“Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world” (Matt. 28, 19-20).
First Prelude: Represent to yourself the hearts of the faithful as glorious temples consecrated to the most Adorable Trinity.
Second Prelude: O my God, let me realize the love Thou hast bestowed on me by accepting me in holy Baptism as Thy child, and grant that I may correspond to this sublime grace.
First Point
God Accepted Us As His Children in Baptism
In Baptism, sanctifying grace was imparted to our souls whereby we were elevated to the dignity of children of God. Through grace we bear the resemblance of Christ in us; we possess the image of His divine nature in our souls, and are thereby His kin, His brothers, and therefore, children of His heavenly Father. St. John says: “Behold what manner of charity the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be the sons of God” (John 3, 1).
Could God have conferred a greater honor upon us than to accept us as His children? Children are by nature the heirs of their parents. For this reason we have acquired a claim to the vast infinite wealth of God with the dignity of sonship of God. “If we are children,” says St. Paul, “we are also heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs of Christ, and if sons, heirs also; heirs indeed of God and joint heirs with Christ: yet so, if we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified with Him” (Romans 8, 17).
What Christ is by nature, the Christian becomes by grace. Oh, what incomprehensible happiness! “What word, what thought,” exclaims St. Gregory of Nyssa could adequately extol so unsurpassed a grace! God not only receives us into the bosom of His family, not only gives us a claim to His infinite wealth but begets us anew in a mystic way in the waters of regeneration in which He allows us to participate in His own divine life, and through sanctifying grace impresses upon us the likeness of His Divinity so that we are His image in only the most perfect manner. He not merely elevates us to the plane of His only begotten Son, but makes us like to Him. He not only imparts to us an external title to the divine heritage, but qualifies us interiorly to become heirs. St. Chrysostom full of amazement cries out, in substance: Oh, the excess of divine condescension! Marvel at the inexpressible wealth of the goodness of God, Who permits us to call Him Father. The creature is permitted to call the heavenly One, Father, mortal man addresses the Immortal by that tender name, the temporal evokes the Eternal: he who yesterday was but dust may call Him Father Who is from all eternity.
Do I occasionally consider my unspeakable dignity as a child of God? O God, penetrate me with a profound knowledge of this dignity, teach me to know and discharge all the duties that it imposes upon me.
Second Point
Duties Imposed Upon Us by the Sonship of God
By accepting us as children, God has conferred upon us a love surpassing all comprehension. Is it, therefore, not meet and just that we love God, our Father, with a truly childlike love with our whole heart, with our whole soul and with all our mind? That we frequently think of Him and His perfections, rejoice when He is honored and loved, and devote all the energies of body and soul to His honor and glory? If God is our Father, we owe Him reverence. He is a Father most worthy of veneration, Who demands express worship when He says: “If, then, I be your Father, where is My honor?” (Mal. 1, 6). We must, furthermore, repose a truly childlike confidence in our Father. Does not a good child confide in its father, who bestows upon it daily proofs of his goodness and love? But God is the most loving, the best and most generous of all fathers, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, “Who comforteth us in all our tribulation” (2 Cor. 1, 13).
Finally we are obliged to live as it behooves our dignity as children of God. In all our actions and omissions we must seek to become more and more conformable to our Father in heaven, according to the admonition of our Divine Saviour: “Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father also is perfect.” This admonition applies in particular to me as a religious. My life will be the more worthy of a child of God, the more I endeavor to be a perfect religious, that is, the more zealous I am in the observance of the Holy Rule. What a powerful incentive to observe the rule faithfully in every particular!
Do I often recall the duties incumbent upon me as a child of God? Am I especially penetrated with the conviction that I can discharge my sacred obligations in no better manner than by minutely observing my Holy Rule?
Affections: Profoundly I adore Thee, O Father in heaven, and extol the infinite love with which Thou didst receive me as Thy child in Baptism. My God and my Father, may I serve and glorify Thee in my whole life. May I, as Thy child, acquit myself faithfully of my obligations; may I strive for perfection by the faithful observance of my Holy Rule, that thus I may resemble Thee more and more in my whole demeanor. O holy Virgin, most admirable mistress and pattern of the children of God, obtain for us the grace to praise and glorify Thy beloved Son forever.
Resolution: I will act as a true child of God by faithfully observing my Holy Rule at all times.
Spiritual Bouquet: “Behold what manner of charity the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called and should be the Sons of God”.
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