Enrique Rivas

I am always struck when I hear the words of Jesus: “Whenever you give someone something to eat or drink, or visit them, if you do it out of love, you do it to me.” Lord, are you present in my brother or sister? The answer is a resounding: Yes, I am there.

I don’t know if the same thing happens to you, but this text always impresses me with its depth of meaning, and how clearly it traces out the path that I should take. It raises up many questions for me and opens many pathways. It is not something that can be taken lightly.

Whenever the votive Mass for Saint Catherine Labouré is celebrated, it surprises me how the Church honors someone who witnessed something as extraordinary as seeing the Mother of God, who spent hours talking with her. In the liturgy, the Church commemorates Saint Catherine through a gospel passage that seems to have no connection with these amazing experiences she had.

It is often said that her holiness or fidelity to God was expressed in the 46 years of silent service given to the elderly men in the Hospice of Reuilly. And that is true. However, we certainly cannot separate her years spent living her vocation as a Daughter of Charity from what she experienced before that in the chapel at rue du Bac in 1830. Moreover, we would say that it was this event that she carried in her heart as she served Christ with love and humility, in the person of those poor elderly men.

And if you would allow me to go a bit farther with all of this, I would say that Catherine was able to be and do all that she did because one day, in this humble church in Fain she became a child of God in the most amazing rite that a person can experience: Baptism.

There is nothing else comparable to this act. All other rites and acts are good, they transmit life, strengthen us as human beings, and lift up our hearts, but none  in such a profound transformation as this. In Baptism, a creature of this world, on the level of all other created things, is transformed into nothing more and nothing less than a Child of God, becomes identified with the Son of the Father, Jesus Christ, is clothed in the very Spirit of God, and begins a new life, through this baptism or purifying act that is completely transformative.

With Baptism, we become a new creature, and are initiated into a new way of expressing and living our life. Through baptism, we truly become God’s own sons and daughters, members of God’s family, and we inherit his own inheritance. Transformed in Jesus Christ who on the cross gave his life for all, our life is transformed into light for all those around us, whether we realize it or not.

I think that this place, this baptismal font in this humble village church, is the key to Catherine Labouré’s entire life.

The same could be said for each and every one of us. In whatever baptismal font we were baptized, a new creature came to birth, clothed with Christ, filled to overflowing with the Holy Spirit, fully welcomed into the People of God or Family of God here on earth, which is the Church. How can we ever thank God enough for this! And even more often, we should ask ourselves how we are reflecting such great dignity in our way of living!

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