Baptism facts: Do you know yours?

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Parish Marian Year

Your baptismal anniversary is an important event to celebrate year after year. Here’s how to prepare.

As the Church celebrates the feast of the Baptism of Our Lord, it gives believers an opportunity to pause and remember their own baptisms.

The majority of Catholics have no memories of their baptism, and that’s because they were baptized as infants. For some though, the memory is strong, as they were baptized as an adult after going through the RCIA process. Regardless of age, what do you know about your baptism?

Let’s pause and remember the facts of our own baptism: the where, when, and who of our baptism.


Where were you baptized?

The church of your baptism is important. In the Cath-olic Church, when you get ordained or married, you need to contact the parish of baptism and have them issue a new baptismal certificate with notations. The parish keeps a baptismal register and updates it with notifications when an individual receives significant sacraments and, where applicable, an annulment.

The church of your baptism probably had some significance in your family’s life. It could be the church where one of your parents grew up in or the local parish in the community you were raised.
When’s the last time you visited the church where you were baptized? Does it still exist? Maybe it’s time to make a visit and remember the sacramental grace be-stowed on you that day.


When were you baptized?

The date of one’s baptism is also significant. Some reli-gious communities of monks and nuns don’t even cele-brate a person’s birthday, and instead celebrate their anniversary of baptism. It’s such an important date because it was on that day we became adopted children of God, claimed for Christ Jesus, and washed clean of original sin.

Do you know the date of your baptism? Have you ever celebrated it? If not, find out, and plan to do some-thing special on that day, like a religious pilgrimage, going to Mass, or celebrating the sacrament of Recon-ciliation.


Who baptized you?
Were you baptized by a deacon, priest, bishop, or, by some rare chance, the pope? You may have been baptized by a lay person, too, in an emergency situa-tion, if it was in the hospital.
Find out who baptized you. Pray for them. Write them a note thanking them, or if you are brave enough, go and visit them.

 
Who are your godparents?
Hopefully you can readily answer that question because they have played an active role in your life. If not, that can encourage you, if you are a godparent, to be a better godparent to your godchild than they were to you. Godparents should be a part of the child’s life, especially in their spiritual life.

Pray for your godparents, and if it has been a while since you contacted them, send them a message letting them know you are thinking of them.


 How will you remember your baptism?

• Each time you go into a church and bless yourself with holy water, you have an opportunity to remember your baptism.
• The very fact we call ourselves Christians is a re-minder to us of who we are as baptized children of God.
• Besides remembering the facts of your baptism, con-sider renewing your baptismal promises to reject Sa-tan and his empty promises on a weekly basis. This spiritual practice could be something you undertake as a family prayer at the beginning of each week. 
• Bless yourself with holy water before retiring for the night.

These are simple ways for us to always remember our baptism. And perhaps the best thing we can do, is strive to live up to the words that the Father says of Jesus: This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. Live a life pleasing to God each day as His be-loved son or daughter.

Fr. Edward Looney | Jan 08, 2020

Saint Joseph Vaz

January 11-12 2020
BAPTISM OF THE LORD
Parish Marian Year

This Thursday we celebrate the feast day of recently canonised ‘Apostle of Sri Lanka’, Saint Joseph Vaz. Joseph Vaz was born on 21st April 1651 in Goa, which at that time was the capital of the Portuguese colonies in the Far East.


His devout parents brought him up in the faith and he studied humanities with the Jesuits and theology with the Domini-cans. Ordained priest in 1676, he worked for several years in the Kanara region of Southern India.

After nearly ten years in Kanara he returned to Goa, and in 1686 he founded an Oratory of Saint Philip Neri there with a group of other priests, receiving advice and help from the Oratorian houses then in Portugal. Only one year later, in 1687, he felt called to leave Goa and go as a missionary to the island of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), where he knew that Catholics were being persecuted and where there had been no priests for several decades.

He remained on that island for twenty four years, exercising his heroic priestly ministry in very restrictive circumstances. He was rigorously pursued and persecuted by the oppressive Dutch Calvinist authorities who wanted to put an end to his single-handed yet successful efforts at rebuilding the Church and keeping Catholicism alive in Ceylon. He had to travel everywhere in disguise and was obliged to celebrate the sacraments secretly at night.
Fr. Vaz decided to make his base in the kingdom of Kandy in the island’s interior. On his arrival there he was arrested as a spy and put in prison. He was released after he had prayed for and obtained what was regarded by all as a miraculous fall of rain, ending a prolonged drought. After that the Buddhist king of Kandy gave him his personal protection.

In 1696 several Fathers of the Oratory in Goa joined him in Ceylon and a properly constituted Catholic mission was established there. Fr. Vaz refused the position of Vicar Apostolic, preferring to remain a simple missionary priest. Among his other pastoral work he translated a catechism and prayers into the local languages, Singalese and Tamil. The people called him ‘Sammanasu Swam’ – the angelic priest.

By the start of 1711 he knew he was dying. On 16th January he received the Last Rites with members of his flock gathered around his bed. He told them, "Always live according to God’s inspiration." At midnight, with a candle in his hand, he died pronouncing the holy Name of Jesus with great clarity and fervour. He was sixty years old.

Fr. Joseph’s devotion to the pastoral apostolate made him a timely and efficacious instrument of divine Providence at a critical moment in the Catholic missionary history of South East Asia. During his lifetime his pastoral successes brought him to the attention of the Church authorities in Portugal and Rome. After his death the exemplary zeal he had shown as a missionary made him a continuing inspiration for the missionary priests of his adopted island and beyond. His apostolate there left a tremendous legacy: 70,000 Catholics, 15 churches and 400 chapels. He became known as the Apostle of Ceylon.

Unfortunately the exact whereabouts of his remains is uncertain.

He was beatified in Sri Lanka by Pope John Paul II on 21st June 1995, and was canonized there by Pope Francis on Wednesday 14th January 2015.

His liturgical feast day is 16th January.

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As pope turns 83, these are some of his secrets for staying young:

January 4-5 2020
EPIPHANY OF THE LORD Parish Marian Year


 Pope Francis lives in peace with himself and he’s explained over the years how he does it.
Take rest in God
Pope Francis takes time each day to "rest in God," and to discern his will. "He reveals his loving plan when we are in repose," explains the pope, adding that this rest is necessary for the "health of our spirit and of our bodies."

Even though it’s difficult to create this space of quiet restful-ness in God, "it is essential for hearing the voice of God, and understanding what he asks of us."
 Early to bed, early to rise
 Francis maintains a regular daily schedule and it’s said he turns in before 9 p.m., so as to be awake by 4 a.m. He also has a short siesta after lunch.

And, well, he’s at peace with himself if sleep sneaks up on him in prayer. "I sometimes fall asleep when I pray," he admitted with a smile during an interview in 2017. "St. Therese of the Child Jesus said that she did as well, but that she was still pleasing to God."
The pope explained: A believer should be with God "like a child in the arms of his father" since "this is one of the many ways to bless the name of God, to feel like a child in his arms."


De-stress with prayer


Pope Francis affirms that the best way to keep stress at bay is, simply, to pray. And he prays a lot. "I pray according to my style. I love the breviary and I always have it with me. Mass, every day. The Rosary … When I pray, I always turn to the Bible. And then peace grows within me."


Keep a sense of humor

"Without a sense of humour, it’s hard to be happy," Francis says in God Is Young. The Holy Father says that a Christian should always have a sense of humor because it’s necessary for "enjoying life, for getting enthusiastic about things." Quoting Chesterton, he adds, "Life is much too important to be taken seriously."

In 2014, he told the Roman Curia that he prays Thomas More’s Prayer for Good Humour every day:


Prayer for Good Humor by St. Thomas More
 
Grant me, O Lord, good digestion, and also something

to digest. Grant me a healthy body, and the necessary good

humor to maintain it. Grant me a simple soul that knows to treasure all that is good and that doesn’t frighten easily at the sight of evil, but rather finds the means to put things back in their place. Give me a soul that knows not boredom, grumblings, sighs and laments,

nor excess of stress, because of that obstructing thing called "I." Grant me, O Lord, a sense of good humor. Allow me the grace to be able to take a joke to discover in life a bit of joy, and to be able to share it with others.

 

Finally, say no to sin and yes to God


Lastly, Pope Francis’ fountain of youth is found in his clear conscience. "What ages a person isn’t years, it’s sin," he explains. Thus, Our Lady gives the most resplendent example of enduring youthfulness: "Her youthfulness is not in her age, nor is her beauty in her exterior appearance. …" Francis noted. "In many paintings, Mary is represented sitting before an angel with a book in her hands. This book is Scripture. Mary always listened to God and spent her time with him. The Word of God was her secret: near her heart, it took flesh in her womb."

Following Our Lady, the Holy Father invites us all to open our hearts to the grace of youthfulness by saying no to sin and living a luminous life in our "yes" to God.

Marzena Devoud and Kathleen N. Hattrup, Aleteia, Dec 17, 2019

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"For Catholics it is a fundamental dogma of the Faith that all human beings, without any exception whatever, are specially made, were specially shaped and pointed like shining arrows, for the end of hitting the mark of Beatitude."


Chesterton, The Thing



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