ROME — Pope Francis urged Christians Wednesday to celebrate the anniversary of their baptism each year as “the date on which we became children of God.”
Christians “too often take for granted the reality of being children of God,” the pope told pilgrims gathered in the Vatican for his weekly General Audience. “Instead, it is good to always remember the moment in which we became one, that of our baptism, in order to live the great gift received with more awareness.”
“If I were to ask today: who among you knows the date of your baptism? I believe that not many would raise their hands,” he continued. “But it is the date on which we were saved, it is the date on which we became children of God.”
The pontiff went on extemporaneously to invite his hearers to find out the date of their baptism by asking their parents or godparents, and to “remember that date every year: it is the date on which we were made children of God.”
Pope Francis’ invitation recalls a similar one issued by Pope John Paul II in 1997.
“We should celebrate the day of our Baptism as we do our birthday!” the sainted pope declared. “But how many of the baptized are fully aware of what they have received?”
Pope Francis (C) baptizes a young boy, Gabriel Latyr Gallo, during the Easter Vigil at St Peter’s basilica on April 15, 2017 in Vatican. (TIZIANA FABI/AFP via Getty Images)
In his audience Wednesday, Pope Francis underscored the difference between the common fatherhood of God for all humanity and the particular filial relationship proper to Christians.
Once faith has come in Jesus Christ, “the radically new condition is created that leads to divine sonship,” the pope said, citing Saint Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. “The sonship of which Paul speaks is no longer the general one which involves all men and women as sons and daughters of the one Creator.”
Faith “enables us to be children of God ‘in Christ’ and this is the novelty,” he said. “It is this ‘in Christ’ that makes the difference.”
“Not only children of God, like everyone: all men and women are children of God, everyone, whatever their religion,” he continued. “But ‘in Christ’ is what makes the difference for Christians, and this only happens through participation in Christ’s redemption in the sacrament of baptism.”
“Jesus became our brother, and with his death and resurrection he reconciled us to the Father,” he asserted. “Whoever welcomes Christ in faith is ‘clothed’ with him and with filial dignity by baptism.”
For Saint Paul, “being baptized is equivalent to taking part in an effective and real way in the mystery of Jesus,” the pope stated. “For example, in the Letter to the Romans he will even go so far as to say that, in baptism, we died with Christ and were buried with him in order to live with him.”
“And this is the grace of baptism: to participate in the death and resurrection of Jesus,” he proceeded. “Baptism, therefore, is not a mere external rite. Those who receive it are transformed in their depths, in their inmost being, and possess a new life.”
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