So now we must ask explicitly: is Christian faith also for us today a life-changing and life-sustaining hope? Is it "performative" for us - is it a message which shapes our life in a new way, or is it just "information" which, in the meantime, we have set aside and which now seems to us to have been superseded by more recent information?

In the search for an answer, let us begin with the classical form of the dialogue with which the rite of Baptism expressed the reception of an infant into the community of believers and the infant's rebirth in Jesus Christ.

First of all the priest asked what name the parents had chosen for the child, and then he continued with the question: Answer: "Eternal life". According to this dialogue, the parents were seeking access to the faith for the child, communion with believers, because they saw in faith the key to "eternal life". Today as in the past, this is what being baptized, becoming Christians, is all about; it is not just an act of socialization within the community, not simply a welcome into the Universal Church.

The parents expect more for the one to be baptized; they expect that faith, which includes the corporeal nature of the Church and her Sacraments, will give life to their child - "eternal life." Faith is the substance of hope. But then the question arises: do we really want this - to live eternally???

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Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -