It was just after morning Mass. As a Nazareth Sister and Sandi were chatting in the narthex of the Church, she told the Sister about all the cleaning and baking she had done the previous day. “Do you know that was holy?” the Sister asked. Sandi looked bewildered. For her, what she had done was only ordinary. It is in the ordinary events of daily life, done in love, that holiness becomes possible, for love is of God. That same possibility was just as true in the many ways her husband and children lived their daily lives.
Unless they are told, many if not most Christians do not know how grace influences their lives or what the source of that grace is—Baptism. The person who has been baptized in water and the Holy Spirit has received the capacity both to accept the personal love of God and to respond. This dual ability has been given in an incipient form in baptism, and it will need to be fostered and developed as the person matures physically, psychologically and intellectually. It marks the first step on the spiritual journey until the person reaches full maturity in Christ. Usually in small steps, the baptized Christian is enabled by the Spirit to grow to the fullness of God’s sons and daughters through the development of the gifts received in grace.
Baptism made Sandi a new creation, marked by the freedom of the children of God. She is at home in God as he makes his home in her. It is an invitation to consciously center her life in Christ, where she finds her essential being. The graced life is infused with a participation in God’s own life and gifted with the seeds of faith, hope and love. It is in the ordinary events of daily life that these seeds, and others, have the possibility of growing into virtues, daily habits of self-giving and care for others. Cooking, studying, and playing games, mowing the lawn and other daily activities may become the means of growing in grace, in the love of God and one another because of the intimacy with God that Baptism confers.
Cultural invitations, like sports, movies, and reading novels, may certainly be enjoyed, but they do not take front-and-center in the daily life and imagination of the baptized person. Sunday Mass, prayer before and after meals, and other forms of communal and personal prayer are more important. For Sandi, weekday Mass on days when family needs don’t keep her home at that time attracts her because she knows its value.
Healthy living requires an inter-play between work and leisure. A sense of freedom from doing, possessing, and succeeding can be hers as she lives her faith consciously. It fosters the living of a balanced life, with the mindfulness that allows her to focus on what she is doing at the moment without anxiety and with self-discipline. This focus keeps her from dwelling on the past or thinking of a future that is not consonant with the presence of a God of power and love. Moments of leisure, then, may be moments of contemplation, relaxed and flexible, rather than being filled with meaningless activity. This may explain why Sandi had the time and the interest to be present at a weekday Mass.
Sandi belongs to the family of God, his body on earth. She is at home in the Church, struggling and growing with many others on the way to the Father. She is nourished by Holy Communion, forgiven in the sacrament of Reconciliation, and helped on her way by all of the means of support in the communal life of the Church. As she grows in trusting God’s steadfast love, she grows in wisdom. For every member of the family, living the graced life will bear fruit on earth and for eternity.
At Baptism, a number of years before, Sandi received a name that her parents had given her. God also had a name for Sandi, unknown to her and to her parents, a name so bound up with her unique identity that only God would know it for the duration of her earthly identity. “Yahweh called me before I was born, from my mother’s womb he pronounced my name” (Is. 49.1). In the granting of her hidden name, God gave her life on earth the uniqueness loved and created by him. Her response to this name through her becoming what it signifies is a part of the journey of discovery of her deepest self. See what Baptism does!
Sister Gemma Pepera, CSFN
