Recovering from tragedies

Monday, February 6, 2017

A fresh look at the grace of Baptism

We begin with the basics, what we have heard in Baptism ceremonies and from what we have learned in the Scriptures and in our own reading and study: In Baptism we are buried with Christ so that we too can rise with him to new life.

But what does that have any meaning for our day-to-day practical lives and for our journeys from the day of our baptism to the present? Well, for one thing, the baptismal pattern of death and resurrection is repeated time and time again in our lives. Another term for this pattern is the Paschal mystery which we celebrate in a particular way during Lent and Holy Week and especially at the Easter Vigil.

But these are not one-time occurrences. How many times in your life have you suffered a “little death” and then after time has gone by, discovered that you have recovered from it and have indeed begun to live a new life. Times of loss, of death, of failure, of tragedy, calamity, misery and suffering are always followed in some fashion with some sort of rebirth or new birth: in short, in resurrection. Olivier Clément expresses it beautifully:

When everything seems lost, baptismal grace, if we pay heed to it, can convert a situation of death into one of resurrection, an apparent deadlock into a necessary breakthrough. We have to learn . . . to get round obstacles, to tear away dead skin, to let the very life of Christ arise in us by the power of his resurrection. Each present moment has to become baptismal: a moment of anguish and death if I seek to cling to it and so experience its non-existence, but a moment of resurrection if I accept it humbly as ‘present’ in both senses of the word. . . . We come finally to the moment of agony when we are overwhelmed by the waters of death. Through our baptism, according to the measure of our faith, they will be transformed into the womb of eternity.

I pray this helps you in some way.

God bless you!