Your Holy Baptism – Chasing away the darkness, daylight has enlightened your senses

Your Holy Baptism from my grandfather's prayer book (Men in prayer). There are times when human life means little. But it means a lot to the Creator and Lord God. So much so that he did his best to make people feel his own happiness and divine goodness. But much more than people can measure and weigh and count is the life of grace.

It is the life that began at your baptism, and for which the Son of God took up his cross and sacrificed his precious blood. It is that second birth that made you a child of God, a son of the heavenly Father. So in the beginning there is God's infinite goodness, which redeemed you from the hereditary sin of your first parents and made you an essentially holy person whose goal is the eternal home of heaven and whose task is the attainment of this goal. Baptism gave you a new life and a new job.

The godparents have promised loyalty to this profession of a man in your place.

Now that you have come to the knowledge and understanding of the adult human being, the most important realization of your life must be that you are a man. And then it is also your most important promise:

I want to keep faithfully what I so sacredly and solemnly promised through the mouth of my godparents at baptism, and now also lead a life that corresponds to the most sacred profession of a man. We renew this oath from time to time:

I believe in God the Father... I want to hold and preserve this true belief for the rest of my life. As a strong man, I want to courageously resist all dangers that threaten me. I renounce Satan and his works and his delusion. The salt that signifies wisdom was put on my tongue. And the sign in which the greatest wisdom of life is, the cross, was drawn on my forehead. Teach me, O God, this wisdom. I have been anointed with the holy oil. In your grace I want to stand the knightly fight until my last breath.

My soul shall be as pure and whole as the white robe that was laid upon me. My heart shall burn and shine for all that is good and true, a holy image of your divine fire and light. And when I put the cross on my forehead, I want to remember that it was imprinted on me in the name of the Holy Trinity, to which I have committed my life. It should be my joy to lead the life of a man in this sign, according to the words of the holy apostle: "I no longer live, Christ lives in me."

When darkness has left your heart, when night is driven out of it, darkness is banished, daylight has illumined your senses, and once you have begun to be a man of light, do only what is Christ's; for Christ is the light and the day.

The pastor must teach Christians about the duties of godparents. This office is often taken so lightly in the Church that it has survived to me by name. Some people don't even seem to have a clue about the obligations that go with it.

If you have taken on the honorary position of godparenthood, then you became the representative of the child of God at the baptism. And after baptism, you have vicarious responsibility for the child. You have been given the duty of supervising the child's religious life on behalf of the parents when they are no longer able or willing to do so.

So you have more to do than opening a savings account for the child or giving the child their first silver spoon. And your task may even be difficult under certain circumstances. Once one has openly taken on the education of another, he must not abandon him as long as he sees the need for his help and protection.

I exhort you first of all, men and women who have baptized children, remember that you stand good before God for those whom you have baptized in the public eye.