Spirit through the anointing of baptism and confirmation. Today, some of us will receive another strengthening sacrament, the anointing of the sick. In prayer, we turn faithfully to our Lord. The Evangelist asks: Will not God vindicate his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? But we should remember that God himself reaches out to us first, and especially when we need it the most. Let us then rejoice in his presence as he comes to our help. Let us rest in this divine act of sacramental trust, as we put our lives in God’s hands.
How God may heal and strengthen us, we may not be able to predict. God’s ways cannot be fully penetrated. But we know that in life and in death, we are the Lord’s (Rom 14,8). Let us therefore trustfully keep in mind the words of the centurion, as we say:
Only say the word, and my soul shall be healed (Matthew 8,8)
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