As I promised yesterday on Ash Wednesday, here's a wee bit from the book I'm writing for my children. It's an excerpt from Chapter 1 that lets you in on the wonder of my baptism as a baby:
Ever since I can remember, I've always thought, “I have always been a Christian” ever since God took me by holy baptism into his family, the Church, the Body of Christ. O yes, I had to learn how to live as a Christian, what sort of manners we Christians observe, how we love one another and other people, how we worship our adopting Father, Son, and Spirit, but all of that came “naturally” and spiritually as the Holy Spirit of God led me on my journey and cultivated my growing faith and trust in the mercy of God. My wonderful mother, dad, and and an obstetrician, gave me a first birth on October 21, 1937, in Pennsylvania's Harrisburg Polyclinic Hospital. And then a forty days later I was adopted by God into his family and presented to the Body of Christ, the Church. God took me into his trifold Name, lifted me to the cross of Christ and, as St. Paul says, “immersed me into the death and resurrection of Christ” (Romans 6). How wonderful always to know that. Like any child adopted into a good family, I was delighted at being a Christian. I learned to pray, clean my room, read Scriptures, do my homework, ride a bike, manage a newspaper route in the sixth grade, and let Jesus meet me Sunday after Sunday in Holy Communion. I learned what forgiveness, grace, and mercy is all about--beginning in infancy.
What a life God has given me! I wouldn’t have it any other way. Thank you, mom and dad, for bringing me to the baptismal font. Thank you, Church, for welcoming me into your blessed family. And thank You, Most Holy Trinity, for baptizing me into your Name, the best name I ever got and will always have: Christian.
In the picture below my mother, Helen, holds me in her arms as she gets us ready to let God hold me in his arms at Holy Baptism.
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