The childlike joy of being born again

Four years ago, I was baptized and became a Christian. It was a wonderful moment and I realize how important sacraments are each time I think about my baptism. If you have been baptized in any church, then the good news is that God has cleansed you of your sins, given you new clothes to wear and extended an invitation to heaven. If you haven’t received baptism yet, it’s never too late to think about it. I was baptized at the age of 23. Today’s blog post is about the deep connection between divine mercy and baptism. If my Good Friday post was solemn because it was melancholic, today’s post is joyous because it’s real.

I still remember meeting the Anglican bishop who baptized me, the evening before the big day. My heart was throbbing. I was so excited that day and so scared. I told the bishop about my journey to the Christian faith and he asked me if I ever prayed. I said I prayed the rosary and liked the Eucharistic rites. He then asked me if knew about silent prayer. It is very fitting that until my baptism I should have never known about silent prayer. I wasn’t raised a Christian so prayer to me was all about pleading to God for mercy. I thought prayer was a reflection of modern society – the one who shouts the loudest gets heard and the one who keeps silent is left behind. In God’s kingdom, the opposite is true. The one who shouts drowns God’s tender voice and the one who keep silent receives many favours. It is not we who are seeking God's mercy but God who is seeking to pour out graces of his infinite mercy on us. 

He gave me a book on silent prayer. The next day, I put on a white shirt and a black pant. I was ready to be baptized. We always are. Although we are never fully ready to receive God’s grace in this life and we will only enter heaven after death and purging, we are always ready for baptism. This is because, we are sinners and God is merciful. The only logical thing to do then is to ask for God’s mercy and be cleansed of sins. St. Therese used to say, God is terrible at arithmetic, he cannot count our sins. She’s right. And this is especially true of baptism. That Sunday morning in Paris’s 16^th arrondissement, God washed off my sins, all of them, each one of them. 

Misery without mercy begets despair, mercy without misery begets presumption, said the great French thinker Pascal. The wonderful thing about Easter is that Easter always follows Good Friday and Good Friday is always followed by Easter. The Cross and the Resurrection are only a few days apart. Yes, our sins do cause great pain and did indeed break the merciful heart of Jesus and crucify him to death. But God’s mercy is greater than all our sins, weaknesses and failures. Baptism doesn’t give us the freedom to sin, it gives us freedom from sin. By Christ’s death, we are given a second chance. We don't undo our first birth, but we are born again, giving meaning and value to our first birth. 

Barabbas, the thief in the passion narrative, is a beneficiary of divine mercy in an extraordinary way. A bandit, he is let free in place of Jesus. In a very real sense, Jesus is crucified because of Barabbas. But it’s equally true to say that Barabbas has been freed by Jesus’s dying. Christ made himself a willing victim to save us from the punishment for our sins.

Tomorrow is Divine Mercy Sunday. This year, it falls just two days after the anniversary of my baptism. It’s a great coincidence. Most Catholics will unfortunately not be able to go to mass tomorrow. But God’s mercy is always present for all those seek him. The Church tells us that is desire for baptism is sufficient for the remission of our sins and to be counted among God’s faithful. It also teaches us that if we are truly repentant for our sins, God doesn’t look at our situation but at our thoughts and intentions.

“O Jesus, I know it, love is repaid by love alone, and so I searched and I found the way to solace my heart by giving you Love for Love.” – St Therese of Lisieux

God wants us to love him and he wants to love him like a child. St. Therese understood that there is only way to find happiness in this life, it is by giving love for love. The only reason the cross makes sense is because God loves us. It is God’s love that is so powerful to wash away our sins. We cannot go back and change our lives but thanks to God’s great mercy, we are able to be born again through the sacrament of baptism. There is great childlike joy in being born again. I still remember very vividly that beautiful day when I received God’s grace in a very concrete manner.

It is said that the graces of Divine Mercy Sunday are similar to Baptism. Let us not despair because of our sins, our failures or our imperfections. Baptism washes away our sins and Divine Mercy Sunday is another reminder of God’s willingness to restore us to our original innocence.