You are ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy
nation, a people of his own, so that you may
announce the praises’ of him who called you out
of darkness into his wonderful light.
What a remarkable declaration of the
dignity with which God has gifted us! This is who
we are. Through our baptism in Christ, we share
in the life of the Risen Christ here and now. We
have been chosen by God to be brothers and
sisters in Christ, disciples of Christ. We are called
now to share in the priesthood of Jesus Christ – to
make of our lives a self-offering to God. We are
members of a holy nation united with our brothers
and sisters in Christ through baptism, and united
with our brothers and sisters in Christ who now
dwell with Christ forever. And we offer our praise
to God for having called us out of the darkness of
sin into the light and life of Christ.
This is who we should be. Unfortunately,
we are not always faithful to our baptismal
identity. We do not always live in communion
with our brothers and sisters in Christ. We often
fail to be true disciples of Christ. We are often not
true priests of God because we fail to make of our
lives an authentic self-offering to God. Instead,
we focus on our own desires and offer God only a
modest measure of our lives. Failing to be true to
our identity as members of the Body of Christ,
failing to be faithful to our discipleship in Christ,
and failing to be true priests of God, we diminish
the splendor of the glorious dignity with which
God gifted us in baptism.
This is who we will be. When we do not
live in faithfulness to what we have received in
baptism, we can seek the grace and mercy of God.
Through that grace and mercy, we can grow in our
baptismal identity. We can grow in our
discipleship in Christ, grow in our unity with the
Body of Christ, and grow in our self-offering to
God as priests of God. In this way, when death
comes we will experience the fullness of what our
baptism revealed us to be.
May this Easter season be a season of
grace for us as we become the persons God has
called us to be, as we realize the glory to which
we are called through baptism!
Fr. Mark Hallinan, S.J