baptized into the risen christ
"Are you not aware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Through baptism into His death we were buried with Him, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live a new life. If we have been united with Him through likeness to His death, so shall we be through a like resurrection." —Romans 6:3-5
Alleluia! Jesus is risen! "Death has no more power over Him" or over us (Rm 6:9). Alleluia forever!
We are "raised up in company with Christ" (Col 3:1) and begin to live risen life by being baptized into Christ and thereby into His death and resurrection. Because we entered the life of the risen Christ through Baptism, on this first day of Easter the Lord through His Church challenges us to renew our baptismal promises. Today we proclaim our faith in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, for we were baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. To live our faith in the Holy Trinity, we must reject Satan completely — all his works and all his promises. To have faith in the Trinity is to believe in the divinity of Jesus, Who is the only Way to the Father (Jn 14:6) and the One Who baptizes us in the Spirit (Mk 1:8). To have faith in Jesus' divinity is to love sacrificially His body, the Church (see Eph 5:25), and to obey all that has been revealed by the Lord through His Church.
On this Easter day, make the deepest act of faith you have ever made. Renew your baptismal promises. Live your Baptism fully. Meet the risen Christ. Alleluia!
Prayer: Father, make me grasp the radical newness of my Baptism (see Lay Members of Christ's Faithful People, Pope John Paul II, 10).
Promise: "He saw and believed." —Jn 20:8
Praise: Alleluia! Jesus, our High Priest and Lamb of God, is risen!
Nihil Obstat: Reverend Robert L. Hagedorn, October 9, 2003
Imprimatur: †Most Reverend Carl K. Moeddel, Vicar General and Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, October 14, 2003