Yesterday I began teaching my class on the first part of the Catechism. I hope it’s a four-part series, this year we will be covering in depth the first part of the catechism: the creed. This is for anybody and everyone who wishes to learn more about their faith. It’s inspired by the idea that struck me that most people don’t have the time or really make the time to learn about the faith when they come to Mass on Sunday.

Because of this, I’ve heard the complaints that some don’t want to hear week after week a homily telling them how to be good. They want to learn something about their faith. I couldn’t agree more given most people at best, at most get exposed to the faith for about an hour once a week. Or 45 minutes for us. Hard to learn anything in 45 minutes a week.

Speaking for myself in my teens that I hardly knew what the Church taught or what the Bible meant. Even more important, I didn’t know why the Church taught what she taught. And given today, I think it is an ideal opportunity for all of us to understand some very basic things about what it means to be Catholic and what and perhaps in a special for those of us who are parents with children who are still at home.

It’s an ideal opportunity because today we have little Lucy. And in just a moment, Lucy will be baptized. And baptisms are incredible occasions to be reminded of the great gift that God has given to us and the corresponding tasks and responsibilities that are entrusted to us, both as individuals who are baptized and then again, most especially who are parents like Veronica who is here to celebrate with us for their daughter.

Baptisms are not mere rituals. Nor are they empty ceremonies that we just continue to do because the Church has done them for twenty centuries now. Nor are they simply occasions where someone wishes to stand up and say they now wish to follow Jesus. That might be true, especially when the person getting baptized is an adult, but baptisms are far more than that.

Both according to Scriptures and the constant teaching of the Church going all the way back to the Apostles, when a person is baptized, they share both in the death and the burial and the resurrection of Jesus. So when little Lucy has water poured over her head in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, something remarkable is going to happen to her even though she is going to look the same, sound the same, talk the same, still eat only the icing on donuts that she does now. She won’t be the same.

She will somehow, sacramentally speaking, go into the tomb with Jesus and she’s going to, sacramentally speaking, rise from the dead with him. She’s going to die. That’s what’s going to happen. She’s going to die to the power and the influence of sin which keeps her and all of us from finding the fulfillment and the freedom and the happiness that God intends for us. She’s going to become an adoptive child of God thereby allowing her to call God “Father.”

She’s going to become a priest, a prophet, and a king. All those things happen at baptism. And in receiving the gift in becoming a priest, she’s entrusted with the task of offering a sacrifice. That’s what priests do. The sacrifice that she is tasked with offering is her life. For everything that she has, starting with the gift of life, is a gift. Entrusted to her by God to live in such a way so as to both glorify him in everything she does and do everything she can to build up this culture in which we live so as to transform it to become truly a civilization of love.

In becoming a prophet, she’s being entrusted with the task of speaking on God’s behalf to others, or in Jesus’ words in the Gospel, of acknowledging him in front of others. She’s entrusted with the task of telling people about the faith.

In becoming a king, or more accurately, in sharing in the one Kingship of Jesus, she’s entrusted with looking out for and caring for, in a particular way, those who are most in need. Whether it’s the unborn, the poor, the lonely, or the sick. For those are the things that royalty, and a real King does.

But this isn’t simply true for Lucy. This is true for every single one of us who have received the gift of baptism. You and I have within us, and most of us are oblivious to this, the very power of the Resurrection. You have access and I have access to the Holy Spirit living within me, enabling me to do something remarkable. To live a life of real freedom. To find happiness. To turn away from the slavery of sin. And to reach out to the fullness of life.

All of us who have been baptized have become adoptive children of God. It comes with a task. That means we have to act like it. Which means every day we have to strive to live our lives as children which ultimately means striving every day to grow more and more in resemblance of Jesus, the only Son of God. All of us, by baptism, have become priests. Which means all of us are entrusted with offering back to God with great gratitude the sacrifice of our lives. Because there’s nothing that someone has here that is not a gift from him.

All of us are entrusted with the responsibility and the task of speaking about our faith to others. We cannot fall prey to the mentality of the culture around us that would try to tell us, “your faith is fine, it’s private. Keep it that way.” It’s not private. It’s personal, but it’s not private.

When you know someone who has done for us what Jesus has done for us, you tell people about him. And all of us are entrusted with the responsibility of having a preferential option for the poor and those who are most in need. These are the basics of our faith.

But there are special responsibilities entrusted to parents. So I’m going to ask Veronica and the godparents the same question all of you who are parents and have had your children baptized answered. That question goes like this: “In asking for Baptism for your child, you are undertaking the responsibility of raising her in the faith, so that, keeping God’s commandments, she may love the Lord and her neighbor as Christ has taught us.” Then I ask, “Do you understand this responsibility?” The answer she will give to that question is an act of integrity. Only you can answer that and you must answer that freely.

But before you answer yes, and if you don’t I wont baptize her, but before you answer yes, make sure you understand what you’re saying yes to. Because in saying yes, that you understand what you are undertaking, you’re not only telling me but this entire parish family, and the whole Church, in fact, that you will do everything you can that she will grow to be a saint.

In saying yes to this question, you are telling us that you are going to be at Mass, not once a month, not twice a month, every Sunday. Whether on vacation or at home. Because here, from this altar, we receive the greatest gift we can receive as Catholics which is the Body and Blood of Jesus so it’s incumbent on a parent to teach their child about the greatness of that gift.

In saying yes to this question, you are saying you are going help her realize that the commandments are not impositions on our freedom. They are, in fact, the way to find real freedom.

In saying yes to this question, you are telling us that you will do everything you can to make sure that you will make your home a domestic Church. That is, a place where God is experienced. Where faith is normal. Where he is always on your lips.

In saying yes to this question, you are going to do everything you can, not only yourselves, to continually to grow in a relationship with God but to help her, as she ages and matures, come to know who God is. That he has created her out of nothing. That he loves her far more than she could ever imagine.

And the proof of that is to be found on that cross where his only Son, out of his remarkable love for us, has offered up his life. Proving beyond the shadow of a doubt, once and for all, even when times are challenging and tough, that he loves us. And because of that, that’s why we should never, ever, be afraid.

That’s what’s you’re saying yes to. That’s what you who are parents said yes to. So today, let’s not only pray for our young sister who is going to be given the gift of new life through baptism, let’s do everything we can to call to mind again the great gifts God has entrusted to us and let’s strive to live our own lives with integrity so as to give to God a good return on the investment of life that he has blessed us all with.

Sunday Mass begins at 11 a.m. with the sacrament of reconciliation at 10:15 a.m. Come pray with us at St. Michael Catholic Church located at 1004 W. Gentry in Henryetta.